I've been reading about a lot of frustrations on the board with multiple pod failures, entire boxes failing and such. When people have multiple failures, out of the same box it would be really great to share the lot number of the box. That way we all, as users, can see if the problem is with the lot or possibly with the user.
I've been on the pod since April and have had one occlusion alarm, but I find myself knocking on wood and constantly wondering if "this next box is the bad lot." It's stressful! :)
Anyway, hoping Insulet can get to the bottom of the massive errors that seem to be plaguing so many. In the meantime, how about we keep track of the pesky lots and see if we can determine our own trends.
Don't stress out. Insulet will fix any problems you have. I had my PDM error out a couple days ago during the night. It wouldn't do anything but display an error and the help 800 number. The Pod seemed to still be working with the basal rate, as I checked my BG for a couple hours a few times after that and was still good. So I called them at 8:00am EST the next morning and the phone was answered within 60 seconds (thank goodness they're getting to the phones faster these days) They walked me through the reset of the PDM to make it work again, and are now shipping me a replacement pod for the one that was only hours old when the PDM freaked out. No worries.
I've only had one "group" of pod failures, but that was with the old pods, not these new ones. Insulet replaced all of those pods too. Nothing to stress over.
It's been ages since I've had any issues. When I do have two failures in a row from one box I try to pull from a different box. In fact, I usually always pull from different boxes per their advice just in case and I usually carry an extra pod with me from a different box. Insulet will replace any pods that you have problems with.
Our failures (and successes) have been with lot 40425. We haven't had an entire box fail and then another work. Right now, I don't feel like our issues are the type that is related to a whole lot or box.
The lot number is recorded in the alarm history (records/alarms), both for pod alarms and expired pods (if you run the pod to the full 80 hours). records/all history records the lot number on pod activation as well.
Consequently it's pretty easy to find the lot number even if the pod has been return to Insulet. (But not, of course, if the PDM has been returned too.)
To clarify, I have not had any issues. That said, a number of people have posted about multiple pod failures. Like 10 in a row. I understand that this is frustrating for people experiencing this failure rate, but it would be more useful to include lot numbers of these sorts of failures.
I've had two pods in a row error while bolusing, they've had under 100 units and in the past Insulet has refused to replace my pods that error "when the pod will be changed soon anyway." I'm wondering if that's still the case? I've been on the new pods for about a month and have had four failures total. All lot 40421.
It's the number of hours the pod has been on, not the amount of insulin remaining. Two of the four I've had fail were within a day of expiring, and while I think I got the time wrong on one I did correctly report the time as almost over 2 days for the other. They've replaced both.
