I am so totally frustrated with myself and the pod. For the last two weeks or so - my numbers have been really high. I always rotate my sites and try to do the best I can at carb counting. I don’t know if it is a ‘seasonal thing’ where my body needs more insulin because it is approaching Fall and Winter or if I’ve overlooked something really obvious. Does anyone use 0.05 insulin increments on the Pod settings? When I started on the Pod my CDE had me use the 0.10 insulin increment. Is this setting only used for children? Sorry for all the questions. My Doctor knows even less about pump management than I do, so I feel as though there is no one I can ask.
Mayumi, call Insulet and ask for one of their trainers. Tell them you feel as if you haven’t been taught well enough because of your endo’s lack of understanding. My son and I were trained by one of their trainers at my request. That was only a month ago so I am not savvy enough yet to be of any help to you though. My son is 17 so he does most of it…making it difficult for me to get really clever at it.
dinah
Mayumi…I am struggling a bit myself. Can I whine with you? I have been traveling and eating less than wisely and I am going through menopause with it’s fluctuating hormones. I had my first occlusion in the middle of the night last night with blood in the cannula and bleeding when I removed it. There are so many variables.
I agree that more training can only help. Good luck…keep us posted.
Are you really doing a good job carb counting, or do you just tell yourself that you are? I take carb counting to the extreme, and even bought a scale to help weigh and count carbs for foods that do not have nutrition labels (fruit, etc). We weigh the food, and tell the scale what kind of food it is and it tells us all of the nutritional info including carbs (down to the tenths of carbs (ex 10.3 carbs)).
Or it could be that your basal and bolus increments need to be changed. I would call insuket and ask to have more time with a trainer to go over these numbers.
Good Luck! Please continue with this site and let us know how it goes or if you need more help!
We are new to pumping - this month, but Gary Scheiner’s book, Think Like a Pancreas, has been so helpful for me to figure out my son’s numbers. I know they will change all the time, but I would be completely lost without that book. He helps you figure out if you should be changing numbers based on .05 or .1 also.
Same here. And to check a basal rate, I’ll go up or down by just that 0.05 at a time and check it throughout a period of a few days. Often, that’s enough of a change to make a difference for me.
I use the .05 settings, I think the closer you can get to an “exact” amount the better off you are. We are trying to replicate the pancreas sp? and I’m sure it’s doesn’t count the increaments it gives us.
Elaine - Please feel free to whine along with me Having an occlusion is a bit frightening by itself to say nothing when it happens in the middle of the night.
Joseph - I am sure there are times when I could do better at carb counting. I also have a scale that I use for weighing vegetables and fruits etc. The foods that present problems for me are ‘combined’ foods for example: chicken stir fry that I make at home. Even though I use brown rice instead of white, I really am just guessing at the carb count.
I did call Insulet as suggested and talked with a nice lady there. She was quite helpful and also suggested to use 0.05 insulin increments. I am very insulin sensitive from early morning until mid afternoon. From mid afternoon until bedtime my basal rate is almost double.
Thank you to each of you that took time to respond. I appreciate the help and encouragement.
I use 0.05 increment as well. It’s def well worth it if one is two high and the other two low.
I have had a lot of issues with lows lately. My doc and I lowered my basals by almost 20% and finally i’m not low 24/7. It’s funny cause right now i’m doing less exercise and such then as I was when at school. We don’t know why my body decided to use less insulin, it just happens.
Hang in there. We all go through those rough patches.
It turns out that my pod is fine and my PDM is defective. I talked with a tech support person at Insulet and after many questions she determined that the blood glucose portion of my PDM is responsible for my high bg readings the past two weeks. I was quite surprised as I never thought that it could be a defective PDM.
Thanks so much to everyone who posted about the .05 insulin increments. I’ve switched to that increment and it seems to be helping.
Having an occlusion is a bit frightening by itself to say nothing when it happens in the middle of the night.