I have been wearing the pods for almost 2 years. When I have used all the pods I have, I will no longer be using the Omnipod. I have too many occlusions. I think maybe I am too large for it. I am 5'6 and 300 lbs. Sometimes I go through 3 pods before I get one to work. I have talked to my diabetes nurse and she said she has has a lot of patients with the same problem.
I use U500 insulin, sometimes as many as 100 units per day. i will be going back to injections,
Benny
Wow, yeah if I had that failure rate I would be back on injections in a heartbeat. I have about one or two pods failed every box, and sometimes that even makes me want to switch sometimes. Makes me realize how good that is.
Wow. I'm sorry the pods are not working well for you. Thankfully, while my pod failure rate increased with the New Generation, I have not had that problem. It sounds pretty frustrating.
Could the occlusions be due to the amount of insulin you need to use?
Has you used any other type of pump? Perhaps something about your body chemistry just makes a cannula-based delivery system problematic. I don't think the OmniPod is approved for U500 insulin at this point anyway. Good luck!
Yep..that pretty much sums it up..more people blaming the system when its NOT approved for that use
the new pods definitely have problems but your failure rate is too high. I don't think the weight is really the problem. is U500 much more viscus?? When you inject how much basal ( lantus ? ) do you use?
u300 and u500 are approved for use the omnipod... I checked when I was looking into these types of insulin.
Everyone knows I am on the U500, even the nurse from OmniPod. I just think maybe I have too much body fat that the cannula isn't getting into muscle like it should.
I did however, use a MiniMed Paradigm before the OmniPod and didn't have the same problem there.
If you are on injections with U500 you don't do basals. U500 is more viscous than the U100.
I am replacing pods every 2 days, so I am using more insulin, but I don't think it's enough to cause this problem.
My diabetes nurse said she has heard a lot of complaints like this, so I am not alone in my problem.
I am hopefully having Bariatric surgery this year so with that, I can probably go back to U100 insulin.
Insulin is not meant to be injected into muscle tissue. It's supposed to be dispersed into the subcutaneous fat.
What site(s) do you use? Does this happen with all of the sites you attempt?
Good luck with your weight loss, and your BG control!
Insulet is working on a new PDM especially for U500. I would imagine the pods themselves would be the same.
Hi Benny
My failure rate with new pods is now about zero. I have certain sites that occlude almost every time so I don't use them. Fatty locations tend to never occlude for me it's only when I accidentally hit muscle or scar tissue. I could never use any of the tubed pump's 90 degree cannula since they all occluded on me. Insulin is injected subcutaneously, (SC Injection( never into muscle (IM Injection) How many locations have you tried and at what orientation are you mounting the Pod? Does it hurt when it injects?
Andy T1 59 Years
Do you use the back of your arms ? Or lower legs ? Test unusual sites.
Apidra is viscous as well, for it or temperature issues people usually change the pod after 2 days, not 3: do you have occlusions on the third day ?