Hi guys,
I am in need of advice. Since summer began I am loosing pods on a daily basis, when I take her to the pool they just fall off or even just wild playing with her brothers and sister they get hooked on something and rip off. I am worried we will run out of pods before our time for the next shipment.
We were using the SkinTac which worked great, but she is now getting a bad reaction to it. I wrap the pod with vet wrap, but that does not work in the pool.
Any tips will be greatly appreciated.
if you are putting them on her arms, the bands4life work great, or if you sew you can make them yourself. We have a friend that sews and we go to the fabric store, buy cute swim fabric and she whips them out for us. We have found that they dont work as good on legs though. Both my T1 daughters swim competitively year round and we use the arm bands for pods and cgms. I also know people who have cut the toes out of socks and used that in place of a band, same concept though. You can also buy rolls of clear flexible IV site tape from medical supply companies(it is about 2 inches wide), and if you place that over the pod it can help keep it in place. That seems to work better for us on legs. We never had any luck with any of the cloth tapes, they all get water logged and peel off! Otherwise we make sure that the pod is fully covered by her suit. Just be careful when taking the suit off because we have lost a few that way.
As far as making it to your next shipment, if the pods came off before they expired, omnipod will replace them. It is covered under failed adhesive. Just give them a call. we usually wait until we have a pile of pods and call them, often they just ship us another full box. Just keep track of why each one failed to make it the full three days (we write on the pod with a sharpie). Hope this helps and happy swimming!!!
Couple of things. My daughter tries not to go into a pool or the ocean until her pod's been on for at least a half hour to give it time to really stick to her skin. Also, we use 3M micropore tape (I got it through American Diabetes Wholesale -- it's pretty cheap compared to some other stuff we've tried.) And, I tape all around and past the adhesive, making an extra layer of adhesive. If we know she's going to be in for a bit, we tape over top of the pod too. We still lose one every now and then because once my daughter's in the water, she stays in forever (even at 18!) There's also a sensitive skin version of this tape, and we've found that both work well. But, my daughter (who does have sensitive skin) hasn't had a reaction to either type, and I think the regular one adheres a little bit better.
Hi aliceclones, thanks for the advise. Do I have to keep the pods that fall off in order to get them to replace it? Thanks for that tip on keeping them and writing on them :-) Do you use any skin adhesives on your daughters?
You do need to keep the pods until you call because they will want the lot and serial numbers off of them. If this is your first time calling and you already chucked them i would still give them a call. they may give you a pass as long as you can tell them why they failed, and you can get the lot number off the box they came in. They seem to need more info if the failure is due to an occlusion.
As for adhesive, we do use skintac, and on areas with sensitivity (my girls tummies are VERY sensitive), then I use a protective barrier wipe, then skintac, then put on the pod/insertion. The barrier wipe does seem to prevent any reactions, and helps keep the adhesive from ripping skin off when the girls have to remove the insertions/pods.
There are other products that increase stickiness that aren’t as severe as skin tac. Unisolv is the one that comes to mind. When we were on vacation recently, we had the same problem. I don’t think they considered swimming to hrs in the pool, as kids tend to do. You can also try tegaderm over it.
We cover Sophia's pod with a Tegaderm. We get the large sheet and cut it in half. As long as you get a good outer seal around the pod w/ no wrinkles it is water tight. (If you get a couple wrinkles, cover the wrinkled area with a small piece of tegaderm so it is smooth to skin). Swims all day. Kept pod COMPLETELY sand free after a couple days at beach on vacation. And, it is easy to remove without pulling on the pod (we always remove the tegaderm at the end of the day and it does not seem to interfere with the function of the pod while it covers pod). Let us know what you come up with. Always interested in reading/learning about other's methods/ideas. Good Luck!!
Thank you guys for the feedback, I ordered a bottle of Mastisol on amazon, so hoping that works and she is not allergic to it. I will definitely try the tegaderm for swimming.