Well, It’s 738 am and I did my first silhoutte infusion set change in my arm. It didn’t hurt at all. I have seen the size of the insertion needle and thought it would be painful. I have seen a video where the person released the front part of the tape first before inserting. Now I know why. It was a little difficult to remove it with one hand. Removing the needle was a little tricky. I guess by 930 or 10 00 if it is working. Wish me luck!!!
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Good luck, @Dee_Meloche! While I’ve not inserted a Silhouette in my arm yet, I think if you try this repeatedly, you will learn how to do it well. The fingers can learn!
Your effort inspires me to use my Sil-serter to place some sites around the back side of my love handles. My abdomen has several sore spots and I think it needs an extended rest.
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Good Luck!
I’ve heard that you are more prone to the cannula kinking with the silserter. I so far like the ability to be able to put it as shallow as I can. The site I did this morning was in blood. I changed it at it went down pretty quickly after that. We went to Burger King for lunch. I wasn’t quite sure how it would react with a high fat meal. My bloodsugar stayed in the 10-11mmol range for an hour then went down to 9.0mmol with an extra bolus. I found out that I can insert the needle on an angle and pull it out and see if any blood comes out. If not I reinsert it in that spot. I did that with the sure ts Not always foolproof but it helps to know that there was no sign of blood in that area.
Thankyou. I am exploring different infusionsets on the Hope’s that I will have sites in blood less often. I hear the angled sets are better for lean persons. I like the control these infusionsets give me.
More power to you! You have a system that’s working and that’s what matters. Your willingness to experiment when things change is a wonderful attribute. I hope you discover how to miss hitting most blood vessels.
I suspected that the set change I did before lunch wasn’t working totally. I tried to reinsert another infusionset in my arm and I kept getting blood everytime I pulled out the needle. Bummer!! Looks like I won’t be able to use my arms. That’s okay. I inserted my infusionset back in my stomach and the sugar looks like it is going down nicely. When the sugar wasn’t dropping in a bigger increments I suspected there was a problem. How do you like the inserter? I was thinking of getting one.
I like it. I bought it so that I could reach to less convenient places but I haven’t exploited that much yet. Now that my abdomen is starting to show overuse, I intend to use the silserter to insert above my hips, around toward my back.
I tried using it that way when I was new to the Silhouettes and trying to take care of peeling the paper backing off and withdrawing the needle with a limited to no line of sight intimidated me. I’ve now became practiced with the routine so now I have no excuse to use some fresh sites.
By the way, I’ve only had a few kinked cannulas with the Silhouettes and I don’t think they were caused by the inserter. The cannulas were bent right near the cannula tip, so I think that happened by running into muscle or possibly scar tissue. Your experience, of course, may vary.
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Thankyou. I might consider getting one anyway. Is medtronic the only place I can buy it? It would be nice to buy one at a cheaper price. I have searched other places to no avail. If I wanted to take advantage of other areas it would be difficult to reach those areas doing it manually. Good point.
I’ve never heard of the Sil-serter, but that could be because I had Disetronic/Roche pumps.
When I have a hard time reaching my rear love handle areas, I twist as far as I can go, hold it and then release. Then I twist again and find I can go a bit more, repeating a few times until I can reach the area a bit more easily.
I’ve never tried my arms, I think they’re too lean.
I have done a few in my upper thigh. Not the most comfortable, but I’ve lived with it to give my other areas a break
Thank-you for this, @YogaO. I will try it, soon.
@Dee_Meloche – I bought my Sil-serter from Medtronic and didn’t shop anywhere else.
Well, I am now on the 780 using Smartguard 24/7. I was using the mio advance infusionset but kept inserting them in blood and I would end up with a high bloodsugar. I have reinserted an infusionset for as much as 3x before I got it to work. Medtronic sent me a silserter so now I am back on the Silhouette infusion sets and they have been working. I got woken up at 230am with a high bloodsugar. My cgm said 10mmol but it was really 12.mmol. I took a little insulin by the pump and went on the treadmill for about 15 minutes and it didn’t go down. So I thought that it had to be my site. If it would have made it til the morning it would have lasted 3 days. Do you know if the angled sets are a bigger risk for failing on the 2nd day? I inserted a new infusionset and my bloodsugar was back down in the hour. I feel pretty confidant that I can insert these without many problems like I had with the mios. I just hope that this one will go the full 3 days.