I now have piece of robotics sticking to my skin.
After five years of multiple daily injections, I have finally gave into all the suggestions. “Have you thought about the pump?” If I had a nickel for every time I heard that question I could now pay for the deductible that I will be required to pay for the marvel of technology.
After hearing about the CGMs I decided it was finally time to at least investigate. It was a bit overwhelming leaving the diabetes educator on the first day with a bag full of materials and samples to wade through from all the pump companies. After the first night of studying each pump I decided one sure thing, THEY ALL DO THE SAME THING! Each one of these pumps pushes the insulin that my body so desperately needs through a tube and into my body.
I have narrowed it down between the paradigm and the Omnipod. Why these two? The paradigm is the only pump currently with a cgm that communicates directly to it. Who wants another gizmo to carry around? Sorry Dextron! As a first time pumper, the Omnipod, is like the convertible you always wanted. But of course why did I start down this road in the first place? For the idea of continually being able to track what my blood sugar levels were doing. Why can’t I have everything I want? I know someday all of the pump companies will have integrated CGM’s and maybe even have “tubeless” models.
So today I walked out of the educator’s office with a pod filled with saline and the PDM, “personal diabetes manager” that Insulet gives you to control the pod. So far so good. Tomorrow will be the real test. I have two pool parties tomorrow. Definitely not my typical weekend but it should test the strength of the adhesive. I like the interface of the PDM so far. Only strange thing I have noticed is to manually enter in a BG reading you go the bolus screen instead of anywhere under the BG functions. I may have missed something, on the screen or on in my quick glance of the manual.
On Tuesday I will meet with the minimed rep and try out the Paradigm with saline. Will I have a decision after that I hope so! Every once in a while I find myself looking at the other pumps to see if I missed something. If you have a helpful opinion feel free to share. I could be swayed…maybe. For the next 36 hours I am a podder.