Any tricks on reusing leftover insulin in Tslim X2? We load 95 units and still have around 40 left in the cartridge at the end of the 3 days. His prescription covers enough but I can not stomach wasting insulin. Knowing people out there are going without and I am just throwing it in the garbage really bugs me. Any tips appreciated!
It is not required for you to change the cartridge at the same time as the infusion set. Your choice.
Note that we do change together and discard leftover insulin as I don’t want to run the risk of messing up the day count and running an infusion set longer than 3 days. The chance of that is not worth throwing away leftover insulin.
I am (somewhat) conservative in that area when it comes to how long the infusion set stays on.
I find that in the X2 that the insulin doesn’t seem to last much longer than the 3 days.
I will switch my infusion set out at 2 days, and the cartridge out at 4 days, and I usually notice a decline in how effective the insulin is on the 4th day.
So, other than load less insulin, anything else might not be worth the hassle. At least that is how it works for me.
We can load less? That’d be great. The educator said 95 was the minimum required to run the pump.
Yeah. Don’t want to risk it. I like changing it all at once and I like having the same number of cartidges and infusion sets.
According to the manual, the Tandem t:slim X2 requires minimum of 50 units available AFTER the fill tubing is completed. We use 17 units on our (23 inch) tube fill. So for us, the minimum to put into the cartridge would be 67.
We use in the range of 40 ~ 60 units per day plus or minus so we load 250 units as we would rather have leftover then run the risk of running out early.
The manual does say to use 95 units in the syringe to fill into the cartridge but it also says such that you have 50 units available after fill tubing. Would anybody use 45 units to fill the tubing? That part sounds a bit far-fetched. 60 inch tubing maybe? lol
I use each cartridge for 9 days and have no problem. I change the site religiously every 3 days and just go to the load menu and fill th cannula. I don’t see any benefit to throwing out good insulin and a cartridge just to have the same number of cartridges and sets. Besides, the cartridge change is a pain. Why do it more often than necessary?
Because I might get confused?
lol
After many years of living with myself, I have started to understand a few of my shortcomings…
That isn’t the reason we change out every 3 days. We change every 3 days because we just started pumping last week and that is what my son’s educator told me to do. I do like having the same number of cartridges and infusion sets but that would not be a deciding factor. It seems that other people have had trouble with insulin becoming less effective after 3 days in their pumps. I don’t want to be wasteful but don’t want to take a risk that might negatively affect my son’s health. Thanks.
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Yeah - great point. What you might do with your own health is a far cry what you would be willing to try with your child.
That is just the reality.
Thanks. I will try less insulin next time and see if we can get it to work!
I change mind complete set up every 3 to 3.5 days. I use the longer tube (gives me more length to avoid it getting ripped out by door knobs/handles). So that’s 20 units for tube filling and I use just under 25 units a day. So I don’t fill it anywhere near 95 units. I also don’t reuse cartridges or tubing. I figure it’s easier to just change everything out at the same time. And I don’t add insulin to an already filled cartridge. I don’t have good results mixing old and new insulin. But as always YDMV (your diabetes may vary).
I do think I would be much less willing to experiment with a child vs what I do myself. I have found that products generally perform way beyond what is published. Insulin can go way past 30 days at room temperature and work fine. Products generally last well beyond their expiration date. There is a huge safety factor between what is published and tested for by the FDA and what the product can do. I try to stay somewhere close got the rules with you the exception of the X2 cartridge. I find it very inconvenient to change, especially since I travel all the time for work. I find the pump much more satisfactory when changing the cartridge once a week+. If it was my son’s pump, I would probably feel differently.
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