I’ve been wearing the Omnipod now for about two years now. I wore an old disetronic pump for years (about 12 yrs), but the number of technical problems with the pump finally drove me back to injections. The Omnipod, for the most part, has provided a welcome relief from some of the concerns I’ve had with the older pumps. The biggest real issue I’ve had with the Omnipod system—aside from the occasional ‘bad’ pod— is the skin irritation the adhesive leaves behind. I’ve tried pretty much everything prior to adhering the pods (barriers, wipes, lotions, nothing but warm water, etc), but inevitably the pods begin to itch, and leave the tell-tale signs of skin irritation when removed (red, scaley bumps, dry itchy inflamed skin) no matter the pod location on my body. Applying heavy doses of healing creams post-pod seems to help with the healing.
I thought maybe my skin is just overly sensitive. However, for the past three months, I’ve been using the Dexcom4—which I really find invaluable. One noticeable difference between the pod sites and the dexcom sites: there is NO skin irritation with the Dexcom—despite the fact the transmitter site is on twice the duration of the pods (7 days vs 3 days).
I suspect the type of adhesive used on the pods is the cause since the dexcom causes no irritation.
This is quite frustrating and I’m wondering if others out there who wear and use both devices have similar findings.
Kevin, When I started with the OmniPod I had skin irritations so severe that I was about to go back to MDI. Then I started using Skin-Prep and Uni-Solve. The relief was not instant. It took about 2 months until my skin realized that I would not rip off the pods anymore. Now the skin problems are a distant memory.
My son wears both devices and when he gets really bad skin irritations / rashes we use a Johnson and Johnson tough pad underneath. My son's skin is bothered by the Dexcom more than the Omnipod though.
Of all the odd things, I wear both and have extremely sensitive skin and other than the temporary redness from the removal, I don’t seem to have any issues with the adhesives.
I've ordered a box of the Skin-Prep Protective Dressing Wipes. As many of you know, these are designed to "Reduce adhesive removal trauma." I used a similar product some time ago, so I'm hoping these will provide a better solution to my irritation problems.
Thank you for all your replies. Scott, what are the 3M pads you were referring to? The only 3M pads I have are for my belt-sander...