All the booklets and resources say 85 units, but I always end up throwing away at least 30 units after expiration. Lately, I’ve been drawing less and less from the vial and the pod seems to take it, no problem. According to the lines on the plastic syringe, I’m guessing my last fill was probably near the 65-70 units mark and it worked fine. Has anyone really pushed this and obtained a real minimum?
Just to let you know the pod can go an extra 8 hours if you want to try and squeeze extra time in thats an idea.
when they trained me for the pod, they told me it was 70 units… If you look at the syringe, the lowest number is 70… at least that is what mine say…
I always thought it was 70, but recently someone told me it’s 85. What is really important is that you get the “double beep”. When you fill the pod, the plunger moves backwards and the fill sensor eventually reaches its required minimum, making contact with the pod’s batteries and powering it up. That’s when you hear the “beep beep”. Until that happens the pod is essentially turned off.
Sounds risky… call the toll free number and they should be able to give you concrete advice on something like this. To my knowledge they have not come out with a pod taking a lower amount to fill. Don’t take a health risk without getting it from the crow’s mouth, so to say. Also your educator should be able to help with this as well. Good luck and wishing great success.
thanks, I just learned this…
…very interesting
There’s no health risk associated with is topic.
Dana, Can you get the extra 8 hours without the beeping every hour that it’s time to change the pod? Mine was set to expire at 2:55 am (my fault about that expiration time) so it awakended me at 2:55 with the beeps so I tested BG (80) and just took off the pod and replaced at 7am. I would have preferred to keep wearing the pod until I awoke at 7 bu last time I tried that it beeped every hour and drove em crazy. Any help appreciated.
Obviously I should have used spellcheck
I do not require much insulin, so the one time I tried to put in less than the 85 units, the insulin went in, but I did not get the double beep. When I tried to add more, I still did not get the double beep. I finally had to try to draw out as much insulin as possible and toss the Pod. I ended up wasting both the insulin I could not get back out and what might have been a perfectly good Pod. Be aware that if you try too little, you may end up wasting more than you bargained for!
That was apparently a defective pod. You can do an incremental fill. Not a problem.
You can draw the insulin back out of the pod if you really want to hold onto it. I wouldn’t go below 85 though, as it can cause extra air in the reservoir.
The air that originally fills the reservoir, before it’s filled, is separated from the insulin by the plunger. They are not in the same space, so that doesn’t matter. You can see that, by opening an deactivated pod with some insulin in it.
Gil, thanks for all the advice!