We are considering pumping… looking into the Animas Ping/2020 - I have no clue of which infusion sets are better for children than others …
This is for a 7yr old little girl who is afraid of everything medically so we want something that works right the first time, adheres well, with as little discomfort as possible …
I have looked at the Quickset and the Inset 30…
Is it better to have the 30 degree or one that goes straight in ???
Any comments or suggestions will be appreciated !!!
Chloe uses the inset…23 in/6mm. Pink of course…
My son is 9 and started using the Inset 6 months ago and we both love it. We’ve had 2 sites fall of in that time frame but only because he was swimming. The angled seemed to cause more irritation on the sites for some reason. I thought it was normal but since using the Inset he hasn’t had any irritiation at the site.
We did the angled for a few years as it was the first one we ever tried and obviously at this age they don’t like change. So i agree that you have to get it right the first time. This time around we were given samples by our dr. and I let him try them out on a stuffed animal with a flat stomach and he loved being able to make the choice. So now we use the Inset because he chose it.
Good luck.
Nurse CDE recommended the comfort silouettes because she was very lean. These are the shorter sils. Sils go in at an angle which is supposed to be more comfortable than the straight-in sets if the child has little body fat. She trained us to put them in manually, no inserter. She only uses the tush area. If she used the stomach, I think a different set would be called for. The sils have been very reliable. They do leave a mark though (looks like a pimple) for a while after you take them off. Quicksets go in straight and may kink more than the SILS. They are very popular. She cannot put the SILS in herself; for us, that is not an issue. There should be no discomfort if you numb the site with EMLA (Lidocaine) cream a solid hour to hour and a half before changing sites, whatever set you finally choose. I would ask for samples from the pump company and maybe you can try them out before you make a final decision. Site changes take a while to get used to. But you will soon be an old pro. I am a huge fan of EMLA (prescription needed) or LMX4 or LMX5 (over-the-counter) cream, especially in the beginning.
Thank you Jan, we have an appointment with the endo in a month or so… I’ll be sure to ask for a script for the lido cream… that sounds like an excellent idea —
Dana, you don’t have to wait for the endo to prescribe the EMLA cream. You can buy an over-the-counter cream from the pharmacist called LMX-4 or LMX-5 in the meantime. To use EMLA correctly – think LMX-5 the same thing, but check – you put it on thickly the size of a half dollar. For EMLA, leaving it on one and a half hours will completely anaesthesize. Some endos tell you 45 minutes but she can still feel it. An hour and a half is peak effectiveness. You cover the EMLA with IV prep 3000 or saran wrap and tape. Make sure it is a thick glob. She will definitely be numb by then. No reason for these kids to suffer any more than they have to. Erin stopped using EMLA after she got back from diabetes camp. She does feel site change, but I guess she got used to it over the summer. Good luck!
We are huge fans of the insets 6mm/23". Our eight year old is very thin - so we always stick with the backside. We must have tried every set… started with the comforts, tried rapid D’s, cleos…
at first we were put off from the auto insert - but I can’t imagine doing an auto insert now. it’s quick, easy and painless. the whole thing is self contained with a hard cover - which makes it easy to travel with and throw out (it’s it own sharp container).
Hey Dana, my daughter is 11 and she uses the Cozmo pump, she used the infusion set that came with it, the cleo, but didn’t like that you had to manually push down on it, she said it hurt her. So at our endo apt. we tried ALL the infusion sets, from all the pump companies and she/we like the one from the mini med company, it is a quick infusion, you place it where you want it and then squeeze a little with button on each side, it inserts it for you, no pushing needed! We absolutely love it. Kacey does it on her own now, but did not prior to this. also instead of the numbing cream we freeze a spoon in the freezer and have her put that where she wants to put the infusion set, seems to numb it well for her, you can also use anything realy that is frozen in the freezer, I have seen her using freezer packs, freeze pops, etc. Kacey also started using her backside and now uses her stomach since she is not afraid to do it herself. I hope this helps you!
Thanks Mark…I really appreciate the input — We have also decided to use the Insets … I am glad to know that they work so well for you guys-- -
Micky…
Thanks so much for the spoon idea… you are right…I am sure that anything frozen will work just fine-- especially for convenience and when we are in a hurry – It takes the lido cream so long to get numb —
We will def try this …
Thanks again…
I know a fair share use the cream, ice etc. For us the anticipation was much worse than the actual act… so we actually just insert at night while she is asleep!
You know… your suggestions just keep getting better !! This is the problem with my daughter… the anticipation kills her – she can’t stand it but yet wants to look at everything you do…
We test often while she is asleep and she never knows… I bet she wouldn’t feel the infusion set at all if we do it at night…
Thank you soo much !!!
Hi Dana, my son 7, started on the pump last year.
The nurse at the hospital suggested that we should take an angled infusion set, but to try the samples that were given to us by the sales rep, maybe your daughter will have a preference of the one she wants to use if you have samples.
The doctor told us that if our child was “active” (like almost every child is), than we should use the angled ones, since the 90 degree ones are shorter and tend to fall out easier. But that’s her advice. Like I said, you have to try them to know for yourselves.
The ones we have been using for a year are the Inset Confort Short (23") (manual ones). The first month was hard, even if we used numbing cream. Just seeing the needle on the set scared him, not because there was pain. But sometimes, even with the cream, it hurts a little bit. The nurse told us that most kids complain about taking off the sets more than inserting them and it is true in my son’s case.
My son does not have fat on his stomach but we learned how to do it and it is fine to do it there and on his backside. We tried on the thighs and had a lot of problems, I don’t know why.
We tried the Inset II (90 degree angle) and he cried after it was in saying it hurt him a lot (it was on his backside).
We tried the Inset 30 on the stomach with no success, we will try again on his backside to see if it works better there (we would like to show family how to do it with an inserter and are hoping it will work).
We have found that if we want the infusion sets to stick well to his skin especially for swimming, we have to use IV Prep (which disinfects and has a little bit of adhesive in it) and also Skin Tac (adhesive wipe) before insertion. But, that all depends on your daughter’s skin type.
And oh, we cannot do a site change right before swimming, because it falls off (we tried it 3 times and fell off even with the Skin Tac).
The kind of sets we use has a small hole through the little window (for the canula to go through). In our case, if we don’t cover this little window with an IV 3000, we have to do a site change after 2 days because the infection is starting at the site, but if we put one, than we are good for 3 days between site change.
We tried the ice thing and for him it really did not work, so cream it is.
Good luck!
Thanks so much for all of the information … The pump is now “on the way” and I am pretty excited-- I have been sick this past week and quite “brain dead”… I FORGOT insulin on two different occassions … omGOODNESS !!! It makes me feel so guilty…I have the list I run through in my head and just forgot the most important detail –
Anyway…I appreciate the info and will definitely try the cream… one family said they do the infusion set while their child is asleep… I have to admit… this may be an option for us…at least in the beginning –
I may be hunting you down again after we actually get her pump…
Thanks again & Have a good day !!!
Dana
Hi Dana,
We are only human and sometimes it happens to forget and we have to forgive ourselves for being human! Once, at school, they forgot to watch him do a lunch bolus with his pump and he was really high in the afternoon. The daycare tech (who was supposed to supervise) felt really bad and I told her that I knew this would happen because as parents we forget sometimes and it is bound to happen to them too. The important thing is that they have to supervise while he corrects his bg that same afternoon.
For the infusion sets site changes at night, we did quite a few (without forgetting to put cream on an hour prior to the site change) and once he slept all the way through. But the first month, we could not, he would wake up because he was afraid of the infusion set’s needle.
The times he woke up are when I take out the old infusion set. I do it slowly and with an oily remover (called Remove) which does the job nicely. So, now I think that when the site change happens at night while he is asleep, I will leave the old one in and take it out the next morning.
Goold luck with the pump.
I can’t wait to hear from you again to know how it is going!
Gina