Hi Spiker, I have recently had the same problem. I phoned animas and they talked it through with me.
Apparently the pump vial has a lubricant in it which makes it run smoothly. They asked how much I was moving the plunger before I put it in the pump. I was taught to pump it several times. They said that it should not be done more than twice and once extra with the insulin in it. Not having the lubricant stops it from running smoothly. However if your sugars are so high- I assume that you disconnect and re prime it. You don't need to refill cannula and don't need to prime more than 3 units. then reconnect.
Mine was much better once I started to move plunger up and down once- then draw up insulin and do it again to remove air bubbles- then this left a spare "plunge" if the bubbles were still there.
Since then I had a different alarm and everything went blank and they phoned out of the blue after saying it is fine to say don't use it. have another.
Maybe try this and if not ring them again
Hi
On the white instruction sheet that is packed in the box containing the cartridges,there are instructions for filling the cartridges...... its in the 3rd column at the very top.......
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Use the blue handle (turquoise do da) to "cycle" the cartridge by sliding the plunger back and forth 2 or 3 times. Do not over-cycle or twist the plunger (
shame Animas didn't think to show pictures of this)
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As cartridges go, the Animas are easier to expel air bubbles from compared to the AccuChek ones but the lubricant and plunger movement is far better on the AccuChek than on the Animas. Animas plunger movement is very stiff so its probably best to not re use them too much and sling in the re cycle bin after 2 times.
Re filling the cartridge........the Animas rep that I and a group of others saw were shown injecting air upwards into a vial and then pulling back the plunger to withdraw the insulin (just like the old days of using a syringe to withdraw from a vial) This works ok but can cause the blue handle to come ungripped. I moaned to my partner how difficult it was to pull the plunger back without the blue handle coming off and he said to use the large black o'ring seal from the top of a throw away cartridge and push the rubber o ring down into one of grip slots Voila.... the blue handle stays gripped nicely in the cartridge and doesnt pull out thanks to the rubber.
The other way according to the Animas cartridge instruction sheet is to inject air downwards into the vial and then very quickly turn the vial up the other way (invert) so that the vial as at top and then the force of air will make the cartridge fill without too much blue handle plunger pulling. The downside to injecting air downwards is to not use a full vial of insulin to inject air downwards in to. Too much air injected downwards without quickly inverting the vial might make the cartridge fall apart with insulin going everywhere due to the force of air. There will also be a build up of air causing the rubber stopper to bulge and until the air is released (push disposable pen needle without the cover on into the bulging rubber and hear the hiss of air) cartridge filling will be difficult as there will always be a vacuum of air preventing insulin being able to be pushed through the tubing from the cartridge causing the occlusion alarm to sound.
In many ways, it doesnt matter which way the cartridge is filled so just do what works the best for you. I tend to keep my vials in the fridge so insulin doesnt get too warm and go off after 30 days. The air bubbles are easy to flick to the top once the carttridges are at a room temp of about 24C or at body temp for a few hours. I justt attach a new tube to the cartridge and using the blue handle, push the plunger up a tiny bit to make the bubble go in to the tube and then load cartridge in pump to make the piston move to the correct position and then prime to push insulin through to the end of tube.
Hope this helps any new Vibers starting off with the pump and not sure what to do and confused