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confused at pump

Blondie153

Blondie153

Well-Known Member
Messages
428
Hi all, my 8 yr old daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 at the end of August. We have gone from 2 injections to 4 very quickly. She has now been put on the waiting list for a pump. The DSN has said that she will not get it before next year. Does anyone know why this is? Is this because she is still in the honeymoon period (strange choice of name as there is nothing pleasureable about this time!!!) or because her levels are up and down or that she is still coming to grips. Does anybody know? The other question I have is do you just get the pump that they have in the Hospital Trust or is there a choice is one better than the other. Have read up on some of them but may be pointless as you are given whatever onw they are currently promoting. They have told me that the moment they have more pumps than patients at the moment so a bit confused.
 
More pumps than patients, ermmm me thinks someone telling you a little porkie there...

There could be several reasons behind your daughters wait...

But from what you say, it's probably because of two things..

First is scheduling of training and the second being allowing you time for both the family and your daughter to get your heads around her diagnoses etc...

Pumps do come with a steep learning curve, and quite hard work to get up and running with them, so I expect your clinic feel that this could lead to information overload introducing it all to early..

What you can do, to help prepare yourself and give you a head start is start researching insulin pump therapy, there's a very good book by John Walsh called Pumping Insulin (seen by most pumpers, as the pumpers bible) but also join the an Emailing list such as insulin-pumpers.org they also have a children section (join the main emailing list and somebody will point you in the right direction) here you can ask various questions, and see how other use their pumps in various situations, what problems might be meet and how other deal/address them.. This will help you understand the theory behind pumping, lessen to steep learning curve when your daughter finally gets her pump..

As to pumps, when I first started pumping, they were quite a difference from one pumps capabilities to the next from what Wizards they did and didn't have to the increments of dose adjustment, but now the basic spec's are pretty much the same from one to another...

The main difference between them now are

The Rouch Combo, has a combined remote/bg meter which can be pretty useful..

The Veo and Vibe have CGM capabilities handy if you afford self-funding as at the moment there's no NICE Guidelines for CGM's so funding is few and far between.

The omipod, is a tubeless affair which attaches to the body, it does have a remote but without the remote you lose a lot of the functions as only very basic's functions can be carried out of the actual unit..

But at the end of the day, doesn't matter which insulin pump you have it will only ever be as good as the user, as we instruct the pump what to do and when basically.
 
Hi... My 18month old daughter was diagnosed June this year, she is in the process of getting a pump... As far as I have been told by her dn, thre is quite a lot of training to do. We have already done the training and been set up on using the new glucose meter and have also learnt how to fit and remove the cannula. I'm not too sure what else there is to learn but I can't wait to get her on it. Ava's bloods are soooo up and down and I think with the smaller doses it will settle her down a lot more. As far as we were told its just the one type (we were not given a choice anyway) accu-check aviva expert was what we have been given.
 
Thank you both for the advice it was very helpful. I will certainly purchase the book and look up the website. I understand what you are saying, we are on the way towards this process. I had to do a 4 week training course and in the next review in 2 weeks we will get the Bolus advisor expert meter. I am also carb counting and measuring/recording all etc. They would not let me do the online course for the pump as it may be too far in advance in terms of actually receiving the pump. As for information overload that happened in the hospital!!!!! They sort of chucked us out at the end of 3 days and said here you go try not to kill her!!! So to be honest the more info the better. Hope we move forward and it would make the quality of her life better, I don't underestimate the workload attached to it and this does worry me. I was wondering about the type of machine because I had heard there was a waterproof one that could be used for swimming and thought this would be handy as she swims 3 times a week. Thanks again
m
 
The work load is more to do with the sheer amount of testing required in pinning down basal rates, then testing for your insulin/carb ratios, and has you work out what exercises, foods etc react and what bolus or temp basal adjustment is best for what situation.

But don't panic to much, it does get a lot easier as you go along, the more experience you gain you find that when you have a new situation to consider you may have a very good starting reference point already to help out..

Having a good concept of carb counting before starting pumping is really helpful, as then you've only learning the changes and concept of pumping.

If they given you the Expert meter, it is likely that you will have the Roche Combo, as the expert is almost the same as the Combo's handset/meter it just doesn't have the bluetooth or extra wizards for the pump operation. I have the Combo pump and it's a nice pump, it's not waterproof for swimming, but this won't be a problem as your daughter can take her pump off when she swims, all you need to do is work out whether she needs to bolus the basal she will miss while swimming before she starts or afterwards or perhaps a slightly different way of handling this activity, again BG testing will guide you.
 
Thanks for all your help. Anyone any idea where you can get the John Walsh's book in the uk as amazon are out of stock at the moment and it doesn't seem to be available anywhere other than overseas?
M
 
As I gave up waiting for a uk supplier. I got my copy direct from DiabetesMall.
I dont have a pump (yet) so just trying to gen up as much as I can. It took around ten days to be delivered after ordering.

https://www.diabetesnet.com/dmall/index.php/pump-use-c-58
 
Thank you for that. I have managed to order it online from Barnes and Noble and although it is coming from America it cost about $33 which is about £22, if anyone else is interested in a little light reading!
M
 
I have been on a pump since January 2009, when I asked my nurse about the pump I was told that there where guidelines which I had to meet before an application could be put before the PCT for funding after a number of tests finding was granted, I thought to start with that it would be a lot of hard work but once you get used to counting the carbs it is straight forward, I was injecting 6 times day before.
 
Hello - With reference to your poor bluetooth connection. Can I ask is is your pump in a rubber skin? If so cut a whole in rubber skin where bluetooth situated after doing this my bluetooth worked and have had no rpoblems since. I was on medtronic pump for 4yrs before. All I can say is again I had problems getting my HB1c down. The accu-check allows much finer control 0.01 where as the medtronic pump I had only allowed 0.1 not sure if this is better now? End result I have had to work at it hard but my HB1 is still dropping and yes it takes lots of test but with the new driving laws I'm testing at least 14+ times a day but with what ever pump you have can not see any way of reducing this.
 
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