Insulin Pump

Hi rmd and welcome to the forum.

I am a Type 2 so cannot answer your questions re the pump.

I am bumping your post up so that you get an answer.

Hi,
there's a pump section on this forum which you might find informative.viewforum.php?f=14
What insulins are you taking at the moment?
Jus

I got my pump becasue I suffered multiple daily hypos...mainly caused by teh fact that my insulin needs vary enormously through the day...... sitting at my desk now, I am ona a reasonable rate of insulin...but when I get hioem and run around after the kids, my insulin needs will drop. The pump allows me to vay my insulin rate to meet my varying needs. The basal bolus insulins are great, if you don't have this insulin. exercise sensitivity...but no insulin on earth has a changing profile that fit my changing daily (lack of) )routine.

I have a pump, but I haven't got any extra weight on me....I had my pump due to high's each morning and low's, although my HBA1C was quite good the fluctuations in my levels were awful.

Anyway, my experience of a pump is:

A lot more work than MDI to be quite honest, at the moment I haven't got the elation that alot of people have regarding their pumps, but I can see some benfits in my levels. However, I put the beneift in my levels laregely down to the fact that I am testing a lot more and amending my insulin a lot more.

Pumps can only deliver a certain quantity of insulin, I don't actually know how much the maximum amount of insulin is that it can deliver.

To get pump you have to be able to show that you can carb count accurately, and that you have tried all methods of MDI, and that you can basically be a winner on a pump and not a giver upper. PCT's have to be confident that you want and can be able to manage a pump, as they are so much money. I do not know of any GP that has given anybody a pump, I though that this need to come from a consultant at a hospital-but I may be wrong about this.

You refer to having talked to your GP about a pump, are you under a hospital care team with your diabetes as well?

Weight issues will not necessarily be a reason to get a pump. 130 units is a large amount of insulin, how much grams of CHO of food are you actually eating a day?

There is a lot of issues that a consultant would need to take in to account before consideration of a pump for you, and especially if GP is talking about an operation that may affect the foods that you are eating as well.

Pumps do give better stability to levels, but they are not a quick fix solution, and the testing and altering of basals and bolus have to have some thought and determination to manage them. It is not a magic wand, but with good management of it, it can improve our levels.

I have a Medtronic Insulin pump.

I spoke with my Diabeteologist about the possiblity of using a pump because from day 1 I've had needle phobias and the amount of slow-acting insulin I was administering was such that my skin would stretch and bulge out. The insulin that is used in a pump is fast acting, and minute amounts of it is highly effective, thus no skin stretching and no needles.

The National Institute of Clinical Excellence will only allow for a diabetic patient to receive a pump free via the NHS if you have problems controlling your blood sugar level or are having great difficulty with your current diabetic control regime (i.e. needle phobia).

I would say the pros of having a pump is the feeling it gives you. You almost don't feel diabetic anymore in that you never notice it or feel it clipped to you (unless your body rejects the canula, in which case you will have to discontinue use) and there's no need to carry around needle/pens and their corresponding bits' and bobs'.

The negative side to using a pump is the possibility of problems with delivering insulin. Sometimes if you don't fit your canula properly, the pump will let you know of this and will not administer insulin until you apply a new canula. Also, the life cycle of a pump is around 2 years so you may find that one day your pump just dies on you. Lastly, if you consume a lot or have high b/s levels your insulin resovoir (the pumps capsule of insulin) will soon become low and need to be replaced.

Mark