insulin pump

Hi

The con's

You've got something attached to you 24/7, but you can take the pump off for exercise such as swimming, contact sport, baths etc..

You've only got 2 hours worth of insulin on board at any one time, So a slight higher risk of DKA but with saying that, pumps have an extensive alarm system, so will pick up occlusions pretty quickly, and if you check for any air bubbles several times a day, and before bedtime, generally it's not much of a problem...

A lot of testing when you are starting off, to pin down basal rates, so stints of night time hourly testing... But well worth it..

Pro's
Dependant on cannula type only need to change the cannula every 2 or 3 days.
Which means, that if you decided to add something more to eat at a meal time, it's only a couple presses of a button
A lot more flexibility on dose adjustments, both for basal and bolus.
You can set up several different profiles, say one for school and another one for (weekends/school hols)
You can turn the pump down, when doing sport (contact sport you do need to take the pump off)
You can use the pump in a proactive manner, You can flick to the appropriate basal setting..
You can use it reactively, use the Temp Basal Rate to increase or decrease the basal for unplanned activities, when you've not eaten all your meal, but you've already delivered your bolus insulin to counter react.

And best of all, for young people who are going through puberty you can quickly change the setting to suit the needs of a growth spurt or raging hormones.

It doesn't take long to get use to wearing a pump, the benefits and flexibility it brings out weighs any of the con's to them... For me having the pump is almost like being a none diabetic...

Oops, didn't realise you not quite got to the contact sport stage yet

She be fine, there's plenty of things you can do, to help keep her tiny mitts off the pump..

All pumps can be locked, so that tiny exploring fingers, pressing buttons can't self-dose themselves.. But there are a lot of other things you can do, to further limit her playing with the pump or pulling out the cannula's..

You can get harness/vests that hold the pump around the back of a young child, but you can easily sew baby socks into clothing to make little pockets..

Cannula's can be sited the top of her buttocks, so it's harder for her to remove the cannula..

You can also, make a little safety loop with the tubing, which is just looping the tubing, and sticking it down with a bit of malpore (sp) tape, if she dugs or catches the tubing, the loop takes the force first, and the cannula stays put. You can even just put a little tape over the tubing near the cannula as an extra preventive measure.

If you get a choice of pump, I would go for one with a remote to it, such as the Roche Combo, as you can sort out bolus's etc without having to touch the pump, just be near enough to sap the pump to tell it what to do..

A good thing about a pump, is once she starts to go to nursery you find that carers/teachers aren't so afraid of dealing with a pump, as they are with injections..