Hi all, my 3-year old son was diagnosed with T1 in January, and this Wednesday he went onto pump therapy.
We went for the Animas Vibe which after the feedback from the forum here and reviews seemed to get favourable reviews. Wednesday morning was a 1 on 1 with the Animas rep, a lovely woman who went through everything on how to use the pump, options, setup. We did all the setup as she talked us through.
Our son was with us during the training, if your child is young something to distract them helps. As he usually has an earlier lunch at 11.30am she sped things along so that he would be up and running on the pump in time for lunch. He was resistant at first to put it on, but when he saw lunch was here he just us to hurry and so he could eat. I applied the cannula on his upper back while my wife set up the insulin. We had already ordered a pump pouch from funkypumpers and used that right away. As we have already setup the tie blocks, ISF, IC, Basal, etc, all we had to do was a quick BG test, then add the carb info into the pump, along with his BG and then it calculated the insulin dosage and press GO! And then he could eat.
After lunch, training resumed with mainly talking about lows, highs, care for the pump, etc. What is scary is the highs, as you no longer have the Lantus, if for some reason the insulin is not reaching him he can go very high in a space of hours.
Training was finished by about 3pm, but as he is young we stayed over night, to be honest we felt ready to go home, but to have the staff on hand is a reassuring.
That evening he had hypo's before dinner, bed, during the night and in the morning. In the morning we had finished our own fruit juice and asked the nurse for some, which we gave him. When testing him again he was even lower, it was sugar-free juice
His basal was lowered, but his number of lows could be as he still had lantus in his system from the night before (even though it was halved).
He's been amazing through everything, he has wanted to remove it a couple of times, and he also wants to help put his 'medicine' in himself which can be a struggle. Removing the tube from the cannula can be a bit tricky at bath time and is causing him some discomfort when we do, but we will need to improve our technique on this.
The pump itself feels rugged and 'kid proof', the interface is fairly to navigate, it's no iPhone user experience but it does the job well. the tubing doesn't feel like it will kink easily and gets tucked away easily into his pants. He's been sleeping with the pouch on and hasn't complained, even sleeping on his tummy with no problems.
We've only been using the ezCarb and ezBG options so far, will try the combo option to give 30% insulin before meal, and 70% slowly over a couple of hours.
There's a lot to take in, in short space of time, but the feeling we have is that it'll be easier or give us more confidence to go out a bit more with him (we've only been out twice since being diagnosed).
Well that's it so far, it feels positive but it's going to take a while to be fully adjusted and confident.
@SteveOsborne, just tagging you in as you asked for my feedback.
All the best
We went for the Animas Vibe which after the feedback from the forum here and reviews seemed to get favourable reviews. Wednesday morning was a 1 on 1 with the Animas rep, a lovely woman who went through everything on how to use the pump, options, setup. We did all the setup as she talked us through.
Our son was with us during the training, if your child is young something to distract them helps. As he usually has an earlier lunch at 11.30am she sped things along so that he would be up and running on the pump in time for lunch. He was resistant at first to put it on, but when he saw lunch was here he just us to hurry and so he could eat. I applied the cannula on his upper back while my wife set up the insulin. We had already ordered a pump pouch from funkypumpers and used that right away. As we have already setup the tie blocks, ISF, IC, Basal, etc, all we had to do was a quick BG test, then add the carb info into the pump, along with his BG and then it calculated the insulin dosage and press GO! And then he could eat.
After lunch, training resumed with mainly talking about lows, highs, care for the pump, etc. What is scary is the highs, as you no longer have the Lantus, if for some reason the insulin is not reaching him he can go very high in a space of hours.
Training was finished by about 3pm, but as he is young we stayed over night, to be honest we felt ready to go home, but to have the staff on hand is a reassuring.
That evening he had hypo's before dinner, bed, during the night and in the morning. In the morning we had finished our own fruit juice and asked the nurse for some, which we gave him. When testing him again he was even lower, it was sugar-free juice
His basal was lowered, but his number of lows could be as he still had lantus in his system from the night before (even though it was halved).
He's been amazing through everything, he has wanted to remove it a couple of times, and he also wants to help put his 'medicine' in himself which can be a struggle. Removing the tube from the cannula can be a bit tricky at bath time and is causing him some discomfort when we do, but we will need to improve our technique on this.
The pump itself feels rugged and 'kid proof', the interface is fairly to navigate, it's no iPhone user experience but it does the job well. the tubing doesn't feel like it will kink easily and gets tucked away easily into his pants. He's been sleeping with the pouch on and hasn't complained, even sleeping on his tummy with no problems.
We've only been using the ezCarb and ezBG options so far, will try the combo option to give 30% insulin before meal, and 70% slowly over a couple of hours.
There's a lot to take in, in short space of time, but the feeling we have is that it'll be easier or give us more confidence to go out a bit more with him (we've only been out twice since being diagnosed).
Well that's it so far, it feels positive but it's going to take a while to be fully adjusted and confident.
@SteveOsborne, just tagging you in as you asked for my feedback.
All the best