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Leaving infusion set in for more than 3 days

gradenko80

Member
Messages
16
Location
Melbourne
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
I always change my infusion set (Minimed Mio) every 2-3 days as recommended. However I completely forgot yesterday and now on day 4 my blood sugars (despite eating close to no carb all day and going for a long walk) have been floating above target (around 10).

Is it possible/likely that infusion sets can lose their efficacy that quickly and be causing this rise in BGs? Has anyone had experience with wearing them for too long?
 
There are many reasons why our blood sugars may be higher one day than the next. You could be going down with a bug that your body is fighting before you see the symptoms, for example.

My understanding is that the 3 day change for infusion sets is to minimise the risk of infection and not related to efficacy. I certainly found on the very rare occasion I kept mine for the 4th day, my skin would become more itchy.

In your situation, I would change the sets as soon as possible so you can discount that for the reason for your higher than normal numbers.
 
I was lead to believe that it was insulin efficacy becoming more ineffective from the plastic casing - however I use my sets until the insulin runs out which can be over 4 days and never have an issue, I just keep an eye on levels, as soon as I detect an issue related to site or insulin efficacy I change.
 
Before swapping insulins I would do the same as above and leave my sets in until the insulin was essentially running out which was sometimes 4 days nearing to 4.5 days. I never saw any issues with my levels. I was lead to believe leaving it in could cause skin irritation, infection etc. I mean given the fact that with most insulin pens you probably don't use those up within 3 days, especially basal ones unless you are on a particularly large dose, the insulin inside of pens is no different from the one inside vials so should be able to last equally as long.
 
Nicola M said:
the insulin inside of pens is no different from the one inside vials so should be able to last equally as long.
Click to expand...
But the insulin in pens is held in glass, and in reservoirs I think its normally plastic (mine are anyway), and I thought (possibly wrongly) that the insulin can affect the plastic of the reservoir or vice versa
 
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