Never rains but it pours

[MushyPeaBrain]

Having an awfu weekend on the pump. Had a cannula that was working really well and after a tough day at work decided to have fish and chips. All seemed fine until just before bed when BG started creeping up to 12. Thought I'd misjudged slightly so put a correction through and temp basal on. Set alarm to check in just over an hour. BG had risen to 15. Another correction(still assuming it was the fish and chips) and alarm set for an hour. BG 19 and rising, felt sick' blurred vision etc so injected to bring BG down. Alarm set for an hour and BG had dropped slightly. Kept checking each hour and managed to get down to 12. Then BG started rising again so assumed set had failed early. Did a small injection to get me through till morning and changed set first thing. Pulled old set and painted my bathroom red with an unexpected gusher - the worst I've ever had!

New cannula was working but seemed sluggish and I put this down to night before and irregular insulin delivery. 30% basal and seemed ok. Felt ill all day and hardly ate but when I did bolus didn;t seem to have usual effect so guessed site was not such an effect one. BG seemed pretty stable by bed with temp basal on so went to sleep. Woken at about 3am by pump alarm. Occlusion. Primed and waited to see if it alarmed again. 40 minutes later it did and BG had risen to 12. Pulled set and fired new one in which brought BG back to normal slowly. Pulled old set and was kinked.

Now trying to bolus for breakfast and this set seems slow to respond. So tired and fed up and hate the cannulas right now. Why can't it just be one thing at a time?!?

 

[himtoo]

if anybody needs a hug it sure sounds like you do [[[hug]]]

 

[iHs]

@ MushyPeaBrain

I've not yet had a gusher but have experienced the worry that pumps can cause at times with very high bg levels and rather than keep waiting and waiting for repeated corrections to work, I resort to using my pen to get bg down to a safer level which I think is the sensible thing to do. Yesterday, I too eat scampi and chips at a restaurant. Bg was on 10mmol as I hadn't long eaten a hot dog sausage at a market so did a correction and then did an estimated bolus of 3 to handle 30g carb and then waited 20 mins for
The meal to be cooked and then did another 3u bolus to handle altogether a 60 carb meal which OH had a fair amount of my chips. Bg 2.5hrs later was 15mmol on the cgm so did a correction of 3u on the pen to get levels to drop which was over estimated from 1.5u, and thankfully got down to 6mmol again with IOB so just had a bit of carb to deal with the remaining active insulin so all well in the end.


It does look from reading yr msgs about sets and absorbtion that you may need to go back to pens again or just use the pump to deliver the basal but use a pen for the bolus. With the Libre fgm or Dexcom cgm, you should be ok.

A cyber hug anyway as I know a bit about the worry pumping can give at times

 

[noblehead]

My you have had an awful weekend @MushyPeaBrain

Hope things improve soon.......

 

[MushyPeaBrain]

Thank you all for the kind messages of support. This mornings set isn't working properly either and have just changed it again. Waiting for BG to drop but am also wondering if I have a dodgy batch as can't understand why they are all doing this.

iHs I now always use the pen to correct very high BG but I would find it hard to inject just at meals as I often find my BG quite variable (brittle diabetic) and can need to give extra/less for exactly the same meal each time. This is why they put me on the pump. Also I have needle phobia and have to use a penmate which only takes 8mm needles so does hurt. I really wish they would make a shorter penmate!

Just seem to be having a real run of pumper bad luck

 

[azure]

Sorry to hear all your pump troubles @MushyPeaBrain I had a few days of that (apart from the gusher) last year and it was dresdful. It is quite panic-inducing, I find, because it's like you've totally lost control.

I think you should report those sets. It may be a bad batch - it does happen. Do you have another box/another kind you can use?

When I have highs like that i correct with my pen and I also use my pen for boluses simply to give myself a break from the stress and worry, at least in one area. I know you said you've got a needle phobia, but I'm wondering if you've ever tried a tiny 4mm needle? I had a needle phobia (maybe not as bad as yours) and the little pen needles made it an awful lot easier. They're so narrow as well as short. Sorry if that's not a suitable suggestion for you. I hope you don't mind me mentioning it.

I hope you get things sorted. I know it's no consolation when you're struggling, but we all know how wearing pump problems are. You have my total sympathy. The sooner they sort out the sets rather than wasting time competing with pump features, the better, as far as I'm concerned. They shouldn't fuss about pump trivia until they get the basics right.

 

[MushyPeaBrain]

Thanks Azure. I'm going to report to Animas tomorrow and luckily I have finished the box now. I had thought about trying 4mm needles but was under the impression they were just for children and very slim people. Years ago I tried them in my legs (which are very thin and have literally no fat) but I got lumps everywhere I injected so had to stop. I have some padding around my middle though, which is where I put my sets!

Just to add to my weekend issues I changed my libre sensor and that isn't tracking right at all so probably a faulty one. Things can only better now surely!!