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Pink tubing...

Dragonflye

Dragonflye

Well-Known Member
Messages
235
Location
Bradford
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
Hmmmm pink tubing... I know i'm a little obsessed with the colour, pink veo, pink case, pink skin for contour link BG machine and also a pink case for it but pink tubing!!!!!!! :lol: :lol:

OK for the serious bit to the post...

As people probably are aware I have had a few issues with the infusion sets and what have you however the first time i have got the silhouette in without any pain, blocking, issues etc the evening before I'm due to change everything i notice pink in the tubing!!!! I'm pressuming this is blood and hope that I am not wrong or I will feel royally silly :oops: but how on earth has it got into the tubing????!!!!??? :?: :?: :?:
 
Hello! Not sure exactly why this happens later on but I know if the tubing "takes on a rosy glow" you are meant to change site and set. I'm guessing it can effect your BG.

With a steel needle you get damage from the needle as you move about. Maybe you nicked something at the tip? The damage from steel is the reason you have to change steel sets every 2 days rather than 3.

I fired into a vein the other day and everything seemed ok that day. However the next day my BG kept creeping up towards 8, even with a temp basal, so I changed site. Sugars went back to normal straight away. Blood dilutes the insulin so you need extra :roll:

Sorry I can't be of more help.
 
Pink tubing never heard that tubing turned pink or rosey glow! My tubing stays on my pump for 6 years, only change the tubing every other day and once had one lot of tubing on for 12 days, due to getting out of kelter with changing, so ended up having to wait for my order to arrive before I could change the tubing!

If you hit a vien the insulin reacts a lot quicker, you use a lot less insulin in a sliding scale than you would do if you were to inject... Hence why if you go into DKA they will put you on the sliding scale and insulin straight into the vien a lot more effective and quicker at taming the Blood glucose levels..

I would phone medtronic ask them about the tubing, then you can rule whether it's blood or not
 
Hi,

I know what you mean, there has been an occasional time where i had noticed a sudden pain where my infusion set is, like it's suddenly become very sore..

I've looked at it and there is a reddy/pinky colour creeping out my infusion set and up my tubing. When i have removed the cannula it has been quite bloody so i can only assume too that it is blood escaping up the tubing..

As the insulin and blood are both fluids, it's not like it's being sucked out or anything, it's just sort of mixing so it looks like its creeping up the tubing.. (sounds horrid i know) I've had this happen with cannula's for drips in my hands too.

I've not known it to be anything worrying, i change the set if it happens and it's fine.

I would keep an eye on the site though after to make sure it heals properly if it looks red and irritated, if it doesn't look any better after 2 days it may be wise to visit your GP for some antibiotics to prevent infection.

I'm sure we're not the only ones who have experienced this. sometimes when i take out my cannula it doesn't bleed and sometime it does. Don't worry about it too much though :)
 
I changed it all as soon as i noticed the colour change :) still a bit frustrated i was doing OK on the infusion set for the first time though - put new 1 in and its back to being sore :?

i'll keep an eye on the site though, not sore but looks a little more red than i would hope it to :)

Ebony:
I've had this happen with cannula's for drips in my hands too.
Click to expand...

I am soooo used to blood in the tubing when i've had drips in, when i was a kid i think I spent what seemed like half my life on them :lol: when i had my 2 babies I had drips in each hand, i had my boy 7months ago it bled for the 5 days they kept the cannula in and then 2 days after the cannula was taken out!!!!!
 
If your sets are continually sore, have you considered changing sets? you may be allergic/intolerant to what sets you are using so maybe a change would be a good idea?

I once had blood creep up the tubing in the night about 30cm! i was very worried when i saw it in the morning, i told a nurse and she came to change the tubing and cannula, she must have done something wrong and the insulin and blood spilled on the floor and all over the bed like some sort of murder scene, i was very very freaked out, She was very apologetic though bless her, a total accident!

My veins tend to collapse when inserting cannulas so i often am very bruised and bloody by time they managed to get one in!

My mum once bruised all the way UNDER her arm, black all the way around :shock:

Keep an eyes of the redness, if it doesnt go down soon then see your GP :)
 
I've had blood seeping upward about 2" up the tube from the cannula on a couple of occasions before I actutally noticed...One of the days, my BG's had been going upward, and the other occasion my BG's had stayed normal. I'm on the stainless steel ones, it wasn't sets from my 2 faulty boxes either....it staggered me how so much could go back up through the needle and so far up the tube as well...

I just change the sets, as mine have a 10cm tubing attached to them anyway, the tubing comes off that has the blood in it...
 
well my results seemed pretty good last night, around 5/6 before i noticed :)

Re allergic/intollerant to the infusion sets, im pressuming I'm ok with them because the first set i tried didnt cause pain, only reason i couldnt use em was because they kept blocking and i kept getting a no delivery... the current lot I'm using go in at an angle and I'm sure it must be me doing something wrong because the 1 that went pink didnt hurt/itch and if i was intollerant it should have done?
 
if it's not everytime you use the sat that you get redness and pain then it probably isn't an allergy or something, just thought i should suggest it incase it may seem a possibility to you.

It may not be nessecarily you thats doing something wrong, your body is full of veins capillaries etc, so i think its perfectly normal to hit a blood vessel now and then which causes a little bleed. especially as it's worn 24/7 and as your moving around so will the cannula.

The ones that go in at an angle i haven't tried yet, i'm far too happy with my current steel ones to venture to those yet, but i presume it must take precision and skill to get the hang of it though!

If you get recurring pain, redness, or anything you think is out of the ordinary don't ignore it. a simple set change could help or switching to different sets, in the past Donnellys dogs has has a faulty batch so don't always assume it's your technique and explore others reasons too if you seem to experience the same problem frequently.

The other week i changed my set in the morning, my BG's were fine all morning, no rise or anything strange. Then all of a sudden in the afternoon it's was awfully painful, i couldn't touch it at all, and i daren't change it until i got home because i felt i might be in tears it hurt that much to put pressure on it... when i got home and changed it, i really was nearly in tears and it took me about 15 mins of tiny pulls to get the horrid thing out. It was quite bloody and badly bruised too :(. I have no idea what caused it as i always put a little pressure on it when i've put a new one on to sort of test it and wiggle around a little to make sure it's fine. It just seemed to become painful out of the blue!
 
Dragonflye said:
pink skin for contour link BG machine and also a pink case for it
Click to expand...

To be really 'girlie' for a minute - how did you get the pink skin? Was it from Bayer or somewhere else? I'm disappointed to find the basic Contour is available in purple (to match my Veo) but not the Link model, I wonder if I could get a purple skin instead?

Hope your site's settling down today and no more issues with the sets.
 
LittleSue - when i registered my contour link machine with the bayer website I got to choose which skin i wanted :)

I'm strangely in a good mood with my pump today, saw my DSN this morning and was worried a little at my blood sugars (i thought that I had a fair few high) and she said they were really good especially since I am only new on the pump, now I dont have to go back to see her until the end of August (and even then was because I asked to see her sooner due to me starting work full time on 1st august to make sure everything is still ok)
 
That's good news, Dragonflye.

Dragonflye said:
when i registered my contour link machine with the bayer website I got to choose which skin i wanted
Click to expand...

Oh great, didn't see skins mentioned on their website.
 
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