Pump and Spa day

[Riri]

Hia - I've got a hospital appointment tomorrow afternoon and I'll be meeting others who have pumps fitted as my diabetes is quite unstable at the moment and my diabetes nurse and consultant think I should consider a pump. I am sat watching the telly tonight and my mind has strayed back to having a pump fitted and the fact that I have 2 spa days planned in a few months. Will this be possible with a pump? I fear not which would be a big shame as they're both girly family birthday celebrations. Any advice greatly appreciated.

 

[ebony321]

Hia - I've got a hospital appointment tomorrow afternoon and I'll be meeting others who have pumps fitted as my diabetes is quite unstable at the moment and my diabetes nurse and consultant think I should consider a pump. I am sat watching the telly tonight and my mind has strayed back to having a pump fitted and the fact that I have 2 spa days planned in a few months. Will this be possible with a pump? I fear not which would be a big shame as they're both girly family birthday celebrations. Any advice greatly appreciated.

Hi,

Firstly sorry to hear your having trouble with your diabetes, however good news that your diabetes nurse and consultant are helping you decide if you want to go ahead with a pump!

The pump can be disconnected for short periods of time, for showering swimming etc. There is also no problem disconnecting for longer periods of time, you simply go back to MDI for the day.

All this will be explained if you go ahead with the pump, my team gave me info on how to re-calculate going back to MDI, as its essential you are able to switch back if your pump fails. You need to know how to calculate this as it's common to need less insulin with a pump than you use with injections.

Some people switch bac to MDI for holidays abroad, and i've heard some people switch back for longer periods of time so they have a break from the pump and they say it helps to keep good practice of MDI incase of pump failure etc.

So theres no reason really why you couldn't go on these spa days

 

[josie38]

Hi riri,

You should be able to go on the spa days. I don't think it will be possible to get your pump in a short period of time. I had to do a carb counting course and show that i can have a tight grip on my diabetes, then i had to have a trial pump to see if it would fit in with my lifestyle. Then when i had met the criteria I had to wait for the funding to come through. I think in all, from my intial consultation about the pump, it took 11 months before i got one.

Once you have tried one you may decide that it is not for you. Try and do some research about the pumps first and the type of pumps there are. If you think it is right for you speat to the DSN about the spa days and as previous poster said you may be able to go back to MDI for those days but they will always give you good advice.

Hope all goes well

Josie

 

[donnellysdogs]

Good job there was a new posting on this spa day topic....I looked at a spa day session in a hotel I went to on Tuesday.....I honestly forgot to think about my pump!!!!! Never even entered my head!!!OOOPs!! Will have to give it some thought now.....Thnx!!!!

 

[ebony321]

Good job there was a new posting on this spa day topic....I looked at a spa day session in a hotel I went to on Tuesday.....I honestly forgot to think about my pump!!!!! Never even entered my head!!!OOOPs!! Will have to give it some thought now.....Thnx!!!!

Haha!

I've never been to a spa.

I'm thinking for the good of my diabetes i should go to test my ability to handle what to do with my pump :wink: :lol: 8)

 

[Riri]

Thanks for responses folks - very useful. I went to my pump meeting today and am now signed up for a medtronic veo pump which I'm hoping will be fitted in the next 2 months - good news all round. I did ask the medtronic rep and nurse about the spa and their advice was much as you said - either use injections for the day or one of the people present who had a pump fitted already said they kept their in their spa gown and took it off for all the necessary bits like the sauna and steam room. They also tested a bit more frequently as well.

I was very impressed with the pump and it seemed a bit more user friendly than I expected. I know however that the first few months are quite hard work and I think I'm now ready for this.

 

[phoenix]

One point is that it's not a good idea to leave a cannula in place in a sauna, steam room, hot tub. The heat can crystalise any insulin present and then cause blockages when you reconnect. Much better to take the cannula out and put another in after the sauna (you're not going to spend hours in it and it only takes a minute to put a new cannula in when you've got used to doing it)

 

[Riri]

Thanks Phoenix. Would it make a difference if you had the cap on the cannula?