pumps

martina said:

Hi everyone,I am pleased to say that I am getting to grips with the new meter,thanx once again for all the advice.We are going ahead with a pump in the summer.Our nurse has put us down for an accuchek combi as we already have the bloodsugar monitor which acts as the remote control.This makes sense,however I have read alot about bubbles blocking the tube and I was wondering how much of a problem that this might be.

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hi,

glad it's going well, i use the accu-chek combo. I also used the meter first for a month before i got the pump which i found really easy once i'd got the pump as i could concentrate on set changes and refilling the insulin resevoir!

I have only had two occulsion alarms, in the same day, the first time, i primed the pump and gave it a little bang to see if there was any air bubbles and primed through the whole of the tubing. but i couldn't see any. The next time it alarmed i changed the tubing and the set and it didn't alarm again so i assume it was a bad site that the cannula was in making it alarm.

I've heard that some pumps are more prone to air bubbles but i haven't personally experienced this with my pump.

Hope all goes well for you

My daughter has the Animas pump and we get the odd air bubble. I'm not sure how the frequency of our air bubbles compare to other pumps.

I am probably the worst person on this site for airbubbles with my accuchek pump. I have tried everything possible to eliminate them, but nothing has completely. For me I do a reprime after 4 hours and 24hours after a new reservoir (every 6 days). That way I definitely know the reservoir is completely free of bubbles. I used to find high levels after changing reservoirs, and this has been my only way of stopping them, but I am probably the worst person here with experiencing them.

I have only once seen them in my tubing, because say during the winter the tubing goes from my arm down to my legs and can can be under 5 layers of clothes and awkward to check. it is only a 2 minute job to actually bang the pump to get the bubbles out through repriming and this effectively is done when I go to bed and before tea the next day, so although I used to find it so frustrating, it is manageable and should not put people off the pump.