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Who's Pumping and Which Pump

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pplprincess5480

Active Member
Messages
33
Well, we had Lotts CGMS fitted today and we are leaving it on for 6 days. We've just done a week of testing her at 2am and we're exhausted. She is consitently high at night even though we've upped her levemir by a unit. Her Consultant has suggested switching to pump if the CGMS data shows what he suspects.

I was wondering which of your children are pumping and with which pumps? I have no experience of pumps but my MIL is T1 so I have experience of injections. I wanted to gather as much info as possible before we make a choice. We would have the choice between an Accu-Check Combo and a Medtronic Veo. I wondered if anyone had any insights that we may find useful.

Thanks in advance x
 
We started on the Medtronic Veo with CGM and initially thought it very good but it soon turned into a nightmare for lots and lots of reasons but the main one was that the controls are all on the pump which is attached to your child - anyone with a child knows whats going to happen. You are constantly hunting for the pump to see the BG reading or to work out the carbs/insulin and all the time your child is trying to do something else. Another reason is the CGM constantly alarms telling you there is a rise/fall rate, warning of high/low etc and it becomes very distracting especially at school when my daughter spent more time managing the pump than doing school work. We had the medtronic nurse visit us as I thought we were doing something seriously wrong but after checking it all she said we were achieving the best results with the pump that she had ever seen and took away our printouts to be used in training other nurses.

After three months we gave it back and switched to the Accu check combo which is brilliant and everything I imagined a pump to be. Her HB1c has dropped (with the medtronic it was going up!!) significantly and as it has a remote everything can be done without disturbing her or by her without having to get the pump from under loads of clothing. It also calculates the insulin differently to the medtronic which IMO leads to easier and better BG control.

If you want to have a chat about the two pumps DM me and Ill give you my tel number
 
We are using the Accuchek Combo and so far we have no complaints. It fits in a small pouch that Lily wears around her waist, Hello Kitty or HSM She loves them. Can't compare with others as we have not used any others but the Animas 2020 looks good due to it being waterproof and Lily loves water.
We have not done a Dafne course as the DSN and Dietician have been excellent and have taught us pretty much all we need. It's quite straight forward really and not difficult. The only difficult part is getting the carbs calculated correctly but we are using a Salter scale and this is great. I would highly recommend one. Ours was actually free from Accuchek when we got the pump.

Harry
 
My daughter was set up on the pump exactly a week ago. She's using the Animas 2020 and we love it as it's so easy to use. My advice is to arrange an appointment with your DSN with the view to take a look at each pump and play with it for a bit working through the menus. What we thought would be our choice of pump changed after we'd had the option to play around a bit.
 
I have no experience of pumping but am currently applying for funding for my kids. I really like the look of the Omnipod which is quite new over here, but has been out in America for some time now. It is basically a wireless and tub less device which is very appealing. I actually saw my nurse this morning as she recently met with an Omnipod rep. Her first impression is that it seems fantastic! We are in the process of meeting with the company to look at the device further. Once I've done this I can post some feed back. In the meantime just google the device and you can get a bit of info to see whether it would be a device you'd consider.
 

The Accucheck Combo is waterproof to 2meters for an hour - my daughter goes in the bath and swims with it no problem.
 

We looked at the Omnipod and I agree ite very very good but the only thing that put us off was that you cannot deliver a bolus without the handset so our 9 year old would have to take the remote to school and we have heard numerous stories of kids loosing the remote for pumps and obviously that would cause serious issues. We went for a system with a remote but the ability to deliver a bolus from the pump so she can give a bolus at lunchtime without having to take the remote to school.
 
Also another thing was that during PT at school we felt that the Omnipod would be knocked off - with a separate pump she can disconnect leaving only the cannula which can be covered with a plaster if needed which seems to take being bashed about well.
 
Thanks for that info Ruralweb. We plan on looking at a few pumps so I appreciate any feedback whether good or bad.
 
I agree, we are happier with being able to disconnect the pump.
I have read that the Combo is waterproof, but our DSN has told us that she wouldn't trust it for long and the Animas is much more robust. This was the one that they used to use but now they have a contract with Roche so they go with the Combo. I must say, I am more than happy with it.

Harry
 
Thanks Hazza. I've only heard good things about the Omnipod so it's nice to have another opinion. It's so hard to know what to do. I've got a friend on a pump and she is also complaining about inserting, air bubbles and all the problems with the tubing. I guess I need to trial a few to see, but I do think that the future in pumping will be the wireless route along with CGMs.
 
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