| Hi,
I'm the mom of a 14-year-old, just diagnosed this September, who made the switch to a pump about a month ago. I know someone whose grandson went on a pump when he was about 2 and it has been a real godsend to them.
Aaron, my guy, is really glad he made the switch, but the issues are a little different with a young teen. He likes the flexibility to be able to eat when he wants to (ie with his friends) and of course not having to pull out his insulin pens all the time.
I would think a big advantage with young children is that you can make changes to their doses much faster -- if they are having an active day and going low, for example, you aren't stuck with a 24-hour long-term dose that's in there and you have to eat just to cover it. You can also be a lot more precise with the doses because a pump will give you as little as 1/10th of a unit or in some pumps even less. Aaron fairly often will bolus for his main course, then eyeball the dessert and bolus for that, and sometimes he gets up from the table and pops a few grapes and a couple of crackers and adds something like .3 of a unit.
From a mom's point of view, there is one drawback and that is the extra variable of the infusion set itself (Aaron has accused me of having "infusion set anxiety" and it's kind of true). We've had a couple of episodes now when he's run a little high after a set change -- but not so soaring high that it was obvious the set wasn't working -- and it took us all day and into the night to decide it was the set because, you know, kids eat unpredictably and are way active one day and sit around playing video games the next, plus he's in puberty and coming off his honeymoon and yaddah yaddah... so many things that MIGHT explain it. So long story short, what I hate is being awake at 3:30 in the morning wondering if the insulin in the pump is actually getting into his body properly or not.
That said, the pump is a great tool and I think it really can give kids a better quality of life. Aaron's numbers have been fantastic on it. It's possible he may want to go back to MDI when we are at our cottage this summer (in and out of the water 25 times a day) but overall he is really happy with it.
If you want to pm me don't hesitate,
Holly  | 
