Questionable Pump Delivery

[ncpd25]

Anyone ever take a bolus and then check your bg an hour or so later and see that your numbers are much, much higher than they should be. I'm counting the carbs correctly and I'm not getting a "No Delivery" message. I wonder if there can be "blockage" of sorts without getting a no delivery message. It's almost as if I ate and didn't bolus. I changed the infusion set and all seems O.K. now. Ever happen to anybody else?

[Subby]

Yup. For me, sets can "go". Usually if things are going well, it won't seem completely random, it might be near the end of their 3 days, or I might have knocked them.

I'd mostly see it very much "now and then". Almost all the time I find it's just an obvious drop in insulin effectiveness (like, 50%), occasionally it just seems to pike out altogether. I find it definitely happens more with some set types than others (and more with certain sites) - have you experimented with different set types and sites with this issue?

[Russell A.]

Yes,

Sometime random bad site or liked Subby mentioned bumped it or close to a muscle. I hate when it happens for no real reason.

Just part of pumping.

Russell

[ncpd25]

To be honest, I haven't changed over to any different sets since I started pumping. I was comfortable with what I have and never ran into any big issues. This is the second time it's happened though. It could have been the site. I ended up applying to my rump. Maybe it was close enough to where I was sitting on the site thus, screwing things up. It's frustrating when you put a set on, do what your supposed to be and before you know it, you bs is 300. What a pain in the a$$ (no pun intended). Thanks guys.

[Subby]

I know exactly what you mean. I hope the problems are far and few between. It's great not to have to bother with other sets as the first one works well: I hope that situation continues too.

I mainly use my butt myself because when it does work I get brilliant absorption from there. However, I was finding I was getting more and more dud sets/placements. I found that moving from the "normal" 9mm Quickset to to 6mm quickset improved these problems outa sight. They pack up a little quicker, perhaps just shy of 3 days (closeness to surface being what I suspect some kind of limiting factor, as insulin always causes lumping for me) but while they work, they work a treat.

[notme]

This happened to me recently. Sets do go bad or they can get a small kink in the cannula and your numbers soar. Luckily, it doesn't happen to often. I would change your site and see how it goes.

[MJM]

I get this far more often than I would like. Sometimes it's a site problem. Sometimes it's an air lock. Sometimes it's bubbles in the reservoir, which for paradigm badly needs to be improved. Sometimes they just go bad after 2 days. Still, I'd be in a far worse situation without my pump.

[JJM335]

Sometimes it's an air lock. Sometimes it's bubbles in the reservoir, which for paradigm badly needs to be improved.

If you work "one reservoir ahead" you can avoid bubbles problems with a Paradigm.

Fill a reservoir as normal (insulin at room temp, knock out the bubbles with a pen or whatever). Keep the filled reservoir with your emergency spares kit. NEXT TIME you change the reservoir on your pump, use the one you filled 3 days ago. When you take it out, some more bubbles will most likely have formed. Knock them out with a pen so they go to the top of the reservoir. Keep the reservoir vertical as you attach the connector and tubing and when you put the reservoir in the pump. When you do the prime, any bubbles will be pushed out. Now fill another reservoir ready for the change in 3 days time. An additional advantage is that if you have to do an emergency reservoir change, you always have one ready.

The key seems to be leaving the reservoir around for a couple of days. If (when) additional bubbles form, you have the opportunity to prime them out.

Works for me every time.

Joel