We are not important enough to stimulate action from the Congress,so lets show them how wrong they are. I’ve even been contacting members of the National Media if we can get them interested we have a great ally. I personally believe in the POWER of the PRESS!
If anyone has any other ideas on how to get this accomplished please share them.
Than you,

Jean D Haight

I am working on it with my Congress Person,a newscaster on the local NBC network,and the Insulet Corporation to get the code numbers changed to make the Omni Pod a durable item. It seems to be progressing and I’m hoping that in the not to distant future it will be given the code numbers so that it can be covered by Medicarw.

I am a 47 yr old male on insulin for 10 yr now. I was the last in my family to be diagnosed and now the only brittle one of the bunch. I have maybe 15 living family members within 2-3 generations currently diabetic and countless that died from complications. Diet, drugs, exercise, and shots have really done nothing to truly control my sugars and the side effects are now at a point of showing their unhealthy heads. I have begun discussion with my PCP about finding an Endo in the Phoenix, AZ area (I moved here about a yr ago), but he is reluctant to give up control. Oh well, he does not have it anyway.

My questions tend to be based on is a pump something I should now consider?

My sugars have always spiked 2 hours after eating no matter what I eat, the insulin I take or anything else we can figure out. For example, I was at 97 this AM and had 2 eggs a small sausage patty and coffee ( took 10 units of novolog). 3 hours later I checked my sugars and was at 179.

I currently take 65 Units of Lantus nightly and between 10-28 units of Novolog with each meal. My scale starts at 10 units and runs 1 unit for every 10 points above target. My PCP is wanting me to take more insulin even to the point of causing crashes (I think this is very unsafe).

Would a pump be programmable (and would the OP be a good pump to start with) enough to see these spikes and adjust for them? I do not mind the 6-8 BSs a day if they work, I do that many tests now. However, if I end up doing Insulin before a meal and then 2 hours later that could end up as many a 7 shots a day (3 before meals, 3 after meals and 1 at night). That would get real old real quick.

Any suggestions? Am I nuts or just an extremely out of control diabetic?

Right now My A1C is 9.8 and climbing.

seeking help and advice in desperation,

Daniel

My issue is that the pod fails a *lot*. Either occlusions or failing while priming. A couple of nights ago I had 3 pods fail in about an hour. Also, failed pods can interfere with the new pod (I assume the wireless signals get mixed up) which leads to more frustration, usually while high. Calling in the failed pods means you have to go thru a 10 minute phone conversation reciting serial numbers and error codes. (I’m not sure why they assume you are calling in failed pods falsely, it’s not like I can do anything with a bunch of extra pods…) Another issue is that a failed pod means you lose all your insulin which means you end up fighting with your insurance company again…

So at the moment I am looking for an alternative. Any suggestions?

The majoy thing for me however, and one that I have been working with insulet with and am praying they come up with a solution, as I have tried everything they have recommended, is that the failure rate is extremely high. I was told by my doctor that it doesn’t work as well for some people than others, but I had no idea it would be this bad. I have been tracking my failures in a spreadsheet in an extremely detailed manner in order to best facilitate finding a solution and on average when there is an occlussion, it occurs upon the first bolus. Sometimes it will happen later, which is even more frustrating because usually my blood sugar will sky rocket due to lack of insulin flow well before the buzzer goes off, which by the way continues to ring until you can get to your meter and push the ‘ok’ button. To give a detail over the results, I have tracked my progress since the 1st of the year which has been 151 days as of today. Theoretically this would require 53 pods (1 per 3 days). Over this time period I have experienced 39 pod failures, 34 of which were due to occlussion. As an approximation, I figure I ‘should have’ used 51 pods, however 34 were switched out due to occlussions resulting in a total failure rate of 40% (34 failed / 85 total). I know that my results are not representative of the typical experience, but just want people to know how bad a case can get. Is there anyone reading that has experienced such difficulty? I do want to emphasize to any considering the product however that when I get past a couple hours with no occlussions, this thing works awesome, and you may not encounter such occlussion issues.

The majoy thing for me however, and one that I have been working with insulet with and am praying they come up with a solution, as I have tried everything they have recommended, is that the failure rate is extremely high. I was told by my doctor that it doesn’t work as well for some people than others, but I had no idea it would be this bad. I have been tracking my failures in a spreadsheet in an extremely detailed manner in order to best facilitate finding a solution and on average when there is an occlussion, it occurs upon the first bolus. Sometimes it will happen later, which is even more frustrating because usually my blood sugar will sky rocket due to lack of insulin flow well before the buzzer goes off, which by the way continues to ring until you can get to your meter and push the ‘ok’ button. To give a detail over the results, I have tracked my progress since the 1st of the year which has been 151 days as of today. Theoretically this would require 53 pods (1 per 3 days). Over this time period I have experienced 39 pod failures, 34 of which were due to occlussion. As an approximation, I figure I ‘should have’ used 51 pods, however 34 were switched out due to occlussions resulting in a total failure rate of 40% (34 failed / 85 total). I know that my results are not representative of the typical experience, but just want people to know how bad a case can get. Is there anyone reading that has experienced such difficulty? I do want to remind anyone considering this product however that once I get the pod attached and past the first 1 or 2 boluses without an occlussion, it works great and you may very well experience just that without the occlussion problems at all.

Also in answer to an earlier post. Yes in the early days Insulet had some Pod failure issues. They have been addressed and the failure rate is now very close to zero.