Diabetes - Insulin Pump

An Insulin Pump is a medical device used for administering insulin. It changed my life when I got my first one in 1992. I did not have to follow as rigid of a schedule with injecting insulin and then eating right after. I had more freedom!

Before I got my first pump I was mixing 2 types of insulin - a short acting and a long acting. I was giving a shot before breakfast, before lunch, before dinner and before I went to bed. Four shots per day. This still did not control my blood sugars. I've been pumping now for 16 years and love it!

I had been diagnosed with Diabetes at 10 and I was 32 when I got my first pump. Before I got my pump I would often times wake up with extremely low blood sugars - sometimes needing help from the fire department and paramedics in the middle of the night or very early morning. I could feel the symptoms of my blood sugars drop when I was awake but as I got older I could not feel them drop when I was sleeping. This was due to some nerve damage from the sugar running around in my blood.

With my Insulin Pump I use all fast acting insulin and have programmed my pump to automatically administer a little less than a unit of insulin for most hours of the day. And this is automatically reduced at midnight to 4am. This is called a "basal" rate of insulin When I eat carbohydrates I administer additional insulin (about 1 unit for every 15 grams of carbohydrates) to cover the carbohydrates I'm eating. This is called a "bolus" of insulin. I can also suspend the insulin delivery if I need to.

I can remove my pump for showering and other more intimate activities :) and these are the only times when I remove it. It's easy to sleep with - I just lay it on the bed and instinctively move it around with me if I toss and turn.

I only have one complaint about my pump and that is the scar tissue that has built up in my abdomen from the cannula that remains in the subcutaneous fatty area of my stomach for 2-3 days at a time. I use my hips and upper ab area to insert the cannula too. The scar tissue gets in the way of the insulin delivery and this is really my only complaint. I just have to be careful to make sure I'm not inserting near scar tissue and change the cannula every 3 days max.

Enjoy your day!