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Any tricks for keeping the thing on?
My son, 11, is T1D and we've had the Omni-pod for a month or so and love it. However unless we figure out how to keep the things attached more readily I will be selling a kidney soon to pay for them.
We use skin-tac and a Tegaderm over the top of the pod. It is firmly attached until he starts running around and sweating and then the seem to come off. The other issue is...well he's a boy and he nukes them by simply ripping them off fairly regularly.
We are thinking of concentrating usage on the thighs and having him try wearing biking shorts or some similar tights rather then underwear. An arm band was suggested for the arms but he's not crazy about that idea.
Just wondering if anyone here uses them and if you had any suggestions on keeping them on for "Active" people.
Thanks,
~Matt
My daughter who is 14 has used the OmniPod since her diagnosis at age 11. She swims and runs cross country and track. We chose the OmniPod specifically based on her activity levels, and she absolutely loves it. We use liquid Skin Tac and have had very few occasions where the adhesive has come loose. She wears it on her abdomen and lower back due to extremely low body fat. She also rotates her pod with a Dexcom CGM. Once in a while she will wear a band for added support, but that is rare any more. I usually wait a minute or so after applying the Skin Tac until it dries a bit. We found the pod adheres better when the liquid adhesive isn't wet. Best of luck to you and your son.
Not saying you should pull the plug, but there is a window within which you can change your mind, so it's worth being mindful of what that is. The Pod sounds great in theory, but having a big bulky thing at the infusion site is very different than having a low-profile infusion set and a small tube to a pump located elsewhere. Tubing sounds like it would be a bad thing, but it gives you flexibility in terms of where you locate the pump, and for many people that's very helpful.
Tubing sounds like it would be a bad thing, but it gives you flexibility in terms of where you locate the pump, and for many people that's very helpful.
We know of at least 3 people that have young children that are switching from tube pump to the Omnipod specifically because of tear offs. Tube gets caught on something and the infusion site get's ripped out. Pump get's smashed/broken/caught etc and you lose a 1K pump rather then a 6$ pod. With the Omni-pod what is actually on your body is nothing compared to what you carry around with a pump and infusion set. The "Expensive" part can stay inside while the rest can go wherever.
The limited infusion sites is definitely a draw back but not a large enough one to make any significant impact. Since your only doing a site once every three days it is nothing like the impact of injections 5-7 times a day. He typically only uses four sites and that means nine days before a repeat. With in each site we can have inches between each injection meaning 15 days to a month before we are actually repeating sites. When he was doing injections this was nearly impossible.
I would think that if he were an adult it would be less of an issue as you are more aware of ones body and a pump may be the way to go. That being said I have a close friend that has been T1D since he was 5-6 YO and tried a pump and went back to injections because "Way to much stuff attached to my body all the time"
Lots of personal preference involved I suppose.
~Matt
My daughter who is 14 has used the OmniPod since her diagnosis at age 11. She swims and runs cross country and track. We chose the OmniPod specifically based on her activity levels, and she absolutely loves it. We use liquid Skin Tac and have had very few occasions where the adhesive has come loose. She wears it on her abdomen and lower back due to extremely low body fat. She also rotates her pod with a Dexcom CGM. Once in a while she will wear a band for added support, but that is rare any more. I usually wait a minute or so after applying the Skin Tac until it dries a bit. We found the pod adheres better when the liquid adhesive isn't wet. Best of luck to you and your son.
We have the exact same set up and use the skin-tac as well. We also put a Tegaderm strip over the pod to help and we still have issues with it coming off. I'm actually wondering if the tegaderm strip is making it worse by holding the moisture in and causing the adhesive to come loose.
I'm looking at "Arm band"/tights less for support issues and more for "Protection" issues. We've had them for a month and he's torn off 3-4 of them. Wipe out on the play ground, caught one on the refrigerator door another on a kitchen chair....that kind of stuff. FWIW he also ended up inserting his last CGM sensor by turning quickly and running into his mother...poof...in. Not really the most graceful and aware child on the planet :-)
~Matt
We are definitely believers in the pod. It's not perfect, but it's the closest thing to it in our opinion. Make sure the site is dry, wipe well with an alcohol wipe, swab on Skin Tac, let it dry, then apply the pod. We don't put anything else on top and have had very few issues over the years. Kids can be rough on these things, but the advantages to the pod still outweigh the negatives, in our opinion. By the way, since you have the Dexcom have you upgraded to the Share technology yet? It's fantastic and allows my husband and me to monitor her BS 24/7. Very helpful, particularly at night. Best wishes!
By the way, since you have the Dexcom have you upgraded to the Share technology yet? It's fantastic and allows my husband and me to monitor her BS 24/7. Very helpful, particularly at night. Best wishes
We have indeed. We are looking into getting him an i-phone. The share app can only transmit from apple devices. Right now he is using his i-pad at school but he just can't carry it around with him everywhere he goes and he has to be with in wi-fi range of something so we are looking into a phone.
Right now he is in the room next to us so 90% of the time the receiver works in our room which works great at night. Between the Omnipod and CGM we're 100% more confident with late night and mid night treatments of highs. I'm hoping that once we get it all down better this will translate into significantly lower A1C's.
My wife is a saint and has pretty much gotten up every night for the last 4 years and tested him in the middle of the night for sanity sake. No idea how she does it as I'm one of those "Ok I'm up...now I'm really up" types and if I tried that my night would be over. The CGM is amazing for this...despite being woken up by high alarms often :-). The other night he kept going under the high limit and over and under and over...thing was going off every 15 minutes for what seemed like hours but I'll take that any day over not knowing at all.
Best wishes to you as well.
~Matt