I was fitted up with my new Omnipod on Friday afternoon and that evening I realized that I was no longer hostage to my Lantus schedule. Wow! Go to bed early or stay out with friends (without having to remember to bring the pen)! Not that it was a big deal…still, one less thing to plan for in a day.
On Saturday morning we went to the farmers market, the coffee shop, and library, and then back to the market (for more plants). I ate a bacon/egg/cheese croissant and did my first extended bolus. Between the bolus and all the walking, I did not experience any big spike in BG (which has happened other times).
I used a 20% basal reduction while lawn mowing. Still had to take in some carbs so next week I will use a temporary basal of 40% and allow more time for it to run before and after mowing.
I had to do a middle-of-the night correction bolus (the fat from the chicken wings took a while to kick up my BG) and I appreciated not having to get out of bed to do that. Also, the old cat didn’t wake up and demand food since I wasn’t up and moving around.
So my first experiences with the pump are very positive and I am really glad I (finally) made the switch!!
I’ll be doing my first pod change today I so reviewed the manual last night–pretty straightforward, I know now that I need to wear my reading glasses to see the fill port!
I also had to update the date/time setting when I realized something was off on the insulin delivery total by day. Guess I omitted to select PM in the set-up wizard on Friday.
I haved learned that I wasn’t using enough correction bolus (especially in the mornings) when on MDIs and also that sometimes I need to reduce the Pod’s recommended bolus to take into account upcoming activity (e.g., yardwork or housework).
Only one low so far: a bad combination of rushing a cat to the emergency vet (burst abscess) and missing my snack. Cat is looking much better today and I managed not to over-correct the low.
One thing I have noticed - any “smallish” basal reduction percentage is no big deal to return from after a few hours. So doing 40% for an hour or two is not really noticeable later in the day.
But anytime I have gone to bigger basal reductions, like to 0-20% for more than an hour, that will becomes noticeable a few hours later. In those cases, I need to make-up for the lost basal.
So I wanted to point this out as an example - if you cut your basal way down for a while, and then 2 hours later it is dinner time, you may need a bit extra for dinner.
So it’s been a couple of weeks and I now have my basal adjusted so that I am staying pretty level overnight. I have also tweaked my correction and carb factors to help avoid some hypos. Clarity shows that my estimated average BG and standard deviation are both going down and Glooko confirms this. So I am extremely pleased with my progress!!
Glooko picked up a trend that I could see on Clarity–tendency for BG to increase toward bedtime–but that Clarity did not detect as a pattern. So that’s a real plus! So is the app for my phone (though the Omnipod data has to be uploaded from a computer to be integrated into Glooko).
