Thank you @Eric!
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Haven’t heard back from my endo’s nurse yet and my pod was due for change/running out of insulin. I’ve gone ahead w the pod change for now.
Rolling this around in my head over and over. This site is the fourth one to tunnel/bleed/leak. Moving my Dexcom to my abs to let my back have a rest is aggravating bc it is already bleeding into the tape. And the only accurate place for me for Dexcom these days is my back. But I have to put my pods on my arms and my back bc the stomach pod sites fail within hours.
Who has some perspective they wouldn’t mind sharing since I’m in some pretty dense trees here? I tried icing my arm before sanitizing it before pump placement just now.
Are you pinching up the spot before you deploy the cannula? Like when you inject, what they used to teach was to pinch up the skin and fat. Are you doing that?
I think they don’t tell you to do that with injections now, because they freak out about it accidentally going IM. But I think doing this with the pod is helpful.
I am, pinching up and pushing down on the cannula insertion window area to help it.
And you’re not pushing down too hard – just enough pressure that there’s no recoil?
And if tunneling/leaking is a problem, what is the max bolus you do at one time?
What happens with pods on your thighs? (Thighs are very comfortable an reliable for me, although they’re also the only place I bleed.)
I’m sorry you’re having such a frustrating time.
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Have you gone through this with your doctor? Let them look at your sites and so-forth? Maybe there is something that is going on that they can look at and figure out. I have no idea why it would always fail so quickly.
I didn’t know there was a “too hard” that I needed to worry about, too! 
I would say I’m “firm” with it but that’s hard to quantify.
I tried my Dexcom on my thighs and I knock it around so badly that I can’t imagine my pods would survive.
My max bolus is 3.5 units at a time…extending the rest over an hour or more.
Thank you for the support. It means a lot.
My doctor is useless. I talked to him in person about it two months ago and he said “scar tissue” like we were playing Jeopardy. It’s not scar tissue on new sites.
My CDE consultant suspects my skin type may just not be compatible with Omnipod or pumps in general. She says I might be one of the few (no offense, anyone) who really do better on MDI.
Thank you for all your help!
What propellant/explosive does Eleanor use?
You might like Levemir. At your dosage you will probably be right around 12 hours of duration, which is actually a pretty good duration for our planet.
(Much better than something like 17 hour Lantus, which would be much better on Neptune than on Earth. 
)
Since you have hormone variability in your weeks, and if you have variability in daytime and nighttime, Levemir can really be adjusted well for that sort of thing.
The only restriction on it is you need to be able to consistently hit your dosage times. 10 hours apart is fine. 14 hours is fine. But if you start stretching it out to 16 hours, or if you forget a dose, you will run into problems.
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We buy cheap Suave hairspray for her.
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I need to read up on the thread about using pod for basal and kwikpens for bolus. Maybe that will help?
I take 9.5 - 12.5 units for basal and 20 - 30 units for meals/corrections. TDD around 32 - 40 units. Maybe my site will last better for just basal?
On this last pod (at lowest hormone time), I needed +20% to get thru Day 2 of the pod and +30% to get thru Day 3 of the pod. Once I get that dark red line in my skin around the cannula on Day 2, it just takes a lot more insulin to accomplish the same thing.
Come to think about it…I typically bled and bruised for at least 25% of my mini pen needle shots on MDI.
As I’ve come to believe lately, I am a great diabetic. My body is a terrible diabetic.
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Hairspray is the classic excellent choice.
Eleanor is a beauty!
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It makes me laugh every time I fire the dumb thing. Everyone should have one, IMHO.
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That is definitely worth a try. You’d be cutting so much out of what your infusion site needs to take.
Thanks, @Eric. I just took my dinner bolus via syringe (somewhere between 5 and 6 units - that’s only the second time in my life that I’ve used a syringe and it freaks me out that I’m going to get the units wrong - I verified U-100 at least 5x).
My endo’s nurse just called and said she’d call in the Humalog pens and pen needles for me. Hopefully insurance doesn’t fight me. I just filled Humalog vials earlier this week.
It will help my meal spikes if I’m not limited to 3.5 units or thereabouts at a time. I am typically a 70/30 split on bolus/basal. I’m pretty basal sensitive (I think) but any kind of food requires a solid bolus. I used to take 11 units for lunch at work (on shots) on sedentary days and have been doing gymnastics to make lunch work lately.
Thank you for your guidance and support!!
Make sure you get a 1/2 unit pen!
If you are going with a Lilly (Humalog) pen, get either the non-disposable Luxura HD:
Or the disposable KwikPen Junior:
If you get a disposable, make sure you specify the Junior, otherwise you might get the normal KwikPen which does not have 1/2 unit increments. And that’s not what you want!
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But I like being forced to eat cookies!!!
Thanks!!!
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