I was on day 2 of my pod yesterday. It was working fine, absorption normal. After dinner I did a bit of rowing and stretches to combat after dinner spikes. This worked fine. I went from around 130 downto around 70. Shortly thereafter I had to change my sensor. That is when I noticed my BGs climbed to the 170s and basically stayed around there the rest of the night, overnight, and all morning, despit doubling my basal, and taking lots of corrections. I finally changed the pod and within an hour or so I started to come down.
So it seems the pod was bad. I know that can happen, but is there any way I can confirm that is going on without actually replacing it? I mean, I didn’t feel the pod move or shift during exercise. I’m thinking that is what happened though, or it could just be coincidental? The pod looked normal, no blood, or leakage around the site when I removed it. But all of the copious amounts of insulin coming from it barely kept me below 200!
Just wondering if others experience this, and if there is a good way to circumvent the persistent highs due to poor absorption from the pod!
My son’s Omnipod is often dislodged with vigorous activity, but he feels it. I haven’t yet had a situation where his numbers failed and it was obviously linked to vigorous motion. He has had more unexplained highs since we switched to the Omni though.
I use ketone test strips. Sometimes, rarely, when I get the symptom of massive amounts of insulin not dropping my blood sugar (a bolus of 5U not resulting in a drop after an hour for example) it’s not a problem pod and the Abbott “Precision Xtra” I use that will confirm this; my ketones might be over 0.3mM but they won’t be going over 0.6mM.
Every time I’ve dislodged the catheter on an Omnipod the Abbott meter has told me. I believe this is because the ketone level is not primarily a function of blood glucose but much more a function of insulin levels. If the Omnipod stops delivering insulin my ketones go up even if, because I’ve not eaten for a while, my blood glucose is manageable; below 400mg/dL for me.
Nevertheless I have come very close to replacing a pod because my BG wasn’t getting lowered. If in doubt replace; I checked my ketones and they looked ok so I didn’t, but I kept on checking every hour or so for several hours until I was sure I was still getting insulin and getting it around the expected quantities.
FWIW I buy the ketone test strips on Amazon; it looks like Abbott only distribute them in large lots for use by medical professionals. The sellers on Amazon break the packs down and distribute them in baggies; must be good stuff.
Thanks! I confess, I still don’t check ketones. This has never occurred to me before but now I see this is a perfect example of why ketones should be checked. I am going to look for the Abbott ketone meter.
Wow, Ive not heard this before. I’ll have to reread this article more thoroughly as it is difficult for me to understand as a non scientist.
I am using Humalog! This sounds like what could be happening to me. It is very frustrating for absorption to seemingly just stop after the pod had been working fine.
I read the abstract but I don’t see mention of motion. Is that what “isoelectric precipitation” is referring to? Sorry for being so dense, but I have 0 background in chemistry
