Omnipod pod re-use

Type 1 & LADA
1

Does anyone know of groups or organizations actively working on resetting and reusing omnipod pods?

Thanks

Ljw

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2

There may be people trying, but I do not personally know of anyone doing that.

It would be a big pain - retracting the insulin plunging mechanism, resetting the internal battery and clock, reloading it, etc.

Are you interested in that for cost-savings?

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Clearly for cost savings.

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It would not be an easy process.

I have not heard of anyone able to do this, or working on it.

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5

But probably just a software hack to extend to 10 days. After that you would probably need to remove the pod. Capacity is 200u so you would probably need to give big meal bolus by MDI.

You could probably half the cost or maybe reduce by 70%

I think this would be do-able… not aware of anyone testing or trying

Ed

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6

You might be able to add more insulin. But 10 days of insulin at body temp might decrease insulin efficiency, or worse.

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I typically take 90 units a day total. 200 units is useless.

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An important consideration also is the loss of steralization which could make someone really sick / kill them. It would be hard to steralize all those tiny parts to the point that they would be considered sterile enough to puncture the skin w/o fear of introducing bacteria into the blood stream.

I would revert to MDI if ever needing to re-use a POD. At least syringes are sterile.

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9

@amm You can use Humalog 200 in the pod, that way it actually has 400 units in it (if you ever want to). Originally they put me on Humalog 200 because they thought I might have to switch out the pods every 2 days. My usage went so far down with a pump that I didn’t need it, but I liked it and stayed with it. It takes some trickier programming though, you get used to it, but some things have to be doubled and others halved. The pods themselves though only go to 3 days plus another 8 hours for wiggle room.

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You can work around this:

And you can use MDI for large food boluses and corrections. The pump is great for managing basals, temp basals and adjustments.

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