I change my infusion sites every 3 some times 4 days. This has worked well in the 8 months of using a pump. Yesterday was day 2. Everything was fine until a couple of hours after lunch. BG was rising and not responding well to corrections.
Beginning of day 3 - Night time wasn’t too bad, but BG continued to rise before and after eating breakfast, I did 45 minutes of exercise before breakfast which did bring it down, but after eating, rising too high again. I did a syringe correction and it began to drop. I replaced the set and cartridge 5 hours early. Now I am getting a good response.
No sign of leakage or tunneling. There is no scaring at that site. Any ideas?
what kind of pump do you have? @CarlosLuis you are a very experienced diabetic so you probably have more ideas and hypotheses than me. Something wasn’t working, and I would suspect the pump - but if it is fine now … hmmm…
Ya know - I’m stumped. Was there any change in your diet? Did you notice any insulin leaking? Did the pump’s measure of insulin available look ok? I’m sure you have checked all those things.
One thing I’ve learned – if you don’t fix it, it will happen again. But the corollary to this is, if you haven’t fixed it, when it happens again you’ll be ready for it and will be able to narrow down the problem.
I sometimes experience impaired absorption even though I can’t feel any tissue changes. So I’d say you found a location for an infusion site to keep an eye on, and maybe avoid.
Anyway, you did the “when in doubt change it out” and got the good result.
Three days is just a “generally safe” amount. Some people routinely get impaired absorption after a day or two. Others can go a week before experiencing the tissue damage. Personally, I wouldn’t go past 3 days because ruined tissue would cause me more grief than the couple minutes to change the infusion site every 3 days. According to the scuttlebut, once the tissue is damaged it takes months with no infusion in that area to recover, and lots of times it never really recovers to the way it was before the damage.
I had a similar problem with my Pod yesterday. BG kept going up despite corrections and exercise (mopping the kitchen floor usually kicks a high in the butt). So I did an IM correction, changed my pump, and did a meal bolus with a pen. No obvious signs of anything wrong, just weird, sigh…
What insulin are you using?
I started having that issue with Fiasp in my tandem X2 pump.
I ended up switching to Lyumjev and haven’t had the issue since then.
I didn’t have the issue on normal Novolog either, but I really despise using the slower insulin types now.
I am not sure, but I swear something changes with the tandem cartridge and/or infusion sets, and they react more to Fiasp.
Well, I guess it could have been a change in the Fiasp as well.
Either way, Fiasp only seems to work about 2 ish days for my in my tandem pump.
Lyumjev, I can get 5 days without issue if I really need to. (Actually, I reused a cartridge not that long ago, and it lasted around 9 days total! Not what I wanted, but prescriptions kept getting messed up.)
If you have this happen more often, I would start suspecting the equipment rather than then site. If it’s random, then the site could easily cause this as well.
Humalog, my doc originally tried to prescribe Novolog but stinking insurance wouldn’t cover it. Insurance bean counters know more medical science than doctors, doncha know?
My insurance also doesn’t cover Novolog, but its my preferred insulin. I use a savings card and get 3 vials for $99. (without using my insurance, cash pay).