My daughter who is in 5th grade is going to start the omnipod 5 on sunday. She has been doing mdi for 10 years. The question I have for those whose school.age kids are on the omnipod, is do you leave extra pods at school and an insulin vial for the school nurse in case it needs to be replaced. Or do you run to school your self and replace? Im not sure how much extra pods we will have or insulin vials. Also, do any of you use the humalog kwikpen to fill their pods ad well as using the vial?
Thanks for your help
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Hi @Nreid77.
I don’t use the OmniPod 5. There are other people here on FUD that use that pump, who can provide much better insight into help for it.
But a general suggestion. Can you start it on Friday, right after school has ended? That would give you a few days to get comfortable with it before she has to go back to school on Monday.
For the question on if you should leave extra pods at school, or go to the school to do it yourself depends on your schedule and availability, and on how much you trust your school nurse to manage that!
But I would say that maybe you wait until you have done many pod changes yourself with your daughter.
The first step is for you to be comfortable and knowledgeable about it. First, you should become the expert.
The next step is for your daughter to be very comfortable and knowledgeable about it. You show her the steps so that she can do it herself. She knows how it is done.
Finally, you show the nurse.
If your daughter knows how it is done, after watching you for many pod changes, then it would be easier for the nurse to do the pod change with her, because they both know it.
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Hi @Nreid77 my 9yo daughter has been using omnipod in school for 5 years and omnipod has only come off a 2-3 times. I do not leave extra pods or insulin in school because they don’t have a school nurse. We go and replace or just pull her out if its later.
If this is your first time using omnipod I rotate anticlockwise when changing the pumps, its easy to remember the rotation, right arm, right leg, left leg, left arm. I also do a covering bolus 0.95u with old omnipod and and activation bolus with new omnipod 0.95u. Covering bolus covers the time that the pump is off and settling. Activation bolus seems to be needed to help the site start off. I also always change the pump straight after school ~4pm rather than leaving it later in the evening.
I fill the pods from the pen vials or the quick kwikpen vials. My daughter recently switched from Humalog to Novalog so I used up the Humalog from anywhere I had it. I always fill the omnipod using the omnipod disposable syringe. I also occasionally have extracted Humalog from the omnipod using the omnipod disposable pen if it fails or comes off very early. I use an empty insulin vial for a few mins if the bubbles just wont settle.
Nightscout is a really nice way to monitor CGM and bolus - it takes a little effort to get working
https://nightscout.github.io/ - There are many benefits - merges CGM and pump, and has a page that can be easily accessed on internet for caregivers, ipad etc.
Feel free to reach out with anything else - happy to help
Ed
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She is actually off from school next week for spring break.
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Thank you!
I was diagnosed at age 12 (1972). That was a horrible few months of crossing town on a bus with my legs also crossed.
Then I was on SDI; I can’t remember when the various transitions happened but I do know that I didn’t need any help and I was a newbie compared to your daughter.
She knows how to do MDI, she can deal with it; just don’t let anyone tell her otherwise.
Speaking as a kid here, YDMMV.
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