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Having your insulin pump die while you're on vacation

blog.lauramichet.com

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Re: Having your insulin pump die while you're on vacation

#191

Post by 1234letshaveatw »

UomoNeroNero wrote: post #125
UomoNeroNero wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, and one more thing. I always keep a blood glucose meter in my backpack. You know, that medieval-age stuff with the finger-pricker and test strips. (You can buy one for about €10 in pretty much any pharmacy in Europe, but it’s better to already have one with you.) And pen needles, too.

P.S. As a European, I genuinely struggle to understand how you cope with your healthcare situation. In France, in a small mountain village, I walked into a pharmacy and, through a combination of gestures and sketches, managed to buy a box of rapid-acting insulin at full price (around €30–40). The insulin was clearly available. The issue was purely bureaucratic — technically I needed a prescription from a French docto…

As an American, I am astounded at the the smug ignorance I see from Europeans online. I don't envy that cultural lack of self awareness

Re: Having your insulin pump die while you're on vacation

#192

Post by FireBeyond »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #97
FireBeyond wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potentially. However, depending on the nature of the interaction, abandonment is equally a concern for a provider. If I'm treating or begin care of a hypoglycemic patient (and I'm not saying that in this case, such a thing has happened), then legally, I can be found guilty of abandonment if I don't transfer care to a higher level provider or conclude the course of treatment or intervention planned. I can't just say "…

I think we are saying the same thing. There is a line that triggers obligation and liability. If the location is abigious or the liability is extremely high, then there is incentive to error on the side of avoidance. This might mean not taking a patient or class of patients into care.

THat's fair.

One other point to note, in general) is that depending on your provider type, avoidance may not be an option. On duty EMS cannot "avoid" a patient encounter, likewise with emergency medicine (though I'm honestly not sure whether immediate/urgent care is considered there, too).

Re: Having your insulin pump die while you're on vacation

#193

Post by dghlsakjg »

Qdulf wrote: post #114

For anyone planing to go to Nepal with a pump: Beware of the (quarter-hour) time-zones. My wives ypsopump didn't play well with NPT (+5:45) at all. We panicked quite a bit before we finally figured out we just had to set the connected phone to India Standard Time.

Excuse my ignorance: why does the pump need to know local time anyway? Or is it just shit design?

Re: Having your insulin pump die while you're on vacation

#194

Post by jeffwask »

UomoNeroNero wrote: post #119

Friend, you’re diabetic. Your survival is ultimately your own responsibility. Prepare yourself for a few hard truths. No one — including nurses and doctors who are not specifically trained in diabetes management — truly knows your situation. I had a TIA. I was barely functioning, hospitalized, semi-conscious. Not a single person in the ER, nor during the entire week I was admitted, stopped to think that maybe I wasn’…

The thing that struck me most was that for 25 of 27 years, they have relied entirely on machines and computers to manage the condition which means every hard-earned lesson you have experienced they did not and the author likely has very little person knowledge and experience on how to do anything off the pump.

It's the AI argument in a nutshell. We are handing things off to machines and losing the knowledge to do it ourselves.

Imagine if this were a systemic catastrophic failure, that lasted months... how many people would perish just because they weren't taught or never learned how to manage without the machine.

Re: Having your insulin pump die while you're on vacation

#195

Post by jrflowers »

apple1417 wrote: post #175
jrflowers wrote: post #148

There are several strange things here. > Flagstaff did not have any insulin for me. This seems… impossible. They could be out of a specific SKU of Lantus pen , but that’s an entirely different thing from a pharmacy not having any long- or intermediate-lasting insulin. They probably had Lantus vials, or other glargine biosimilars, or NPH insulin or dozens of other types of insulin. > the Tandem tslim X2 requires the u…

>> the Tandem tslim X2 requires the user to "prime" the pump tubing with 10 units of insulin every time the pump shuts down or the cartridge is replaced. > This happens with every pump in one way or another to avoid getting air instead of insulin The tandem doesn't allow you to finish priming before it's used 10u. Even if you know it's fine, and can see drops of insulin coming out immediately, you've got to wait unti…

I guess if somebody is on humalog and is swapping out cartridges every 48 hours like the manufacturer suggests that could be a bit annoying. If somebody is on novolog (and takes less than a hundred units/day) it’s generally pretty easy to match cartridge duration to infusion set duration 1:1, in which case that 10u of wasted insulin gets thrown away when you discard your infusion set, just like any other pump with tubing.

Re: Having your insulin pump die while you're on vacation

#196

Post by krater23 »

I use contact lenses. Just beleive me, there are days I go out without them just to get used of it in the case I lose them. Everytime I leave my home, I have backup lenses. And not seeing is for me just a inconvenience, not more.

When my life would depend on this, I would NEVER accept to only have a complex electronic device keeping me alive when I dont understand it and can't repair it in the dark with my swiss army knife. It's a really honest text, but the anger and helplessness is just self implied. It's crazy how people today are so unable to manage their life without electronics.

Re: Having your insulin pump die while you're on vacation

#197

Post by bradleyy »

superxpro12 wrote: post #187
bradleyy wrote: post #86

This is literally the reason I'm still on multiple daily injections (MDI). I'm sympathetic to the author, I spent 50+ years without Type 1, and a few with it. Just this morning, I ended up bolusing correctly, but then an emergency caused me to perform a lot more exercise than I had planned on. Then, bam, I'm paralyzed in bed, thinking about calling the ambulance, eating sour patch kids. And believe me, when sour patc…

why not skittles...?

Skittles C4 is a Genuine Banger(TM).

Skittles candies are too grainy for me. I know they're a go to for many.

Re: Having your insulin pump die while you're on vacation

#198

Post by sjducb »

vidarh wrote: post #134
diob wrote: post #90

I have a fear that my CPAP machine will die one day while I'm away from home, such as vacation overseas or during a business trip. I literally no longer can sleep without it, I have anatomical sleep apnea (perfectly fit), but it's quite severe (79 AHI). I once forgot it on a trip to a different state, and tried to sleep in the hotel but basically just had insomnia, as I could no longer pass out when I woke up from th…

I found it weird to realise CPAP machines requires prescriptions some places. In the UK you can just order one next delivery from Amazon.

CPAP machines require a prescription in the UK.

https://www.hope2sleep.co.uk/cpap-machines-sleep-apnoea.html

Amazon is breaking the law by shipping one to you. I suspect there is very little enforcement of this law, which is why Amazon is unknowingly breaking it.

Re: Having your insulin pump die while you're on vacation

#199

Post by croemer »

Fellow T1D here. The same pump tslim X2 also failed on me 3.5y in, also on holiday (I was in Morocco). I had backup pens with me so no big issue.

I've now switched pump to my Ypso mylife with CamAPS FX algorithm. It's so much better than the tandem! Much fewer useless alarms, the algorithm is way better. Downsides are manageable: reservoir is only 160 units (instead of 300) and one needs phone to be always on (good motivation to keep it charged).

Re: Having your insulin pump die while you're on vacation

#200

Post by croemer »

bluesounddirect wrote: post #62
spacedcowboy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I'd far rather have the pump than not, also a t1d. I dont bother wearing it at night though. All my blood sugar does is decline overnight, and the pump isn't the signal that things are going awry, that's the GCM. The GCM will still signal the pump, my phone and my watch to wake me if I need to eat carbs (vanishingly rare) and the pump never changes my blood sugar overnight anyway as far as I can tell. So I dis…

For my wife, when on lantus and novolog ( no pump ) the overnights were always high blood sugars . The pumps definitely help , but in retrospect she also stopped eating gluten around the same time. The no gluten diet helped a lot . Side bar having been around the dexcom for 10 years now . The old/original audible alarms were easy to understand. Low crescendo for going low , low repeats for low alarm and the reverse f…

Tandem x2 alarm fatigue is insane. Constant vibrations about every useless thing.

Mylife Ypso with CamAPS FX though is really good. Just does the job. Alarms are centralized in the CamAPS app and you can silence them - something that x2 never let you do.

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