Shoot Up or Put Up

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by Tim

Video blog – getting tubing caught

29 September, 2012 in Living with diabetes, Video Blog

Going through your soaraway Shoot Up’s archives the other day, I discovered a load of video blogs that Alison and I had recorded but which I had never put on the site. I blame myself for this disgraceful negligence, I really do. Anyway, here’s the first of the lost videos and it’s all about infusion set tubing. Don’t say we don’t spoil you.

Scots to get insulin pumps shocker

27 February, 2012 in news

Happy days for potential pumpers in Scotland. In response to huge amounts of nagging from pancreatically challenged Scots, IPAG and Diabetes UK, Scottish health secretary Nicola Sturgeon announced today:

“By the end of March 2013, this treatment [insulin pumps] will be made available to the 480 children and teens struggling with type 1 diabetes who could benefit from it…Over the next three years, NHS Boards will also increase the number of insulin pumps available to all Scots to 2,000, tripling the current amount.”

This dog is pleased to see a great result from a campaign that’s been ongoing for some time now.

More detail at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2012/02/insulinpumps27022012

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by Alison

Ingenious infusion set removal

8 February, 2012 in Living with diabetes

Now of course the easiest way to remove an infusion set is simply to pull it off, like you would a plaster. But here at ShootUp we say where’s the fun in that? There are far more entertaining ways of separating a set from your skin.

  • Buttock and thigh sets can be conveniently ripped out by over-enthusiastic trouser removal when going to the toilet. This is always a pleasure.
  • Pumps have been warned before by ShootUp about their door handle fetish. But to little effect. Handles of any form – door, cupboard, drawer – act as a handy extraction device. And have the added joy of allowing you the experience of horizontal bungee jumping when you discover just how far your tube can stretch as you continue walking past the handle you didn’t realise you were attached to.
  • Door frames can also be a useful tool. Mostly I manage to just ram the pump into them as I walk through, chipping the paintwork as I go, but occasionally you can hit them at just the right angle and remove an infusion set.
  • My most exciting infusion set removal was on a boat in a storm whilst trying to get the life jackets. I wouldn’t recommend that one.
  • Dropping the pump so that it hangs from your infusion set is surprisingly ineffective. I have done this many times – mostly because it seems to make non pumpers a bit queasy when they see it happen and is therefore entertaining – but have never managed to pull a set out this way.
  • Applying a set after having had a bath seems a sure fire way to mess it up. It goes in ok, but generally falls off within a couple of hours – something to do with hot, damp skin and a residue of bubble bath I think. There is plenty of skin cleaning gunk on the market to avoid this problem, but where’s the fun in that?

Any other exciting ways to remove an infusion set?

Avatar of Tim

by Tim

One year of pumping

3 November, 2011 in events, Kit & equipment, Living with diabetes

The cake is a lie!

The cake is a lie!

Bring out cake, candles, streamers and booze! My pump – Englebert Pumperdinck – is a year old today. Technical he’s not, I’m not actually sure how old my pump is. But I have now been pumping for a whole year, so I imagine that amounts to pretty much the same thing.

So what are my observations of pumping one year on, I hear you cry? Well:

  • Pumps are not a panacea

Despite having a pump I still have type one diabetes. I still have crappy days with high blood glucose and I still have hypos – some worse than others. Despite the hype they sometimes get, pumps are not a cure. They’re just different from injections. In my view, some people might actually fair better on injections than pumps as injections are a hell of a lot more simple. Horses – as they say – for courses. This leads me on to the next observation.

  • Pumps are a pain to set up

With injections you shove in your long-acting and you shove in your short acting at approximately the correct time. A pump gives you the ability to adjust nearly every aspect of your insulin delivery. The possibilities are almost limitless. Take, for example, your background insulin – instead of one injection a day of Lantus my pump automatically injects the following amounts throughout the day:

00:00 – 1.95 u/h
01:00 – 2.25 u/h
05:00 – 1.65 u/h
07:00 – 1.70 u/h
10:00 – 0.70 u/h
16:00 – 0.275 u/h
23:00 – 0.70 u/h

As you can see, it’s a hell of range and it took me forever to work out through a lot of trial and error. I also have variable carbohydrate to insulin ratios (00:00 – 7.6; 16:00 – 8.0) and variable insulin sensitivity amounts (00:00 – 1.2 units brings me down 1 mmol/l and 16:00 – 1.5).

So you’ve got to be really knowledgeable about your diabetes – or have a really good team to help you – to get it right. It’s hard work but without being set up correctly a pump is just a big, dumb, expensive lump of plastic.

  • Once they’re set up properly they’re brilliant

However, once you’ve got over the pain and strain of setting the damned thing up, pumps are truly ace.

Take for example, this morning. At 7.30ish I wandered down to have my breakfast of toast with honey and banana. It’s about 52g of carbs and my BG was a nice 5.0. So I went to the pump’s bolus wizard, entered my BG and the amount of carbs and it automatically calculated that I needed 6.9 units of insulin. One press of the ACT button later and 6.9 units were flowing into me and I forgot all about diabetes until I started writing this article later on this morning.

  • Pumps are much more consistent

Not naming names here – oh, okay I’m talking about Lantus – long acting insulin is wildly inconsistent. Will you go high, will you go low? Who knows – all bets are off. When I go high it’s generally traceable to something I’ve done wrong. I didn’t bother carb counting properly, or I’ve been exercising and didn’t allow for it.

My diabetes is therefore much more predictable now. As it’s more predicable I can more easily avoid highs and lows, which can only be a good thing.

  • Pumps are much more flexible

About to exercise? Then turn down the background insulin for the next three hours to 30% of the normal amount. Three button clicks and it’s done.

About to go out on an all-night boozing bender with flagon after flagon of beer? Turn the background insulin up to 110% to cover off the extra beer-carbs and then turn down to 40% before the inevitable BG crash in the early hours. Wey-hey life is suddenly slightly more normal!

  • It’s really not a pain being attached to a pump

Before starting on the pump I worried about being attached to something all the time. I was used to the pump within about a week and it now lives happily on my belt or roams free during the night. It’s really never been a bother.

So there we have it, after the initial anti-honeymoon period (what is the opposite of a honeymoon?) in my view pumps really do score highly on all counts. Good for you Englebert – have a bit of birthday cake!