Ok, so 6 months into my pump I’m on my first proper summer holiday.. As a gal who likes to get a tan, where do you put your pump while participating in topless sunbathing (whoa, steady boys, it’s in private, my BMI prevents me from going public on the beaches of the Med)..? Still worried if it’s really waterproof while swimming, and the endless question of what to do on hot summer nights when full on fleece pyjamas are not required.. any ideas? Thanks..
Wouldn’t it be easier to switch back to MDI (just for duration of hols?). Especially if you’re going to embalm yourself with sunscreen…infusion set adherence’ll be {presumably} problematic…and how hot/cold is the pump allowed to get – can you shove it in a cooler bag, like insulin pens? Hope pumpers have more answers than this question-mongering injector.
check the pump website. There’s a plastic clip which can be attached to bikini bottoms and as Tim suggests a rather fetching black chord with pouch which can be swung round you whilst in bed (a bit unnerving at first). As long as your swimming and not just standing in the pool you can take the pump off for an hour and if necessary give 0.5 units extra to cover. I’m fantastic when I swim as I’m deaf and wear hearing aids and I can’t see without my glasses!! Batteries and water don’t mix. I usually keep my pump in the shade at the beach. I was told the pump doesn’t like the wind?
I’d rather chop off a limb than switch back to MDI when on my hols. I just clip mine to my bikini bottoms, it’s always worked fine for me, the only time it’s a bit of an issue is when we’re sailing and I sometimes catch it on ropes. At night I either clip it to my knickers or just let it roam free, it soon follows you when you turn over.
@Alison – Hi, welcome back, I’ve missed you! By the way, you do realise you’ve now told us all you never sleep totally naked? Charlie of course, has told us that she does! Or is it boorish of me to mention that? The Aquapac case looks really good, mind you, it should do at that price!
Yippee! Mother is back, doing the Pump-under-any-Circumstance March one-legged! Doesn’t the infusion set’s adhesive pad tend to loosen when you remain in water for a long time or when you sweat profusely and your sunscreen joins the fray…or was it a cold Turkey ?
@Teloz Nothing I tell you will ever compare to what you dream up in your imagination! @ckoei I tend to wear my infusion set on my bum (easy Teloz!) so that avoids the sun cream issues. It was 40 degrees most days in Turkey and I was in and out of the water a lot but most of my sets lasted 3 days and those that didn’t managed a respectable 2. @tim When I have my pump wrapped around it the damn things are called many names, rope being the only publishable one.
@Alison and @Tim – well I am getting on in years and I live all on my likkle lonesome, what do you expect? Which reminds me, I must buy some of those little round glasses, a la Benny Hill…
Thanks for all the “ideas” – some there I wasn’t expecting!.. @Alison I’ll move my infusion sets on to my.. somewhere else..! I was worried about getting white circles on my tummy!.. the pump has been happy on my bikini bottoms so far. No return to MDIs for me (ever, I hope!) @Teloz – Steady on..! You may think that, but I couldn’t possibly comment.. and anyway, I thought you already had those little glasses, or are you still on your binoculars? @ckoei please don’t encourage Teloz.. he really doesn’t need it.. and as he says, he lives alone, is getting on in years, and we know, his heart has given him a wobble already.. If Alison and I actually published what we wear/don’t wear in bed I don’t think he’d take it.. imagination is a wonderous thing, and still dangerous in some cases!
… oh, and I’m still having a lovely holiday!
@Charlie – the glasses I have at the moment are those semi-fashionable oblong ones, so I have to get the proper ones. I’m saving up for a beret and a beige mac as well! I’m not going to go for the full flasher kit though, it would be so humiliating if I flashed a group of young ladies and they all burst out laughing and waggled their little fingers at me…
@teloz: I’ve been accused of inciting you to be lewdicrous, so in the spirit of Shoot Up’s prim propriety, I beg you to grow your beard extra long to cover all shame…and hope the young ladies are a bunch of short-sighted, nymphomaniac Rapunzels, who’ll waggle their plaits at you ~( °?° )~
@charlie: Originally, the topic sounded as if you were looking for something akin to kennels to send your pump-pet to (while you embark on a week long mud-wrestling extravaganza)…but if you ever do want to leave your dear little Pumperanian behind for safekeeping, I’m sure there’s many a pumpless Shoot Upper willing to feed it, and let it piddle on their stomach and bum for a wee while… -)
@alison: I don’t suspect you of mud-wrestling, but you have done some pretty adventurous things while wearing your pump: is it covered by your own private insurance, or does the NHS provide that blanket?
@choei you can do what you like.. Animas (who made my lovely pump) have international help lines for holiday peeps and will send you a replacement anywhere (apparently) if you happen to do something a little too energetic (??!!!) and break it… but there again, to stay safe, I’ve just been sunbathing and swimming while away.. well, wouldn’t want to risk it!
ooops, sorry @ckoei can’t spell at the best of times, and I am on holiday spirits (currently my favourite of whiskey and diet coke – I know @Tim turns in his future grave at every mention of this..)
Thanks for transforming me into a foghorn Is whiskey&coke the indigenous grog of the Med? Hope the grub you’ve tried out is a bit more exotic – and have Girlish Spirits/Animas been able to cope with it?
I don’t really do sunbathing (makes me too hot) or extreme watersports like @alison, but I do do biking, with a tendency to fall off. I was worried about breaking the pump by landing very heavily on it and the hard cases produced by Roche (mine is an Accuchek Spirit btw) don’t look sturdy enough. So I bought (for £4.99 in the sale, should have been £10) a hard belt-mounted camera case. Its padded inside, got elastics inside to hold the camera/pump in place, and the zips zip to the bottom, so I can hold the pump upside down and run the tube out the base (which I prefer to do, to reduce bubble problems!).
And I can confirm that, even after having been landed on quite heavily a couple of times over the summer, neither the case nor the pump have suffered at all. Best 5 pounds I spent in the recent past, I think!
But the point is, you dont have to fork out loads of money to get a case to suit you – be inventive!
@alison – those waterproof things – it says they can cause pumps to suffer from reduced flowrate, and gave the test flows as 2 and 10 U/hr. Did you have problems with flowrate? My flowrate is only about 1/3 of that of their lower tests, so I’m thinking they’d probably reduce my flowrate considerably.
@ckoei Yes my pump is covered on my home insurance (although nobody said I had to do that). From what I’ve seen, as long as it’s within it’s 4 year warranty the companies seem pretty good at just replacing them if they’re damaged, I think the only time you’d need insurance is if it was stolen.
Mine’s survived all kinds of activities but the riskiest does seem to be walking through doors, I’ve clonked it on more door frames than anything else. The cracked paintwork at waist height in our house is testament to that.
@annette The lowest flow rate I’ve tried my aquapac with is 0.50 and I had no problems with it. That said, I’ve only ever used it when I’m doing exercise rather than just lounging around so any reduced flow would probably be offset by the exercise anyway. Sorry, that’s probably not much help!