Wednesday, March 08, 2006

More on the pump

I said I'd post about the pump every day, so here it goes.

Yesterday's sugars were as follows:
302
114
416 (yes, you read that right, and yes, his set was working)
256
314
288
76
221
during the middle of the night:
255
269
231
203
His sugars have never run high at night. I don't know what happened.

Today his sugars have been:
181
243
213
196
354
272

When he clocked in at 354, I checked his site. Sure enough, there was blood clogging the canula. This was right before supper. He's screaming that he's hungry, I'm stressing about getting the site back in. I called Animas. They said he probably needed to try another set and that the Dr. needed to let me know which ones to try. So, then I called the Dr. She said she'd call Animas and order something else and have them sent to me ASAP. Riley did OK with the set change. He just grunted a little when I put it in. Then, he ate. The pump suggested carb coverage of 0.9 and a correction of 0.4, or a total of 1.3. I wasn't comfortable giving him that much at 7 o'clock at night, so I havled his correction dose and gave him a total of 1.1. Wasn't really comfortable with that number, but I wanted his sugar to come down. An hour later, it was 272. Then an hour after that he came to me and told me his head hurt. This usually means his sugar is low. So, I check it. It's 77. But, he looks lower than 77. I get another meter. (We have 4) and check. It says 55. I have a feeling that's more like it. He gets his drinkable yogurt and right now it is 130/101 (depending on which meter you want to believe) . He'll get his bedtime snack soon. The thing is, I know what's coming. He's going to rebound into the 300s. Stupid diabetes!!!!!

Now, a meter question. We got a One Touch Ultra Smart with his pump. We were using it and I liked it just fine, but I had gotten so used to the Freestyle Flash. I just like it's size so much more and I absolutely love that the strip lights up. It makes the nighttime checks so much easier. So, I just bought 100 strips for the Freestyle, which we all know ain't cheap. ($94 and some change) I will go through them in less than 2 weeks. Well, last night when I went to check Riley's sugar at 3 PM, he was halfway off the bed. I scooted him back over and when I did, his lancet fell behind the bed. It took me forever to find it. When I finally found it in my sleepy fog, I looked and there on the bed was his Freestyle meter and two, count them, two test strips. Now, if you've read my earlier post, you know test strips jump out of the trash around here and scatter themselves about the house. I'm thinking one is old and one is new. But, which one? I'm guessing the used one will show an error message when I put it in. No such luck, they both work. So, I check with the first, 255. Like I said, his sugars don't usually run high at night. So, I think this must be the defective strip. I try the other one, 123. Now, that's more like it, but I wanted to be sure. Out comes the One Touch Ultra Smart. It registers at 242. More like the first reading. The same strips work on the One Touch Ultra, so I get that one out, change the code, and try again. 242 also. Alright, maybe the Flash works OK. I go back to bed, but not to sleep. I lay there for a full hour, wide awake, thinking about blood sugar machines. I get up to test again at 4:00. I just used the Flash this time. When Michael got up at 5:00, he used both machines, and they both came back the exact same number. But, I'm still paranoid that the Flash isn't working appropriately. The meter I used tonight when he had his low, was an Accucheck Aviva. I've never used it before tonight. It came in my JDRF Bag of Hope. (It did come with a nice lancet that I've been using ever since it came, the Multiclix. ) What should I do? Trust the Flash? Or switch back to the One Touch? I know no machine is perfect, but I want the one that is going to be the most accurate. When you are 3 (or I guess any age) there is a big difference between a 55 and a 77.

Have I ever mentioned that I hate diabetes? If I haven't, let me say it now. I HATE DIABETES!!!!!!



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We use the Freestyle Flash and we love it. We have also noticed some weird numbers but we test it against another Flash if we suspect problems (we have three extras). If you accidentally have alcohol on the skin which has not dried, or you accidentally touch the skin and not just the droplet, it can skew the numbers. I'm sure you know this. If all else fails, I get out the fake blood vial and check the meter with that. Do you like the OneTouch Ultra? I liked the way it gave average blood sugars for last 9 days for lunch, dinner, breakfast. I have never yet used the Ultra.

Penny Ratzlaff said...

Anon,
I love the Flash. The One Touch Ultra Smart is nice. It's just a bit bulky. It is neat how it shows you trends. I got 100 strips for it when we got it, and after I used them all, my husband and I decided we wanted to go back to the Flash. We never really used the graphs anyway. I'm a little obsessive about writing all of his sugars down, so we just compare them that way. Also, for those middle of the night tests, the strip light is a lifesaver. We used the Ultra for the first 3 months. It's the meter he got from the hospital. Then, someone gave us a Flash and we had been using that until the pump came.

Sandra Miller said...

Penny, I'm wondering about the blood in the canula issue...

We've had it happen ourselves in the past, but very, very rarely now.

I'm sure that because Joseph is extremely thin, problems with the Insets were unavoidable. But he really liked these sets... soooo, if we wanted to continue using them, we had to come up with a way to make them work (he did NOT like the Comforts).

As a result of much experimentation, this is how we do an insertion:

After applying IV Prep & IV 3000 tape (with more IV prep on top), I have Joseph sit with the edge of his chair seat touching the backs of his knees (this way his abdominal muscles are more able to relax).

Then I have him rest his arms on the table in front of him (again, to aid in relaxing the stomach), and slouch a bit.

I know he's in the right position when I see the IV 3000 tape wrinkle. He knows to check for this, too.

Finally, he takes a couple of gentle breaths in and out, and we insert.

Again, rarely painful (other than a very slight stinging just after insertion-- if more than that, then I know I may have hit muscle, and am more likely to have problems with the set).

In addition to his abs, we use a very small area on his hip (just behind the hip bone). These are even easier to insert, because it's much harder for him to tense that area...

Hope this helps.

And hang in there-- I remember those scary numbers when we first began pumping.

Heck, we still encounter scary numbers. Just not so many, and we're a LOT better at dealing with them...