So I have been on an Insulin pump(animas ping) for about 3 weeks now, and so far it has been great. I didn't realize how much I would appreciate not having to do multiple daily injections until now. Anyway, While it has been great, today, specifically at 9:00 this morning I was in my economics lecture of about 100+ people reviewing for our final exam and my insulin pump decided to sound an alert every 3 min or so. I'm not too sure why this occurred, but when I was able to finally get out of class and tinker with it, it read, "NO DELIVERY, PUMP NOT PRIMED", my last set change was on Wednesday, so it was obviously primed. My point is, for those of you who have insulin pumps, do they ever glitch like that and sound alarms, and at times when you would definitely prefer that it not? Because while I do enjoy attention every so often, 100 people staring and glaring at me every 3 min for an hour because a loud noise keeps coming from my pants isn't my idea of a good time.
I know that when I first got the pump I had that issue. My SQL professor tried to take it because he thought it was a cell phone. You can set it so that it vibrates rather than alarming. It still alarms sometimes depending what the alert it is trying to notify you of is, but the vibrate feature is rather nice at not drawing TOO much attention to yourself.
I have my ping to only have a noise alarm if the battery has completely died and i'm not getting insulin, or if i stop getting insulin for another reason. everything else is vibrations..and while it's still kinda noisy it's not as bad as having an alarm going off. no one usually notices unless i've taken the pump off and its the reminder vibration alarm to remind me it's off..so it starts shaking across the table haha.
In high school the battery died on my in my spanish class. It stated doing its beeping thing and then my teacher made it into a game, "Whoever can find what is beeping gets an exta point on the test" Fabulous- I'm really not one to share that I have diabetes with people (unless I am really close to them) so this was really embarrassing! I walked out of the room to the nurse's office with everyone staring at me as I walked down the hall- I was a beeping girl. The teacher, who I had descretely told that I need to go to the nurse, had apparently decided that it would be a great idea to anounce to the class that I had diabetes while I was gone . . . Thanks Mr. David!
[quote user="Ariana"]
In high school the battery died on my in my spanish class. It stated doing its beeping thing and then my teacher made it into a game, "Whoever can find what is beeping gets an exta point on the test" Fabulous- I'm really not one to share that I have diabetes with people (unless I am really close to them) so this was really embarrassing! I walked out of the room to the nurse's office with everyone staring at me as I walked down the hall- I was a beeping girl. The teacher, who I had descretely told that I need to go to the nurse, had apparently decided that it would be a great idea to anounce to the class that I had diabetes while I was gone . . . Thanks Mr. David!
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does yours really beep for that long? mine only went off every 5mins when the battery dies and the second i hit the button, it shuts up.
Mine does too when it it low on batteries, but once it gets really low it beeps continuously . . . I think I would prefer if it just sent out one last beep and died.
[quote user="Ariana"]
Mine does too when it it low on batteries, but once it gets really low it beeps continuously . . . I think I would prefer if it just sent out one last beep and died.
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what pump are you on? my battery died last night, mid-ushering shift(i was on my break tho and i was on fb so a friend on his way downtown stopped in with a new battery for me!) and it only beeped every 5minutes, even tho it was completely dead and i wasn't getting any insulin..
Do you all like the pump? My wife and doctors are pushing for me to have it.
My pump always starts beeping at the worst times it seems. I am on the omni pod and it only beeps out loud when I need to change the pod or the insulin resevoir is low. but still it always seems like I am in the middle of a meeting luckly everyone at work is very light-hearted about it and someone usually says something like "Julia's pancreas is yelling at her again." lol I love my job. but the worst time is when it goes off in the middle of the night I get so mad at it because I just want to sleep. One time I remember my pod beeping in the middle of the night but I must not have fully awoke because the next morning I found my pod thrown across the room. lol
Scott, definatly get the pump. It is the best move I have made since becoming diabetic. I have lost like 10 pounds since being on the pump because I don't always feel like I HAVE to eat even when I'm not hungry just to fight off a low. You should go to Omnipod .com and they can send you a packet that includes a fake pod for you to where so you can see if you like it or not.
[quote user="Scott"]
Do you all like the pump? My wife and doctors are pushing for me to have it.
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I personally don't like the pump..but I have promised myself and my endo to wait until I get my first A1C results appointment in two weeks before I decide to get my money back or not. I have until mid-January and so far, it's looking like I will be going back to shots due to it not improving my control enough to notice(even my endo said at my appointment last week "well..you're post meal numbers are slightly better..but otherwise you're still all over the place..").
Everyone I know(minus people on here who have pumps and have told me I will "love" the pump) is against me keeping it..including my mother, who was excited about me no longer needing to take shots after 16years.
Animas has a 90-day money back guarentee and you can get saline trials for most pumps, so you could always try it...
I had a pump for a year or so when I was in 8th grade. I hated being attached to it, and I'm such a klutz that the tubing would catch on things and pull at it's injection site. I also itched like crazy where the tape was!!!
I switched back to 24 hour insulin and humalog when I ate. Been on that therapy for years now, but it can be irritating to take so many injections, and I have thought about going back on the pump. It's been close to (if not over) 10 years since I went off the pump, and I'm wondering that maybe being older (thought still as klutzy) would make the pump a better fit for me now than before.
I agree. I have had the pump now for almost 2 months and I love that I don't have to eat all of the time to fight lows. I gained several pounds just trying to keep from having lows when I was on shots. I love my pump.
One time, when I was on CGM, my pump kept going off every twenty minutes saying I was low (low alarm was set at 90), so my mom kept waking up, this is about 1-3 am, mind you, and checking me. Needless to say, I was not low, and so my mom called the company, at like 4:15 and was quite upset in the morning because when I woke up, I did not remember any of this.
Normally my pump is pretty discreet when I have a low reservoir or battery, but when it's a no delivery warning I try to change it as fast as possible and so the alarm isn't so annoying. I can't remember one specific awkward time with a pump alarm but my friend (also on the pump) told me that when we were taking the MCAS (state-wide) test, her pump alarm went off or she bolused for some reason and the teacher looked up at the otherwise silent class trying to figure out what the noise was.
i don't hear very well, so everyone around me tends to hear the beeping while i'm completely oblivious to what's going on. it's less annoying for me that way... :o)
If I'm going someplace and feel like the alarms might be a problem I switch to vibrate mode. I have a Minimed pump and I don't think the alarms (volume) are nearly loud enough but I know other people have heard them when I didn't. I keep my pump in my jeans pocket and that muffles it. When I had jury duty I switched it to vibrate. The only pump alarms I ever hear are the BG reminder check, low battery & low reservoir. Low battery & low reservoir can both be avoided. I never have occlusions or no delivery alarms since I changed the tye of infusion sets I use. With Quick-Sets I had alarms constantly.
I now use CGMS as well so my pump alarms more often. I just put it on vibrate if I have to.
my pump will randomly set off alarms like the auto off and the button error. i have it set to where it vibrates.... well...lately it hasn't been vibrating or beeping. so i hope its nt dying on me. :( poor pumpy, please dont die on me!
it can be infront of me and all of a sudden the button error alarm will go off, or some other random alarm. its also cleared the screen in mid bolus. its done several things... button error, no delivery when its not even connected to me when in priming it, um.... it turns itself off at times (thats not scary at all!), and a few other things
my first pump, the up arrow button stuck really bad, my second pump the sensor went bad in the reservior plunger/pusher upper thinger, my third one made an annoying noise when i'd bolus and my current one is...kinda retarded... i have terrible luck with pumps!
Haha, I forgot to fill a new cartridge this morning, so I ran out of insulin at the end of 4th period. My pump was vibrating every minute to alarm me that there was no delivery. And the whole class was silent because we were writing essays, so it seemed so loud!
The Omnipod doesn't have a vibrate option and I hate when it beeps with a warning (like 10 units of insulin left). It's so annoying because 10 units can get me through several more hours so I don't need a reminder. It is good that it beeps when there is an occlusion but the bad part is that you can't get it to stop beeping until you find the PDM and press a bunch of buttons. Even then, sometimes it doesn't stop the high pitched non-stop screeching. One time I had to rip off the crazed pod and throw it away. Then I had to take the trash out because it was still beeping even in the garbage can! Fortunately in that instance I was at home, but I always fear that will happen to me in public. It would be so embarassing.