My son and I are both on the Minimed Paradigm pump. He will be taking sailing this summer and will be on (and in!) the water for 3 - 4 hours each day. I would prefer he not disconnect for such a long period of time, and he won't have an opportunity to periodically reconnect and bolus for missed basal insulin. Because he'll be in salt water, I don't trust any claims of the pump being waterproof. For myself when I paddle my outrigger canoe, I put my pump in the old Sport Guard and fhen put that in a kayaker's dry sack. Unfortunately, the old Sport Guard doesn't fit my son's larger 3.0ml pump. Any ideas?
Call the company and ask for suggestions
My daughter will be going on a pump in a few weeks for the first time. While at the "pre-pump" class we took at the hospital, the issue of disconnecting for longer periods came up. The diabetes educator we worked with said that dosing with Lantus as the basal and using the pump for boluses only for 24 hours worked for some people who needed to disconnect for periods longer than an hour. Check with his endo to see if this might be an option. I don't blame you for not wanting the pump around water. My biggest fear would be that it would somehow get knocked loose, pull out the site and have the pump sink to the bottom of the ocean!
Now that is a good idea. I might try that for myself. That is why I like this sight. We can share idea's like your diabetes educator has.
I just want to caution you that despite initial claims that the insulin pumps are 'waterproof' or 'water resistant', I learned firsthand that it is not. Unfortunately, I was in Costa Rica for a week when mine failed. Fortunately, I am savvy enough to know to travel with a backup plan (syringes/lantus/humalog). DON'T get it wet.
I went for a day-long tubing excursion and put my pump in several zip-lock baggies and kept it with the lunch coolers and then just bolused for lunch plus missed basal. I also swam a bit in order to make up for the missed basal, but I'm in my 40s, I don't know how that translates to a juvenile.
Loads of luck!
Thanks for the tips and ideas. I've had two pump failures in my 17 years on the pump - both due to exposure to saltwater. So I definitely will not trust that the pump is waterproof. The lantus idea we can use for occasional days at the beach, but sailing will be every day for two weeks. I'm tempted to just have him disconnect, bolus for 1/2 of the missed basal before disconnectiing, and bolus for the other 1/2 when he reconnects.