Wednesday, December 20, 2006

...Please, can I?!


I don’t like to change my pump site. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been doing it for many years. I still hate it. I hate the time it takes and I hate the pain it causes. I use quick sets, and a quick serter. My old quick serter seemed to be loosing it’s bling, so I ordered two new ones. They’re driving me crazy. The quick set doesn’t seem to “nest” in the serter, the way that it did in the old one, causing the sets to fall out when I tilt the serter toward my stomach.

I must have really hearty tissue. I have always been able to get away with leaving sets in for up to 6 or 7 days. My friends with diabetes have always gasped at this fact. “Doesn’t it hurt?” Nope. I leave it in until it feels irritated or until my fasting blood sugar in the morning starts creeping up. I know, I know, I’m going to diabetes hell. Believe me, that’s not the only reason I have a special suite ready and waiting. (darn holiday snacks!)

But for the last couple weeks, I haven’t been having great luck with pump sites or blood sugars. So I’ve been changing the set every three days. And by golly… it really does give more consistent blood sugars.

As I was standing outside with Dixie today, watching her romp through the grass and roll on her back, I was a little disappointed. Knowing that I really should change those darn sites more frequently was like I had gotten the “real” answer from one parent, and desperately wanted to find the other parent for a “better” answer.

O.k, O.k., I know… stick with the first answer. Don’t go looking for the answer you want. Stick with the one that is right.

3 comments:

Scott K. Johnson said...

Great pic!

I too have had the same quick serter for years. Not sure what I'd do if it broke or I lost it.

Have you had any trouble with scar tissue or anything leaving the sets in that long?

I have always tried to be pretty religious about changing every 3 days just to avoid that damage. No idea if it's worth it or not...

Bernard said...

What a sweetheart you've got, that's a lovely picture.

I generally go for about 4 days. After that I'll usually see some type of problems and recovering from them isn't worth the effort. But EVERY time I change I hate, hate, hate having to push those buttons on my quick serter.

At the moment I'm blessed with good insurance coverage so that makes it easier to stick to the rules. It does worry me that my insurance will change at some point - I'm not looking forward to that.

Molly said...

Bernard-
That sweetheart is me before having diabetes. :-)
Scott-
Yes, I have scar tissue. But nothing major or sticking out.