How does insulin pump work?What are the benefits and advantages/?
February 6, 2010 by Diabetes and Blood Glucose Tips
Filed under More Diabetes Answers
Can you answer Ben’s question about Diabetes?:
I am a case of IDDM on lantus and humalog. I know nothing about insulin pump.please tell me in detail what it is and how it works and what are its advantage over injection insulin.
Diabetes Risk Factors
I am a case of IDDM on lantus and humalog. I know nothing about insulin pump.please tell me in detail what it is and how it works and what are its advantage over injection insulin.
Diabetes Risk Factors
Diabetes Feedback: Please see the web pages and Google search for more details on Insulin pump.
Diabetes Feedback: An insulin pump can work one of two ways, either dispensing tiny amounts of insulin all day or a measured amount all at once, based on your blood sugar reading. The main advantage to them is convenience; you wear it attached to your leg or hooked on your belt. A short, thin, right-angled needle (called a “Huber” needle) is placed into the fat of your stomach or leg, and a small tube leads from the needle to the insulin reservoir. So you’re only being stuck once by the needle, although you do have to have it changed on a regular basis. Insulin pumps are not a substitute for regularly monitoring your blood sugar. But they do save you having to carry insulin and syringes with you.
Talk to your doctor or diabetic educator nurse about it. By the way, they’re not cheap… but nothing in health care is.
Diabetes Feedback: insulin pumps work very nice, they hook up to your belt and battery opperated. i bought mine used off yahoo auctions very reasonible. give it a try. enjoy
Diabetes Feedback: I have been an IDDM for nearly 30years,since I was 4. I will try my best to explain how the pump works the way my doctor told me. I used humalog it gives a small amount of insulin every few minutes. when you eat ot your sugar is up you give yourself a bolus . The pump is made to work like your pancreas would. Instead several shots daily. you change your insulin pump every few days. They doctor will work a base rate and sliding scale for you. Also you would have to learn how to Carb count so you know how much insulin to take with certain amount of carbs. Talk to your diabetes spacialist and they will have a lot if information for you. I wish you the best of luck.
Diabetes Feedback: I’ve been a diabetic for 15 years and I have been on a insulin pump for 9 years now and love it. It gives you a little more freedom than having to carry insulin and syringes with you everywhere. You change your site every 3 days..your site is the place where you insert the needle. The needle is removed and a small catheter stays under the skin. This is painless. A tube runs from your site to the pump and locks into a reservoir which holds 3 days worth of insulin. The pump can use Novolog, Humalog and R Insulin. Your doctor will prescribe one of these for you. They set something called a Basal Rate this gives you certain doses of insulin at certain times all through out the day. You also take whats called a Bolus. You take a Bolus everytime you eat to cover your meal. There is a new pump out that also checks your blood sugar but they recommend that you still do a finger stick. Some pumps have something called a Bolus Wizard. This feature allows you to enter your blood sugar level into the pump, enter how many carbohydrates your going to eat with your meal. Your doctor will set you a carbohydrate to insulin ratio..(example: 1 unit of insulin for every 15 carbohydrates) after you enter these few things into your pump it will tell you exactly how much insulin to take. It will be able to give you 3 choices on how to take your insulin.. 1st is a regular bolus where you take your dosage at one time, 2nd is a dual wave bolus where you take half your dosage now and the other half an hour later ( the pump will automatically give you the dosage when needed after you give it the ok with the first dosage) and 3rd is a square wave bolus where it can give you your dosage over a certain period of time. The newer pumps run off of a AAA battery. Your pump will alarm and let you know if there is a problem (example: your battery is low, your reservoir is low, even a no delivery. A no delivery usually happens if your pump has a kink in the link) You can get online and look up MINIMED and MEDTRONIC these are 2 companys that sell the insulin pump and the supplies that go with it. You can request information on the pump you like and you will either get an email or sometimes someone will call you and talk to you about the advantages of the insulin pump. The pump is not water proof so you have to take it off to swim and shower. I highly recommend a pump to anyone who is taking injections. It gives you so much more freedom and it controls your blood sugars better than having to take injections.
*I hope this helps you.*
Diabetes Feedback: For you, Lantus works as your basal rate and humalog works as your bolus. Lets say to make the math easy you take 24 units of lantus a day. If lantus is working in your body like it is supposed to, you will get a basal rate of 1 unit per hour with the lantus. Where the pump is different you can change your basal to fit your needs, for example, I need .9 units of insulin per hour during work hours when I’m just sitting around, but after work I only need .6 units until I go to bed, and then I need .7 units. This is all programmed into my pump so everyday this is what the pump gives me. Also if I decide to do some sort of activity that may cause my sugar to go low, I can temporarily reduce my basal so that I can stay in range without having to eat some sort of snack.
Whenever you eat, you take a bolus of humalog insulin. With the pump you do the same thing, however it’s already connected to you, so you just program in how much insulin you need, and the pump will deliver it to you.
Pumps are not perfect and a lot of things can happen to restrict your insulin delivery. Since with the pump you only get short acting insulin, if things go wrong, you can be in a world of trouble with DKA fairly quickly. That is why it is very important for pumpers to test very frequently.