Friday, June 8, 2012

Trust Your Pump?

Monday morning I changed my reservoir and infusion site, Wednesday mid-day I changed my infusion site again and by Thursday I made a last ditch effort and sucked the insulin out of the current reservoir into a new one - let me explain.

After the cheesecake debacle on Sunday evening my blood sugars only climbed higher.  I was able to correct for the huge portion of fat I had that evening but I couldn't figure out why my blood sugar was continuously + 250 from mid-day Monday to late yesterday.  I was exercising, I was eating incredibly healthy and I was getting a pretty good amount of sleep.  It simply didn't add up; either my insulin needs had increased 10x in a 24 hour period or something was up with my pump.

The magnitude of the blood sugar snafu struck me on Tuesday morning.  I woke up at 6:20 am to go for a run before work, my blood sugar was a shockingly high 248.  Thinking it was because I had adjusted my basal rate a bit too low pre-run I had my pre-run breakfast (ezekuiel cereal and strawberries) and took in 2 units of insulin.  Post run my blood sugar was 202 - normally my blood sugar drops 100 - 150 points during a 5 mile run, especially after eating something as low glycemic as that cereal.

I took in 2 units of insulin post run, showered and hopped on Mr. Foldie to get to work.  By the time I finished the 5ish mile ride into work my blood sugar was a hellacious 350!  Rage bolusing did little to bring my insulin in line as my blood sugar was above the pixie stick line for most of the day.  About 15 units of insulin later my blood sugar finally started to fall and post bike ride home my bs was around 185.  However, after a light dinner of chicken sausage and arugula salad my blood sugar was back in the 250 range!

Wednesday morning I woke again with a blood sugar near 300 and the pattern from Tuesday was mirrored.  At that point I decided to change my infusion set to see if there was some blockage going on that my pump wasn't reporting but to no avail.  I continued to rage bolus for most of the day but by 10 pm I was fighting off a ton of lows although no where near how low I should have been based on the amount of insulin I was taking on.  Thursday morning the pattern became much worse and I was in the mid 300s the entire day. 

With an awful headache, an upset stomach and blurry vision I ran to Google and searched "how do I know if my animas pump is broken."  I came across this fantastic blog post from back in July 2011.  The symptoms the post speaks about seemed to be pretty close to what I was dealing with.  So by the time I got to the end of the post and read about a strong smell of insulin inside the pump from a leaky reservoir I just had to investigate.  Sure enough when I checked the reservoir cavity I was overwhelmed with the smell of burning rubber (what I think insulin smells like) and the bottom of the reservoir totally smelt like it too. 

That's when I took the extra reservoir I had in my back pack to suck the insulin from the current reservoir into a new one.  I wanted to make sure that my insulin didn't go bad so was trying to keep things consistent.  An hour after I changed reservoirs my blood sugar began coming back into line.  This morning with no changes and a very similar routine I woke with a blood sugar of 125, having my customary breakfast I rode to work and got in with a blood sugar of 89.  It's nice being back to normal, now if I could just shake the cob webs of the past couple days of highs.

The bigger question is, how do I start to trust my pump again?

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