The Power of Unclogged Tubing
Wednesday night before bed, my blood sugar was elevated due to underbolusing for my dinner of spaghetti with whole wheat noodles. I corrected, and set my alarm for midnight, to make sure I was coming back down.
Midnight: 119 mg/dl. Good, better.
5:30 a.m.: 241 mg/dl. WTF?! "Damn," I thought, "those noodles, sometimes they do cause a delayed spike, I'd forgotten."
Fairly aggressive correction bolus, since I'd be waking up for the day shortly anyway.
6:45 a.m.: 239 mg/dl. Now, really, what's going on?!?!
Detached the pump and checked it out by filling the tubing. Nothing comes out. Message: Blockage Detected.
4 units via syringe, change the tubing and reservoir, low carb breakfast. Good to go.
I called Smiths Medical (Cozmo) to ask why it takes so long to get a blockage detected message when, obviously, I hadn't been receiving adequate insulin for quite some time. Apparently, that message is triggered by the amount of back pressure in the pump, which must exceed 5 units before sounding the alarm. My basal rate doesn't create enough pressure, thus I will only see the blockage message during a large meal bolus, or when I try to fill the tubing.
I suppose going forward, whenever I have an unexplained high reading, I'll try to fill the tubing before delivering my correction bolus. With the pregnancy, I hate to stay high any longer than absolutely necessary.
The night, with my happily, unclogged tubing, my blood sugars were much better:
9:30 p.m.: 122 mg/dl
10:15 p.m.: 111 mg/dl
Midnight: 70 mg/dl (10 grams carb)
4:00 a.m.: 83 mg/dl (5 grams carb)
7:00 a.m.: 85 mg/dl.
Upon reading those numbers off to my husband this morning he responded, "Amazing what some unclogged tubing can do!" :)
*** In other pump news... even though I technically missed the deadline for my Cozmo upgrade, the nice folks at Smiths Medical extended the offer, and I was able to complete the test and submit a new prescription a few weeks ago. I've been waiting for my color pump to become available, so I haven't received it yet. However, we're going out of town for two weeks starting Tuesday, so I called to make sure we weren't going to miss it. It so happens that they were planning to mail it out yesterday. I had them change the address to my mom's. I will receive my shiny new pump with all it's extra bells and whistles next weekend when I arrive in Humboldt! Nothing like a new gadget!***
Midnight: 119 mg/dl. Good, better.
5:30 a.m.: 241 mg/dl. WTF?! "Damn," I thought, "those noodles, sometimes they do cause a delayed spike, I'd forgotten."
Fairly aggressive correction bolus, since I'd be waking up for the day shortly anyway.
6:45 a.m.: 239 mg/dl. Now, really, what's going on?!?!
Detached the pump and checked it out by filling the tubing. Nothing comes out. Message: Blockage Detected.
4 units via syringe, change the tubing and reservoir, low carb breakfast. Good to go.
I called Smiths Medical (Cozmo) to ask why it takes so long to get a blockage detected message when, obviously, I hadn't been receiving adequate insulin for quite some time. Apparently, that message is triggered by the amount of back pressure in the pump, which must exceed 5 units before sounding the alarm. My basal rate doesn't create enough pressure, thus I will only see the blockage message during a large meal bolus, or when I try to fill the tubing.
I suppose going forward, whenever I have an unexplained high reading, I'll try to fill the tubing before delivering my correction bolus. With the pregnancy, I hate to stay high any longer than absolutely necessary.
The night, with my happily, unclogged tubing, my blood sugars were much better:
9:30 p.m.: 122 mg/dl
10:15 p.m.: 111 mg/dl
Midnight: 70 mg/dl (10 grams carb)
4:00 a.m.: 83 mg/dl (5 grams carb)
7:00 a.m.: 85 mg/dl.
Upon reading those numbers off to my husband this morning he responded, "Amazing what some unclogged tubing can do!" :)
*** In other pump news... even though I technically missed the deadline for my Cozmo upgrade, the nice folks at Smiths Medical extended the offer, and I was able to complete the test and submit a new prescription a few weeks ago. I've been waiting for my color pump to become available, so I haven't received it yet. However, we're going out of town for two weeks starting Tuesday, so I called to make sure we weren't going to miss it. It so happens that they were planning to mail it out yesterday. I had them change the address to my mom's. I will receive my shiny new pump with all it's extra bells and whistles next weekend when I arrive in Humboldt! Nothing like a new gadget!***
posted by Kelsey @ 11:40 AM
3 Comments:
At 7:20 PM,
Bernard said…
That's strange. I don't know that I've ever had a clogged tubing in over 9 years of pumping.
Though I have had similar symptoms to what you describe. I generally put them down to poor absorption. Whatever causes them, they're a royal pain.
At 12:12 PM,
Christine said…
The new pump rocks- you're gonna love it!
At 4:43 PM,
Unknown said…
You know, I wondered about that. I had clogged tubing once when I had a low reservoir and I was sleepy and out of it and thought the fact that I had enough insulin in my pump (technically) to last till morning would be enough. So minimum five units of pressure, huh? Good to know. Ditto on the new pump thing. I got my upgrade about six weeks ago and I'm loving it (but not in that weird McDonalds commercial way).
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