#Omnipod

[simswithdisability]

OMG! Look at these! Dexcom and Omnipod accessories for TS2 by cfranck8 on MTS.

As a diabetic who is currently wearing a Dexcom G6 (the one in the last two pics) this makes me so happy!

Get them here!

[fairydropart]

I’ve finally gotten to try my first insulin pump! So far it’s been really great, although there’s a lot to learn and take into consideration, but I’ve always found it interesting to learn more about my illness and find ways to improve my treatment, so I don’t mind at all. Though I’d share something a little more personal, since it’s something I’ve been looking forward to for over a year now, and, well, I’m pumped to see how this will impact my day to day life! ☺️

[aviolinstruggle]

God I am calling it right now I think that Apple/Skydance changed the Omnipod from a handheld, magnifying glass-shaped device to that freaking airtag on Eva’s sleeve. I hope to god I’m wrong, but it hasn’t appeared in any of the promotional stills we have, and well… just look at this thing:

Like we can’t put it past them considering all the other design changes they made 😔

[itsraining-honey]

its the second anniversary of my type 1 diabetes diagnosis.

i know i dont NEED to write these out, who wants to relive bad experiences, right? i like writing these because i can reflect back on the two years ago today when i was in the hospital and see how much i've grown from then.

this happened way before i've gained new friends and followers, many are in the dark of what happened. short story, i was sick and now have a life long condition.

its extremely serious. everyone hears diabetes and goes "its all that sugar". in some cases but not all. well, now i NEED all that sugar to live.

two years ago, the week of halloween, i was extremely sick. i didn't know why. i thought i had gotten COVID at first but i realized it wasn't really a respiratory problem so the next conclusion was the flu.

unbeknownst to myself, my mother, and brother, i was dying for a whole week. my pancreas failed, shut down and i was dying. my bathroom floor would have been where i died if i never went to the hospital. on november 1st, i was told what was happening to me. i was in DKA and needed to go to the ER immediately.

i had no idea what DKA was. for those who don’t know, it stands for diabetic ketoacidosis. i was mostly throwing up, trying to rest (which i hadn't for an entire week/ ended up hallucinating on halloween night after everyone went to bed which i find highly ironic lol), and drinking up as much water i could.

my stay in the hospital was filled with agony, lessened from the medications and insulin they gave me. at that point, i also found out i had air in my chest due to a hole in my esophagus from throwing up constantly and violently. it was scary.

at some point, i knew i was gonna die. i was scared at first. my mom had me shower and i couldn't even move. i couldn't get up. i was so shaky and light (again, ironic since im a fat girl). when i was in the shower, i sobbed and sobbed over the past. my relationship with my father, my friends and my family. i couldn't take it.

when we got to the hospital, i accepted i was gonna die. i was so sure of it. and then i didn't. i survived and i am continuing to survive. no matter how high my blood sugar will spike from eating or when i'm fixing a low, i think back to that week and think about how proud i am.

there are points i want to give up. throw the towel in and throw away my insulin, my CGMS, my pumps, all of it. i want to give up all the time. i want to stop taking insulin and just be normal, like i used to be. now having this condition, i don't want to be normal anymore. it took me a long time to accept my diabetes, it's apart of me now and i've learned it up and down, side to side and in reverse.

no one understands diabetes like someone with diabetes and even then, everyone else's diabetes is different. somedays are bad, somedays are good.

i'm happy to be alive. i'm happy to be online and still making art, listening to new albums, reading comics, making new friends on tumblr and twitter, seeing my oomfs talk about huntress or just their interests in general.

i am SO happy to be here and experience my life past 17. i'm 19 now and got to experience halloween and fall again for the second time without dying. so thats cool :D

thank you for reading and being here along with me on my journey, my friends💜

[sunshine-and-sprinkles]

My blood sugar has been consistently spiking around 8:30-9:00pm for the last week (at least??) and I keep thinking my pump would for sure have recognized and adjusted for that by now but it just keeps happening 😫 I’m doing really well mental-health-wise not having to micro-manage my blood sugar but I was doing a lot better numbers-wise when I was!

[quietly-collecting-spoons]

My omnipod stuff got approved!!!

I’m excited to try it out, and with my insurance and the copay card they offer, it’ll be cheaper than my pump supplies monthly AND I won’t have to stock up on AA batteries like my life depends on it (it does)

If anyone has any tips, I’d love to hear them! Also I’ve been on the dexcom for like two?? years now if that means anything

[planstransamanacanalpanema]

In my lifetime, I've been on a decent number of insulin pumps, starting with Animas, the Medtronic, then Tandem before switching to a new insurance company that didn't cover Tandem supplies. I saw the Omnipod offered a 30 day trial and figured, what the heck, and having lived with multiple systems with a lot of unique quirks, I thought I'd share the quirks of this system too.

Having been a tubed pump only person for the first 14 years of my diabetic life, I was a little hesitant with the Ombipod, and initially, I was blown away. The cannula insertion was easy, the cannula was about as comfortable as you'd expect any cannula to be, and despite being a fairly large piece of tech taped directly to your skin, I didn't feel like it got in the way. I did enjoy not having to worry about tubing getting stuck in things, or finding a pocket to shove the pump into or a waistband to clip it to. For anyone who struggles with these aspects of the pump life, this pump may do pretty awesome things for you.

However, these were really the only positive sentiments i had towards the system, probably because I'd lived so long with tubed systems, they never bothered me like they do some people. Those annoying little quirks though really turned me off to it.

For starters, you cannot control the pod without a phone or the Personal Diabetes Manager (PDM) they send you. If you forget the pdm, or if you wish to escape from your phone for a bit, you will have no control over your blood sugar. I realized this once after going to work and realizing I'd left the pdm at home. I had my phone though, and hoped I could switch control from the pdm to my phone, in the same way that with the dexcom you can get readings and manage the system, but no such luck. Once you start the pod on one device, you are stuck with that one device for the 2 to 3 days you have the pod inserted.

The pods themselves cause a number of problems as well. There is no way to recycle them, as they are medical waste, meaning every 2 to 3 days, you have to trash a small computer. That might not be a big deal to you, and absolutely no shame if it isn't, but for me it felt incredibly wasteful. The comfort I'd experience in my first days didn't let long either. If you've ever dropped a tubed insulin pump and had your infusion site catch it, you'll know these jarring movements can be pretty painful. The pod isn't quite that bad at first, but after a few days with a wrench directly attached to your site, I did find myself hurting pretty badly. Also, if your pod fails for any reason, it will s c r e a m. It'll produce an extremely loud, high pitched, and continuous beep until you can get onto your phone or pdm and deactivate it, and for the life of me, no matter how quickly you can get that to turn off, it still takes too long. Your results will also vary, particularly if you feel less strongly about the cleanliness of your insulin, but once the pod expires, which is a maximum of 3 days plus 8 hours where it beeps hourly, there is no good way to salvage that insulin. Yes, you can draw the insulin back up from the port you put it in, but once that's in your new pod, if it starts to seem infected, you'll lose that insulin and the pod when you remove it.

Compared to the tandem, I did actually really enjoy the site tracking feature. When you insert a new pod, it gives you the option to track where you've placed it in a limited number of spaces, including the back abdomen (typically known as your back, but ok), and directly on your ass cheek. If you can handle the omnipod, or really any infusion site in your ass cheek, you are far, far braver than me. On the other hand, I desperately missed the calculator feature on the tandem that allowed you to add up the cards you were eating.

As for the app, it does its job, but still has these quirks that drove me a bit nuts. You can't turn off the security feature. Whether you use your phone or the pdm, you'll always have to enter a pin to be able to do anything. This could definitely be a problem if you have neuropathy or other dexterity issues, and even as someone without these issues, I still got pretty annoyed with it. This also presents a problem when you're trying to get the screaming to stop. I didn't love that in my furious effort to get this overwhelming noise to stop, I was impeded by a fucking pin. It also made the lack of calculator kind of annoying, because if you needed to use your calculator to total your carb count, you had to exit out of the app, do your calculations, and then throw in your pin all while not forgetting the number you just came up with.

I also struggled a bit with picking sites with this pump. My abdomen is relatively unusable as a pump site after nearly 2 decades of pump therapy, so I usually use it for a cgm site and then will place my infusion site elsewhere. However, because the omnipod doesn't have an intermediary between it and the cgm, it has to stay "within line of site" of the cgm. So, if the pod is on the back of your arm, your cgm can be on your flank, or on your leg, but not on your abdomen because they're on opposite sides of your body, and even though I got it to work on the opposite arm, even that isn't recommended. So, wherever your cgm is for 10 days, all your sites have to revolve around that one spot through multiple changes. The small upside though is that, even though you can't bolus without a pdm or phone, the pod can still read your cgm and increase or decrease your basal rate based on your blood sugar. However, these treatments for high blood sugar in particular are painfully slow because as compared to other systems, the omnipod can change your basal rates but it can't offer you even small boluses, unlike tandem or medtronic.

That said, everyone with diabetes is different, and I know this system has been a godsend for a lot of people, just not me. While I can't say I'd recommend it broadly, I've definitely met some people who I think would have loved this system. Regardless, I hope this helps, and may the A1C or Time in Range, depending on which one your doctor still uses, smile upon you.

[diabetes-365]

Hey tumblr friends, fellow diabetics. I just watched a rather mediocre movie with well known actors, and although the movie was far from Oscar worthy, it got me thinking about my life with diabetes.

The movie is Spiderhead, don’t bother lol. Chris Hemsworth and Miles Teller, idk who roped them into it - or how much Netflix was paying them, but here I am posting on tumblr at 2 AM about it haha. (No major spoilers ahead).

The movie is about drugs given to inmates and tests done on them. In this day in age, they convey that effect on a phone - a simple swipe of the finger and the test subject (a person) is given whatever dosage of this drug, and it effects them immediately, and if too much is given, it can be lethal.

Sound…familiar?

My phone, has an app that’s connected to a device on me (CGM), that displays blood sugar numbers every few minutes. In the very near future, my Omnipod PDM, personal diabetes manager, will be integrated into that app, or a separate app, and everything will be done a phone. One, single point of failure. To me - it’s scary to think about.

Also - crazy coincidence - but the other day I just so happened to run into someone the other day at a coffee shop - who’s literally working for Omnipod and that future that I just mentioned. He said he was a developer working on the software - being a product manager myself for software, and someone who’s literally wearing an Omnipod, I had a bit of a chat with him. I actually told him my fears too, about a single point of failure, and ya know - what if someone hacks my phone?!

There will be a future where your blood glucose level AND your insulin management, happens from one device. To me that seems inevitable. And to me, that’s terrifying. Imagine someone hacks your phone and cranks the insulin dosage up, or does the reverse and turns it off. Accidentally or maliciously. I don’t know about you - but thoughts about this type of thing comes up frequently for me.

Not the hacking of a device per day, that shit can and probably will happen - but what comes up more is…the fragile mortality us type 1 diabetics have because of our dependency on insulin, and devices.

Now granted this movie is in the future (it appears so), and it’s ridiculous in nature…but it still somehow finds its way to fuck with my brain.

It’s almost the same way a zombie movie fucks with me. As a type 1 diabetic, I would be - barring any zombie bites to the group - I would be the first to die. Even if we made it to a pharmacy during Armageddon - there’s simply only enough insulin for x amount of time, and when there’s no more, I die.

I know, I KNOW, this is fucked up to think about. But when your life is run by numbers every single solitary second, and your only alive because this solution inside of a vial - you think about things differently.

I mean, when I hear a electronic beeps out in public, I’m not sure if it was me - or if it’s just a noise of a chicken fryer, or a truck, or something else. I’ll literally check my Omnipod JUST to be sure I’m not in any danger.

Granted - I’m extremely and utterly privileged in my life that even when something goes wrong with my pump or CGM or blood sugar - I’m most likely able to fix the issue myself, or get assistance before I’m in a true near death scenario. Despite that, I still have fears.

I mean for fuck sake I’m watching a futuristic movie about drugs in inmates and all I think is…yeah I know what that’s like. The prisoners in this movie are “free” to roam the premises, they can play video games, ping pong, nothing is locked, but things are fhat way because they agree to the experiments.

Diabetic life is kind of similar - in that we are free, we can run marathons, climb Everest, do incredible feats - but we are bound to this ever present threat. A threat on our very lives.

I’ve spoken on here many times about how - how I do feel strong, despite diabetes. I know right now it seems like I’m being incredibly morbid, pessimistic? Idk.

I have always been real on tumblr, and that’s what I’m trying to be. I do feel at times, incredibly fragile because of this disease. This movie made me feel a button press away from death, and when I stop and think about it - it scares me. Like if someone truly wanted to, they could snatch my PDM without me noticing, get passed the code, and then destroy me.

I suppose, life’s fragile for anyone really. I’m just up late at night talking about someone killing me, and yet tomorrow I could get t-boned by a semi truck while driving to the grocery store. Ok yeah, definitely being morbid, but just being real.

Technology has saved me though. Insulin’s mass manufacturing, Omnipod, and CGM’s. It’s really incredible what’s even changed since I was diagnosed in 2011. Things have gotten smaller, better, easier to use, and I now have more information than ever at finger tips too.

So what are your thoughts? When you watch zombie movies or futuristic movies, does your min run wild with what you’d do or where’d you go? Does your mind jump to - how much insulin is in your fridge right NOW?! Or am I the only one losing my mind lol.

Just…don’t hack my phone, or my PDM, and I’ll sleep better at night. 🤣

[mostghst]

i feel like it’s so bittersweet getting a new pump. had the omnipod classic for like 6 yrs and i just got the 5… im happy but i feel so sentimental ;~;)

[shxleo97]

Share your experience with your pump (first time getting it) with me.

I’m getting one soon and i’d love to know what to expect 😅

[2ramtrucks]

“yeah bro i just gotta change my pod” but instead of being addicted to nicotine i am much worse, diabetic

[wolfshystuff]

Stacy from Turning Red is my favorite because she has type 1 diebetic and i have it too so i'm very happy for the representation!

[postbluevoidedbaby]

Having diabetes sucks but omnipod sucks harder

[quietly-collecting-spoons]

Do you see the vision

(Here’s the sticker)

[willifolts]

I’ve got the omnipod on the back of my arm and I’m terrified of falling asleep—it’s so hard to get comfy rn.

[savannahjamesauthor]

I went to get my nails done and saw a woman wearing and omni pod on her leg and she had Twisted Love by Ana Huang in her hands. I never said anything but that lady is my new best friend