Monday, January 13, 2014

dear readers; i need your advice

today i have to order my pump supplies.  

i use an Animas Ping pump (which i love!), and i have tried several different infusion sets.

i had been using the Rapid D for quite some time, but they don't quite fit the pump properly and i have to trim a little off the sides of the part that attaches to the cartridge.  not a biggie, but still i began to wonder if that may cause a problem down the road. 

i then went to the Orbit MICRO steel set, but was told that they would  no longer be carrying these and would have to go to the Orbit Teflon.  me and teflon do not get along.  some sort of skin allergy(and the constant kinking) put me off.  i have tried using tegaderm between the set and my skin but i seem to be allergic to it too.  not all the time but every now and then.  enough so that i don't want to do that 'cause i end up with itchy blisters that leave an ugly scar.  i'm not vain in regards to the scarring, just the itching drives me crazy!

so i went back to the Contact Detach.  it's the one i started with originally when i first got my pump 3 years ago.  i originally changed sets because of money.  i needed more bang for my buck and with the Rapid D, i got that.  now that i have things a little (a lot) more fine tuned, i can order just enough for 3 months and it works perfect.  

however, i seem to have an allergy to the sticky stuff on the Contact D too!  again with the blistery, itchiness.  now before every set change, i wipe my skin down with an alcohol wipe, let it dry, spray the area with Benadryl Itch Spray, and let that dry.  insert set and voila!  no itchy blisters!

however, dear readers, i need your advice.

what type of infusion sets do you use with your Ping?  have you ever had these problems? if so, how did you solve the itchy blisters?  what about teflon allergies?  is there a set out there that i haven't tried that might help?  does anyone know of any other steel sets?

i'd appreciate any advice you may have to give.  

thanks =)