I lift up my shirt and poke a round my abdomen with my finger - making sure the spot I eventually choose for my site change will be free of lumps, bumps, marks, redness and any weird tender to the touch.
Real estate is slim on my belly and I must choose wisely.
I find a spot that looks and feels right, grab the skin and slide the needle of the cannula in.
This morning’s 11a.m. site change went in easy and as it did, I let out a sigh of relief.
Sidebar: Sometimes I don’t realize how much and or often I hold my breath when it comes to diabetes related things, until I actually stop holding my breath.
I filled filled the cannula and silently said, “fingers crossed,” - and then I tweeted that thought because I know I’m not the only one.
Now all I can do was wait to see if it took.
After 3 days of a damn near perfect site - this new site could work, suck at sucking up insulin, or be some strange hybrid of working and not all rolled into one. - what I like to refer to as a zombie infusion site.
I’ve been considering (and by considering I mean that I keep telling myself that I really should and then completely ignoring what I said,) attempting an infusion site in my arm - the thought of tangled tubing makes me wince at the thought - but diabetes requires us to be brave and try new things because we must - and an arm infusion site is on the docket in the next few weeks, (first week in October,) like it or not.
Current #Bgnow as of two seconds ago 180 - not terrible after a breakfast of lots of fresh pineapple,(pineapple tends to make me go higher in the mornings but I couldn’t resist,) eggs and 2 cups of coffee, and a site change mid morning. And so far so good, for now.~
I have the same issues. 3 out of 4 sites are fine, but the signals that it's a zombie spot (pain and bleeding) are so common across even working sites that it's an annoying amount of failure. It's really stings when you have 25% + failure rate you cannot control, when everything else we work so hard at to finely tune (carb ratios, basals, etc).
ReplyDeleteI used a pump for 20 years and slowly my A1c began rising. After eliminating the myriad of other possiblities, I discoverd that after 60 years of Type 1 diabetes, I had a serious case of scar tissue and had to change to the insulin pen with multiple injections. The insulin pen works well and does not give me the same problem as my infusion sets did. By the way I tried many different infusion sets and found the same problem with all of them.
ReplyDeleteI don't use my abdomen at all. I use my hips for infusion sites and upper thighs for CGMS. I suppose at some point in the future I'll use my abdomen again. Hopefully that will be as close to virgin tissue as it can possibly be.
ReplyDeleteI love using my back. and just before my back. I used my legs and side for years but I tell you my back rocks right now. Someday back to the legs, I am sure.
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