Pump Problems

I've had insulin pump problems of a new sort ever since pregnancy. During pregnancy, the extra blood vessels in the abdomen that every woman gets became a problem, so I tried other infusion sites. (The pump pushes insulin through catheter tubing into a tiny canula, about a half-inch long, that gets introduced under the skin via a needle that then gets pulled out, leaving the canula in for a couple of days, before it has to be changed to avoid infection, and also because healing of the tissue stops the insulin flow. The abdomen is a great site because it's surprisingly painless and allows insulin to flow faster and more reliably than in any other site on the body. A pregnant belly actually isn't supposed to be a problem in itself - the canula doesn't go in that far! - but accidentally hitting a blood vessel clogs the canula and stops insulin delivery.)

First I tried the thighs: too uncomfortable (too much muscle, though I'm not all that fit), and still too many blood vessels. Then the "hip" (really, a bit further back than that!) - okay, but hard to reach, hard to get the canula to stay in, and a literal pain in the butt. Then the back of my upper arm: surprise! That worked and actually wasn't too uncomfortable or too in the way, ven though I had tubing running down my sleeve to where I keep the pump, usually in my pants pocket.

After pregnancy, though, I eventually went back to the abdomen. It's just easier, less painful (really!), and more reliable. But now, every time I hold my squirming two-year-old, I can feel the infusion set pushing in, and it often just stops working - gets clogged with blood or, I guess, kinked. I may well also have scar tissue built up over the years of injections and then the pump. I rotate all around the abdomen, but it still seems like certain sites are useless, for the first time (I've used the pump for about 10 years). Perhaps pregnancy, or the C-section, did something to the tissue there.

So now, I await new infusion sets to go in my arm again (it takes several weeks to get them), and change out the current infusion sets two or three times a day, and try to keep my blood sugar from going hopelessly out of control (what's the definition of hopelessly out of control? Hard to say, I'm probably already there). I'm just not sure the arm will be enough out of the way of my daughter's sweet, grabbing hugs. But I'm not about to hold her at arm's length, so I'll have to find a technical solution.

Would I ever go back to injections, though? I hope never to have to. Even with all these problems, I have better control overall than I ever did with shots, and I can push a meal later if I want (up to a point), where I couldn't with injections. Sometimes, being able to wait until I put the baby (big girl!) to bed is the only way to get a proper dinner, where I can program my insulin and then eat all the food, instead of jumping up and down and keeping track of her meal. I wouldn't go back to having lows overnight several times a week, either.