Pump Break

My New Look Diabetes

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This is what my diabetes currently looks like.

One evening injection of Lantus, which is currently giving me freedom from attachment and freedom from thinking about rapid acting basal insulin. After a few mild night time lows, eight units seems to be the magic number.

One infusion site still stuck to my stomach, which I am able to connect my insulin pump to at mealtimes to deliver boluses.

One late Animas Vibe insulin pump, which I now carry around in my diabetes travel case rather than on me. My insulin pump offers me the convenience of an ezCarb calculator at mealtimes, and no needles to deal with while I’m on the go. 

This was a very spontaneous decision that I made in the space of an hour over the weekend. I honestly had not had a single, fleeting thought cross my mind in the days leading up to it.

Despite being only a few days into this pump vacation, I feel as though I have finally escaped the feeling of a dog chasing its tail while managing my blood sugars throughout most of April. Lately, there have been a few too many highs and a few too many lows.

Just as I wouldn’t enjoy eating a ham sandwich for lunch every day, I feel like I need to shake things up every once in a while in order to me feeling fresh and motivated to manage blood sugars. Whether that be a new sticker for my meter, a Rockadex patch for my FreeStyle Libre, or in this case a new insulin regimen.

Every time I do this, I learn something new.

Rather than rushing into splitting Lantus injections after some high blood sugar levels, this time I’ve decided to wait a few days for my basal insulin to settle in.

Yep, Lantus does take some time to settle in, in my experience.

After reconnecting to my pump following my last break in December, I discovered that residual Lantus hung around in my system beyond its 24 hours, causing some lows in the first 24 hours.

So this time, I wanted to wait a good 2-3 days for my Lantus to settle in before coming to any conclusions. So far, one injection per day is treating my blood sugar levels kindly. Besides, I was feeling that split injections were just too many variables to play with at the end of my last break.

I’m sticking with my evening injection, which keeps me stable through the night. I only experience a slight effect of dawn phenomenon after I first wake up, which I can manage with an extra unit or two of rapid acting insulin.

Safe to say, I’m feeling a bit more enthusiastic towards diabetes this week.

Stay tuned.

Taking a Break from My Insulin Pump

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I spent two weeks disconnected from my insulin pump last month. It was honestly the best decision I could have made for my diabetes management in the long run. Going back to the simplicity of injections gave me some much needed relief from the stress the pump was inflicting on me, as well as a lot of time to reflect on how I wanted to manage my diabetes going forward. With a much clearer head today, I will add some more to what I wrote about this pump break last month.


As we were heading into warmer weather and the festive season towards the end of last year, I was spending a lot more time being physically active. Watering the garden, Christmas shopping, setting up Christmas lights and activity around the house. Suddenly, a lot of what I had learned and experienced over the past few months from using an insulin pump had changed.

Being plugged into rapid acting insulin all the time felt exhausting. I was going low all the time. Even simple things, like watering the garden, would send my blood sugars spiralling downward. I felt like a single day without a hypo was rare. I often found myself eating my way out of impending hypos, and trying to predict what my blood sugar levels were going to do to me before leaving the house.

I felt really, really lost. I had very little confidence in my basal rates, or insulin to carb ratios. I had no idea whether it was my basal rates, or my insulin to carb ratios that were sending me low. I no longer felt safe leaving the house for half an hour without a meter and tonnes of skittles to fall back on. I’m pretty sure I had made the connection between physical activity and my lows, but I just felt far too overwhelmed at the thought of fine tuning everything once again.

I was nervously pacing up and down on a Friday night in December, deliberating over a site change or a Lantus injection. I was equally scared about going back to using Lantus, given how uneven and inconsistent it had been for me in the past. What finally got me over the line was telling myself that insulin pumping was no longer working for me. I knew that it was the source of all of this frustration, and that I didn’t need to use it if I didn’t want to.

The days that followed were quite honestly the happiest I’d felt in several weeks. The freedom from that annoying chunk of a pump, and the relief from not having to stress about basal insulin sending me low from a short walk. I was honestly so happy at the time, I was convinced that this might be the way forward for me. I was so relieved, I kept telling myself how much better injections were compared to the last few weeks I’d had on the insulin pump.

I went from having days like this.


To having days like this.


I anticipated I’d probably only last a few days without my pump. But injections were going surprisingly well for me. Everytime I stared at my pump, I just knew that I didn’t feel ready to hook back onto it. At the one week mark, I even stashed it in a drawer because I didn’t want to look at it.

My pump break gave me some much needed time to clear my head. I plugged back in for a few days over Christmas, because I knew that I would need the temporary basal rates and extended boluses to help me cruise through all of the food. I was fully prepared to take it off again after Christmas, but quite honestly I haven’t felt any desire to do so since.

I’ve been setting temporary basal rates around physical activity, and they seemed to do the trick from the get go with minimal hiccups. I’ve been setting a -30% temporary basal rate before I get into the car to go to the shops, and switching my insulin delivery to “off” for half an hour if I go for a short walk around the block in the afternoon. I think I’ve had about 2 or 3 hypos in the New Year, which is not only a big relief, but tells me that I must be doing something right. 

If it weren’t for Christmas, I’m not sure whether I would still call myself an insulin pumper today. In those two weeks, I was absolutely fine with the possibility of going back to injections permanently if that was what worked best for me. 

At the moment, things are travelling well with the pump. Things are making sense once again, and I honestly have not felt any desire to be without it since Christmas. 

Could this change again down the track? Who knows? This is diabetes, after all…

What I have learned, however, is that I absolutely will not hesitate to take a pump break if the need arises again.

My diabetes, my rules…

Pump-less in December

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I was staring at the infusion site on my stomach that needed to be changed on Friday night, and all I could think to myself was I really don’t want to do this. 

I thought about the stressful week I had just had. I thought about all of the running around I’ve been doing lately, and the hypos that accompanied the running around. Spontaneous activity is so friggin hard to plan for. How can I possibly guess when I’m going to get the urge to vacuum my bedroom floor, fiddle around with the Christmas lights that have fallen, or water the garden – and set a temporary basal rate an hour in advance to stop me from going low? This was hardly an issue on Multiple Daily Injections.

It was 37 degrees on Friday, and the pump just added to the hot weather discomfort. That lump in my pocket was a cozy comfort during the Winter, but now it just annoys me. Every time I sprawl out on the couch, or lay down in bed, its there. Every time I have to stop and tuck the excess pump line back into the waistband of my shorts, only to have it emerge again soon after. Every time it weighs down my shorts with all of the other crap I carry around when I leave the house, and I’m left pulling up my pants every five minutes.

I’ve definitely been cruising a little more than I would normally allow myself. Hello, December. I had two iced coffees last week. At 69g of carbs a pop, it’s not something I can usually justify consuming, especially being in liquid form. I’ve been treating myself more often than I would usually allow, and carb considerations cross my mind less often than they usually do. Maybe a break would give me time to refocus?

I love my insulin pump. I love the added precision, and extra flexibility that it allows. Having an insulin pump has really motivated me to more actively manage my blood sugar levels and count my carbs. In seven months, I don’t think I’ve ever seriously considered abandoning my insulin pump.

But I was already daydreaming of being free from my pump. I was excited by the idea of shaking things up and doing something different, in the same, refreshing way that going Libre-less was.

I have learned so much about my insulin dose requirements since starting out on a pump, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I could apply this logic and newfound diligence into Multiple Daily Injections a second time around.

With Christmas just around the corner, I doubt that this pump break will last very long. But for a few days at least, I will savour the freedom of not having to feel for a flying pump every time I get up off the couch, and the extra space in my pockets.