Pump Vacation

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.