Pump-related allergies

[cweising]

Hello,

I am wondering if anyone else out there has a child who experienced allergies to the teflon cannulas/soft plastic cannulas in their infusion sets?  Now my daughter (age 7) is using the Animas Contact Detach infusion set (steel 6mm needle).  She had two good sites, but the last ones haven't produced great numbers.  The last one completely stopped working after 24 hours - her numbers crept up close to 400 in the night after being completely fine during the day.  An injection worked great, so we knew it was the set.  We are wondering if possibly her body is reacting to those as well??  (even though we are told you really can't)

Thanks,
Chandra

[admin]

I posted this on FB and got numerous replies:

My 5 year old couldn't use the sure-t. Lots of air bubbles in the pig tail after every bath and clear fluid leaking from the site at every change. We ditched them and went to the 6mm quick sets with the teflon cannula. Try getting rid of...  that steel... I also found when we started the pump she needed a much higher basal around bedtime than we had anticipated, it's almost double her basal any other time of the day, so some of the high numbers might also be the need for more night time insulin. We're DB 2 1/2 years, pumping 2 years, and A1C 5.9! And tired...

My son has 4 basal rates. The night time ones seem to need adjusted more often than the daytime rates. He's using the sure-t steel needle sets. He usually does well with these, but occasionally has to change the entire site because it gets red, puffy and leak back and then the site stops working. Maybe its just going to be a trial and error kinda thing to find an infusion set that works well with her body.

We had similar issues. My daughter is 8, diagnosed at 5. It seemed like we tried everything - different cannula, etc. We switched insulin from humalog to novolog and the problems went away, but started again after several months. Fin...ally, our cde had the idea that maybe my daughter was allergic to something in the insulin - maybe a preservative or something. She thought humolog and novolog were just different enough to stop the problems for a little while. Anyway, to sum up, she put my daughter on Zyrtec and the problem was solved - now we have minimal failed sites where before the Zyrtec, we were lucky to make it to the 36 hour mark on a pump without crazy highs that would only come down with an injection or a new pump site. Good luck.

site problems are our number 1 pump issue. my son breaks out with all the different types of sets. They itch, turn into a rash, sore, etc. we have tried many different types of sets, tape, creams, soaps, any and everything we can think of. ...his dr said it is some kind of allergy but we just cant pen point the cause. when my son was younger..before diabetes, he had several breakouts, rashes that seem to be all contact related. so it just may be sensitive skin issues. we just keep neosporin on hand at every site change and always treat any scratches, bleeding from the site, etc. your not alone. oh and we hardly ever make it 2 days before a site change.