Omnipod on a toddler from a Mother's perspectiv
First off, for a better understanding of the Omnipod Insulin pump, I would suggest reading this rundown of all the different insulin pumps out there by Beyond Type 1. No need for me to reinvent the wheel here.
Our elder daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when she was barely 10 months old. Despite having lived with an insulin pump for so long myself, there were a few reasons we didn’t get her attached to all the diabetes technology right away. She was using diluted insulin, and didn’t meet the minimum requirements for a basal rate yet, so an insulin pump just wasn’t an option in the beginning. I didn’t slap a sensor on her because she didn't mind the shots or toe pokes yet, despite us testing her over 10 times a day. She wouldn’t wake up from the pricks, and even slept through nighttime feedings (we were still nursing at the time) for her low blood sugars.
Fast forward to a year later and after a week of having to physically hold her down for her shots, I knew it was time for an insulin pump. She had been on a sensor for a while now, so I was over the physical attachment of something that made her Diabetes more real to me. Without all the gadgets and gizmos, I could pretend we weren't dealing with a disease that had almost taken her away from me. But when she started hiding from me to eat a snack that she didn’t want a shot for, and all the Doc McStuffins in the world wouldn’t convince her to let that orange cap near her, I knew we wanted the Omnipod.
I have never used anything besides Medtronic on a regular basis for myself. I have taken a pump break before, and used a spare Omnipod here and there. The number of times I have had my tubing get caught in a door knob meant there was no way I was going to make my kid deal with that if I had a choice. We’re with Kaiser, and they don’t cover Omnipod (they are in talks now, but 2 years ago they were not). After letting her do the 30 day trial that Omnipod has, we worked with her endocrinologist and convinced Kaiser to make an exception for a tiny almost 2 year old at the time. And we’ve never looked back.
Not having to physically be right next to her to give her insulin was life changing. To let her eat multiple times a day without additional pokes, to decide she wanted a few more apple slices or crackers, or sleep in were all completely worth the biggish pod on her arm or leg. Turning her basal off during dangerous lows is a peace of mind I don’t have to explain to you. I didn’t want her to have to wear a fanny pack or spi-belt to keep a life saving medical device on her, and also didn’t want to have to physically pull out a pump from wherever we had hidden it so she couldn’t accidentally bolus herself in order to give her insulin. I can’t imagine having to do that in the middle of the night while she’s sleeping. It helps that she gets some sense of independence decorating her Omnipod’s with nail polish and temporary tattoos with the help of one of these decorating masks, or these reusable pod covers. Our T1D babysitter (she wrote our last blog post about Omnipod as a teenager) also made having a pod a really cool thing for our daughter.
That being said, it isn’t perfect. It is a little big compared to how tiny she is. The PDM is big and clunky and the buttons are sticky. You do need the PDM to be pretty close to the pod before it actually communicates (it has rarely ever been able to work from 5 feet away for us as advertised). And there is the occasional occlusion which is harder to verify than with a tubed pump. Having worn both types of pumps myself (and all the different types of infusions out for tubed pumps) I can say that it is not painful. Correction: all infusions can be painful if they hit a vein or muscle, but that has nothing to do with whether it is a tubed pump or not. The insertion is seamless and another really nice feature. I love that Aiyla never has to see any of the needles going into her, both with Omnipod and Dexcom. Before we got the Omnipod, I worried that we would have sites ripped off from her playing etc. But that has maybe happened about 5ish times in the past two years, and mostly because she pulled her pants off too fast going to the bathroom. And once I think she just decided to pull it off at school because it was itching her. I can’t blame her.
With the new Dash system already on limited release and Omnipod Loop on the horizon (and Tidepool Loop further down the line), my issues with the PDM being clunky (and hopefully the sticky buttons) are null. I will write a detailed review; and hopefully get up some video tutorials of setting up all the different Omnipod Loop components together; whenever that is up and running. The only reason I’m not 100% sure I will be switching to the Omnipod system myself once Loop becomes available on it is because of how high I ran the one time I tried it. I promise to do my due diligence and give it another few tries, but I have heard from multiple people that because of the type of cannula Omnipod uses (6.5 mm at a 50 degree angle), it requires a higher basal/more insulin. I don’t know if the lifestyle difference of having a tubeless pump is worth the increase in insulin for me, although I haven’t done enough research on it. It will be a little bit of trial and error before I decide one way or another.
If you have anymore questions specific to toddlers on Omnipod (or anything T1D related), feel free to shoot me an email at type1basics@gmail.com or send me a DM over on Instagram. I hope this was helpful!