Pump vacation: Too good to be true?

disclaimer: I had really bad blood sugars this week. They influenced the tone of this post and they are sorry.

So during the vacation, I used a split dose of Lantus for basal insulin with Humalog (as usual). I ate at least one ice cream cone per day, we ate out some, and I left my food scale at home. So I was expecting wild swings in my blood sugar with 8-10 injections per day correcting all those crazy swings. BUT I woke up between 80-100 mg/dl and most of the times that I checked, my blood sugars were near perfect. I was doing everything wrong, but the numbers didn’t show it.

OK, I was definitely more active than usual, but I wasn’t experiencing frequent lows the way I usually would. I was constantly amazed by my great blood sugars.

I chalked it up to a GREAT vacation and reconnected to my pump on the last night. Right when we got home, I felt a cold coming on… and I’ve been sick most of the week. My blood sugars were everywhere- really horrible. Highs that linger and just refuse to come down. It seemed that NOTHING was going right.

So it’s hard for me to write about how I love my pump and how much I missed it during the vacation. BUT when I am thinking more rationally, I realize that there are reasons that I love the pump and reasons that I have better control with the pump. I will list them here, mostly to reassure myself that all the extra work with the pump is worth it. Feel free to add to my list (or disagree with it!):

• I correct EVERY blood sugar, even when they are just slightly high. It is hard to correct just slightly high blood sugars with injections.
• I exercise more with less lows because i can turn my basal rate down to 50% one hour before exercising– this is amazing!
• I can live with more flexibility, because if I ate, checked my sugar, then want to eat more, my pump can process all that data telling me what to do without going high or low (it remembers how much insulin is active in my body– something that is hard to keep track of unless you write down your every move).
• It’s easier for me to give boluses early. You should give your bolus 15-20 minutes before eating. I can often do this while walking to get lunch, while cooking, etc. I think that with injections I would often not bother to do this.
• I have different basal needs through the day. In fact, most of us do. So the pump can give me more basal insulin in the late evening than in the early afternoon. You can replicate this by splitting your long- acting insulin dose, but with much less precision.
• With the pump, if I have good blood sugars and do not eat or bolus, they will stay good all day. The basal really works as a background insulin. When I used injections, I could not go 12 hours with eating, which means sometimes I was feeding my long acting insulin.

4 Responses to “Pump vacation: Too good to be true?”

1. karend1 Says:

   
   August 21, 2008 at 10:23 pm

   Thank you for posting. I definitely will go pumpless on my next beach vacation. I have been pumping for 6 years and diabetic for 42 years and thought I would never go back to shots, but I have a lot of lows with pumping and I feel it is from the constant fast acting insulin streaming into my body.

   Thanks again

   Reply
2. Toni Says:

   
   August 24, 2008 at 7:31 pm

   Another benefit of pumping, at least for me, is not having to worry about whether or not I have needles and insulin with me if I stop to eat something unexpectedly. I love the flexibility of the pump.

   I have not taken a pump vacation (at least not voluntarily…only when the pump went down), but I did just do a week of camping at the beach. Were you at a warm beach? I know I needed far less insulin (a good excuse to continuously snack at the beach) when I was in the warm weather. My pump is supposedly water proof, but where to tuck it in is a problem. Besides, it has a crack in the case and I’m waiting for my new ping, so wouldn’t want to risk it. I would just disconnect when I went in the water, but a pump vacation would’ve worked too.

   Reply
3. Roberta Says:

   
   November 1, 2008 at 3:44 am

   I took a pump vacation for 2 months last year, and my A1c actually went down! I loved not being tethered and having the freedom to wear a bikini without having to try to hide the infusion site. I did split doses of lantus, bolusing with novolog. I did have to think about carrying a vial of insulin, but it was easier than disconnecting and reconnecting constantly while in the blazing hot sun for hours on end, and keeping the pump cool as opposed to a small penfill of novolog. Also snorkeling and water sports are easier as my pump is not waterproof. I actually loved it. I did correct with small doses of novolog with 1/2 unit BD syringes and always carried glucose tabs. When vacationing in tropical places I may well go back to injections.

   Reply
4. Annette Says:

   
   March 10, 2009 at 3:59 pm

   I know this is from last summer, but as a person just getting on the pump (tomorrow actually) beach vacations, my favorite, have been a worry. I’m so happy to hear your story to know that I’m not going to be the weird girl at the beach with a tube attached! Thanks so much for telling your experience. It helps me so much to know that there are other women out there going through the same things I am!!!

   Reply