Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by AustinMom on May 6, 2012 at 11:08am

Disconnect & prime the bubble out.

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Permalink Reply by earthling on May 6, 2012 at 11:13am

Hi Cindy!! You're back! How was your trip?

Well bubbles - depends where they are. If near my set when I notice I just unplug and prime a little. If closer to the pump end I don't do anything - and if I remember check later when its closer to me, unhook and prime it out then. Or just forget and not worry. I wonder how much a quarter inch of tubing insulin is in units?

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Permalink Reply by AustinMom on May 6, 2012 at 11:19am

For my son's 23" tubing, it takes 8 units to prime. So, that would be roughly 1/3 of a unit per inch, so 1/4 of tubing would be roughly 1/12 (or .083) of a unit.

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Permalink Reply by Cindy on May 6, 2012 at 11:58am

Thanks, when you say 'prime it out', I don't know if you mean the bolus function or the set up function. If I use the bolus function, wouldn't that screw up my insulin on board for further calculations?

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Permalink Reply by AustinMom on May 6, 2012 at 12:19pm

My son uses the Ping, so the function might be different than for the Medtronic. For his pump, we would go to the priming function that he uses when we do a site/cartridge change. I'm not certain, but I don't think this would affect IOB calculations because his pump distinguishes between priming & bolusing. If it did have an effect, it would be short-lived - just for whatever bolus you have on board when you prime. In that small interval of time, we would just manually calculate what's left if we needed to know it - for him, we figure that roughly 30% is gone every hour based on the action time we use.

Like AR, we don't generally examine the tubing as little bubbles don't seem to have much impact. The only time we would ever check it is if it seems like there is a delivery problem, i.e. - insulin isn't having the effect that we expect, so we start troubleshooting.

Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Cindy on May 6, 2012 at 1:01pm

I really appreciate hearing of your experience, even with a different pump. A few weeks ago I had big delivery problems. First it was a leaking reservoir and then big bubbles. MM was great about sending me new infusion sets. I didn't cause the leak, but now it's clear I'm doing something wrong to create these bubbles. Back to the drawing board.

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Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on May 6, 2012 at 12:08pm

I don't actually look at my tube. Ever.

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Permalink Reply by Cindy on May 6, 2012 at 12:57pm

I've been having champagne bubbles + longer ones for a couple of weeks now. I conclude it's pilot error. I am rereading the instructions now to see where I may have gotten a little cavalier lately. I'm not the most savvy pump user yet. If you never have delivery probs, you must have the site change down to a science. How I aspire to that!

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Permalink Reply by Cindy on May 6, 2012 at 5:37pm

RESOLUTION!!!
After multiple attempts to fill the reservoir carefully without bubbles remaining, I was about to tear my hair out and throw the pump away when a lightbulb went off. The insulin vials I was using had been flying with me up and down on six jet airplanes. I jumped in my short and bought a new bottle at the store. VOILA! I'm wearing the pump now with a reservoir of perfectly filled bubble-less insulin.
Has anyone else had this problem?

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Permalink Reply by AustinMom on May 6, 2012 at 5:52pm

I'm glad you came up with a probable answer to your bubble problem. I don't know what technique you use to fill your cartridge, but we treat my son's the same as if we were preparing an injection, i.e. fill the cartride, flick to get the bubble to the top, then squirt insulin slowly through the filling needle until all visible bubbles are gone. Then, we remove the needle and screw on the cap that is attached to the tubing. We don't seem to have a lot of bubbles. Maybe there are still bubbles in your cartridge when you attach the tubing and that's why you see bubbles in the tubing?

Anyway, I'm glad you came up with an explanation, and even happier for you that you had the opportunity to travel!

Best wishes & happy (bubble-less) pumping!

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Permalink Reply by Cindy on May 7, 2012 at 3:13pm

Thanks so much for caring and helping me get this thing right. Yes, I do go thru the fill, push out bubbles, fill, tap out bubbles routine. And I've done well for the first 6 mos of my pump life, I only got into bubble land on my trip and after. I do think it was all the flights in my case because that's when the trouble began. I would be able to push out the big bubbles, but a fine coating of fizz bubbles would adhere to the sides of the rez at that point, and when I flicked the side again, there would be a burst of new fizz and the coating on the sloping walls of the rez would stay put. It was a phenomena that I had never seen b4. In my tubing the bubbles would be 1/4" to 1" long eventually. I wasted 4 reservoirs b4 I bought the new vial of insulin and had success.

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Permalink Reply by Rick M on May 7, 2012 at 12:55pm

i live where at 3300 ft and then travel to the other side of the state where its sea level. it causes bubbles sometimes but when you make your reservoir dont you push the insulin back and forth into the bottle and out of the bottle to remove air? i get bubbles while filling but tap the side hard then push back into the bottles then draw back out until i get perfect bottle

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