Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by 4xgrandma on April 12, 2011 at 3:54pm

John,

I have been on the Omnipod since Dec 2007. I do not live in Minnesota; however, I wanted to let you know that I never met with a local rep before or since starting on the pod. It might be different in Minnesota. If you have any specific questions about the Omnipod, I'd be happy to give you any input I can.

Linda

Permalink Reply by Vickie on April 13, 2011 at 9:41am

John,

As much as I LOVE my OmniPod, I don't know that I could recommend it as a first pump. There are so many things your wife is going to have to get use to with her new diagnosis the last thing she needs is some of the frustrations that come along with the Pod. I'd go more reliable with my first pump (Medtronic for example). Just my two cents. - Vickie

Permalink Reply by jwmiller64 on April 13, 2011 at 10:12am

Thank you. Your response is what made me ask if others had had good experiences from their local company reps. She has tried wearing both a sample pod and a sample infusion set and Medtronic Revel (super responsive local rep) and I think has felt comfortable with both. She has been leaning towards the pod as we spend a good amount of time during the summer either at a pool or at a lake waterskiing and felt the pod was more suited to those activities.

Permalink Reply by 4xgrandma on April 13, 2011 at 1:04pm

Vickie,

The Omnipod was my first pump; in fact I waited for it to be available in my area rather than go on a tubed pump. I found the Omnipod simple to use and the automatic insertion adds to the ease of use. Just my two cents.

Linda

Permalink Reply by kae on April 13, 2011 at 2:11pm

John,
I was diagnosed in May, 2009 and have been on the OmniPod since December 2009. When I got the pump there was only two hours of instruction by the rep. I would like to have had more training and some follow up sessions. The only other time I talked with the rep was after the Company suggested I ask her to visit with me to get some help with site problems. Instead of meeting with me, she gave me some suggestions (over the phone} of different things to try, which really was not much help. I also need to do some work on testing basals, but no training was given for that. I really like the freedom of the pump, in spite of site problems I'm still having. All in all it's going fairly well,
Good luck!
Karen

Permalink Reply by shzowie on April 13, 2011 at 6:33pm

My son is on the Omnipod, for about a year now. This was our first pump. It has issues as I believe any piece of equipment does, but over all we love the freedom it has allowed us. We had a 2-3 training in our endo's office with the trainer (a pod user himself) and a sales rep. We also watched training videos online before our training. We have access to the trainer still if we need him. I think I've called him once. My son is an active 6 year old boy and we love our pod. Good luck in choosing. We live in Texas not Minnesota.

Permalink Reply by Lisa Dalbec Fiecke on April 14, 2011 at 8:09am

Hi John- We live in MN, my son has been on the pump since Jan. of this year. I have to say I am not impressed the the rep we had from Omni Pod. She did come to our house for training for about 2 hrs, sure she knows the specifics of the pdm and taught my son how to use it but not much else. She never told us what an occlusion was, and of course 15min. after she left he had one. We just guessed on what to do as I could not reach her on her cell. She did call me back later that day and explain what the occlusion was and told me to try and face the pod the other way. That was the last time I talked to her, she never called us to see how things are going, I tried to call her once with a question and she was on vacation. I have found out more from our educator at the clinic, calling insulet, and these boards! We have had lots of problems with sites(my son is 12 and very lean) and also more pod errors than we should have but my son says it is all worth it and he would never want to go back to shots, so I guess I wouldn't let the fact that our local rep pretty much is no help to us stop her from trying the pod.

Permalink Reply by Rolland on April 15, 2011 at 6:56am

I would not base your choice of pump on who the local reps are for any particular device manufacturer. I have never met with one. Base your choice on lifestyle, activities, feelings about tubing, feature sets, ect. A good endo makes all the difference!

If you are in the Twin Cities I highly, highly, highly recommend the whole Endo Dept. at Park Nicollet and the International Diabetes Center. They wont even prescribe a pump until you have gone throgh their 12 hour pump class. All the major pumps were represented and the endos are extremely knowledgable.

Good luck!

Permalink Reply by jwmiller64 on April 26, 2011 at 11:52am

Thank you for all of your insights. My wife has chosen to go with the omnipod and turned in her paperwork to the doctor last weds.. Now we will see how long it takes to have everything to runs its course. Her doctor must have been on the ball because insulet has called giving us an estimate of our share of the cost.

John