Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by big dog rockies on December 28, 2010 at 10:20pm

Yea, I have had one or two DOA's, but that was back in March or April. In June I was at a conference and had 3 pods die in one day! Just love sitting in a big auditorium listening to a lecture then all the sudden your pod starts beeping, luckily it responded to the PDM and turned off and was not one of those that just beeps until you tear it apart and remove the batteries.

Yes, even a rate of 10% is too high! The reps I speak to always claim their failure rate is within FDA guidelines (not sure what the guidelines are myself), but I believe the rate should be more like 2 - 5 percent. I think that would be acceptable. Some questions I have due to this are:

1.      Is there a quality issue because the manufacturing takes place in China and not in the U.S.A?

2.      Is it a raw material quality issue?

3.      Training with the production workers?

4.      Is the technology ahead of it's time?

Yes, you have to carry extra pods / supplies at all times, especially if traveling away from home.

 

Permalink Reply by Ron Doyle on January 1, 2011 at 6:50pm

I used to carry just one with me for the first several months.  After the startup failures started to hit me I now carry at least 2 extra pods with me.

Permalink Reply by KC O'Pod on December 29, 2010 at 12:01am

Hey Al,

I've been on the Pod since September and have only had one pod fail and one occlusion. I guess I'm pretty fortunate to not be experiencing the failures that others have. The failure occured while I was taking my jacket off and I'm pretty sure that it was due to static electricity. It was kind of dry that morning and as soon as I slid my arm out of my jacket sleeve, bam!!! It started squealing, but it responded to the PDM which displayed an error code. I called customer service and they took all of the information and put it in my record and forwarded it to the engineering staff. I've had the PDM act up only once. I think it was due to the cheapo batteries that I was using at the time, but it's all been good since. I don't think that I'll ever go back to tubed pumping. This system can only get better as they make improvements based on our suggestions and complaints.

Hang in there!

Cheers,

KCO 

Permalink Reply by johnnyjumpstart on December 29, 2010 at 3:02am

I've only had 3 "bad" pods since April 2010 so I'm pretty happy with that ratio. 2 failed within hours of putting them on, and one failed to prime properly.

Permalink Reply by p0wellman on December 29, 2010 at 6:00am

I have been a pod user for over a year now, and over the past 4 months I have had only one fail, occulation error. Now back in the spring/summer, I had several fail, one during priming, and one that did not even beep, the others were the occuation error. The one that did not beep I was able to recover all of the insulin from, and for the one that failed during priming,  I was able to recover some of the insulin.I have found that getting ride of all the bubbles in the insuln syringe that is provided reduced 90% of my pod failures in the begining  I went through a really bad rash last year, but from my experience this years batchs have been pretty good. ONe trick for the pods that will not quit beeping, seend them to a cold frigdid death, the freezer, kills them in a few hours, and then send them to omni pod if need be in the recycling program. Best of luck in your struggles, All of us can feel your pain.

Permalink Reply by Steve D on December 29, 2010 at 8:18am

I have been wearing the Pod for 5 years now (one of the longest on TU, I believe) and I have only once experienced a failure rate as high as I have been lately.  No explenation, and (although I agree the reps on the phone are always courteous and wish to help in any way) the phone reps reallly cant seem to offer any useful informaiton!  I am having a failure rate of about 1 in 10, or one every box...the failed pods are not so frustrating as the lost insulin, although the reps are adament in the claim that it is "easy" to draw the insulin out of a failed pod....not so much for me, and I dont think it is a good idea anyway (My endo pressures me to drop the pod and switch to the Aramis, but I am dead set against any kinds of tubing).

Permalink Reply by big dog rockies on December 29, 2010 at 9:33pm

Hi Steve,

Yea, I have tried to recover the insulin also. Up until the last few weeks I could recover 100 units when I had just filled with 175 a few hours prior to the failure, but the last few weeks I cannot recover anything? I don't know if they changed the design or?

 

Why are you so against tubing? I have never used a tubing as I was diagonosed in Sept 2009 and went on the pods in Dec of the same year.

Thanks!
Al...

Permalink Reply by Steve D on December 30, 2010 at 8:12am

Hello Big Dog -

 

I am so against tubing as I am very active, and as it is, I catch the pod on door jams all the time, and I can only imagine how often I would pull the tubing, I must admit, I have never been on a pump with tubing, but it is just an impression I have.  That may be false and stupid of me, but it is just my problem....so I am not anxious to try the Anamis (which my endo is pushing, as I pointed out already).  She (my endo) just has a very bad taste in her mouth about INsulet, and she feels the pod is just a "poor design" as it wastes so much insulin when these small problems arise.  I agree, and she gets even more angry when she hears that company reps suggest that insulin be drawn out of a pod...as the insulin willl so obviously be "tainted".

Permalink Reply by Ron Doyle on January 1, 2011 at 6:57pm

I draw it out all the time, even when I am changing pods and there is some left from the previous one, and I've never had a problem, i.e., infection, change in effectiveness of doses, etc. 

 

 

I also used the Ping in the non-approved manor.  If I was going out for the evening and didn't have enough insulin to last for the time I was out I would just add some more insulin to the cartridge.  Never had a problem, remember too that doctors who aren't diabetics using the products have to go by what people tell them.  They have people just like on this site, one hates the ABC pump while another worships it, so it is really just up to use to make the best decision we can and run with it.

 

I wouldn't want to go back to tubing and I was on two tubed pumps before the Omnipod so I know wheat it means to me...but that is just my opinion.

Permalink Reply by Gina on December 30, 2010 at 9:36am

Let me preface with the fact that I still love my POD despite some issues. I understand some will happen, so I've accepted that....I've only had one occlusion in 20 months, but have as of late had many pods fail a) when priming, and also a ton of them while unopened in packaging! I'll all of the sudden hear the "beep of death" coming from somewhere, follow it and find a brand new, unopened POD that has just gone kaput! I have two theories: 1) something about the cold makes this happen--i feel I've had more failures in the winter. I mean, when my box arrives via Fedex it's so cold it's practially frozen, and 2) maybe it's caused by too much movement? Now, could it be one, the other, or a combo of both, I'm unsure? As we all know, we need to keep extras around in case of a failure, so I keep a few in my purse. Does the fact that it's not sitting completely still, in the box, on my bathroom shelf, and potentially moves around a bit in my purse have anything to do with this? I hope not, b/c frankly, I don't have room in my purse for a whole box of them :) 

Permalink Reply by Sherry Ann on January 1, 2011 at 12:31pm

Experience tells me that if you carry a Pod around for more than a month, you will increase the chance of that Pod failing.  I keep one Pod in my desk at work, and I have a second one in the PDM case that travels with me.  Each time I change a Pod, I use the one from the PDM case that I have been carting around for three days.  I learned the hard way that too much carrying around for extended periods of time increase the chances of Pod failures.  I have been on the Pod for over a year now (since August 2009), and I have only had one Pod occlude at work.  I used the Pod from my case to replace it, and thankfully, I have never had to touch the "back-up" Pod.  Thanks for the reminder, though.  After resting in my desk drawer for over a year, I probably should try to use that Pod and to replace it with a fresh one.

Permalink Reply by Ron Doyle on January 1, 2011 at 7:00pm

Good points, I do pretty much the same thing, if I change it at work I use the one at work and replace it.  If I change anywhere else I use the one in my Scott eVest and replace it with one out of the box.  I can't imagine it is good to keep them stored for too long, especially since they have batteries.

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