Insulin Pumps

Been using Omnipod forever, and I can't imagine using a pump with a tube. Omnipod is completely self-contained, and you just throw it away after 3 days and stick on a new one. You can loop with a Dexcom CGM and you essentially have an artificial pancreas.

For Omnipod do you count carbs and enter that before meals?

Also what do the costs look like per month lets say? Does your insurance cover anything?

Yep. When you get started, your endocrinologist will give you your ratios to set up the app. The Omnipod people will schedule a training with you on Zoom to teach you everything but it's really simple. You fill it with insulin, stick it on your skin, and press start. It pops a cannula in and you're set for 3 days. You enter carbs and it automatically calculates how much insulin to give you. Omnipod is the "weakest" of the pumps at correcting your high blood sugar if you accidentally underestimate your carbs, but it's still good enough.

I pay $0 for my Omnipods on BCBS. At the beginning of the year they were trying to charge me out of pocket until I hit my deductible (I'm on an HSA) but I signed up for the Disease Management Program and the costs went to 0. If you have to do that, you essentially get a call from a nurse every few months and give updates on your A1c and lifestyle. Super simple.

It may be worth checking with your insurance because it gets a little weird with Omnipod being disposable pods vs durable medical equipment like a Tandem pump. I've never had a problem but I've read where it takes some jumping through hoops depending on your insurance. If they don't cover Omnipod, Tandem is rumored to be coming out with a tubeless Mobi pump later this year

Yeah Omnipod sounds right for you then. I exercise a lot and made it clear to my endo that I don't plan on stopping. I could go run a marathon wearing my Omnipod right now and forget I'm wearing it. Like Rohan said, it's the closest thing to an artificial pancreas that you can get right now.

Just got signed up for Omnipod, have not done the training yet. Looks like will be $55 for 90 day but not including insulin.

Do you still take the Long acting Lantis or equivalent? If your numbers shoot way up lets say after a binge or something, do you take regular Insulin to get it back down or does the Omnipod do that, like if numbers are 300, etc.

This is what it'll look like for meals. Let's say I'm going to eat 25 grams of carbs. I put that in the app, the pump does the math for me, and it looks at my current blood sugar and says "ok 106 isn't bad, I won't give you any extra insulin for that." Then it keeps track how much active insulin you have in your bloodstream and adjusts for that too.

You're on Omnipod right? I don't use an app to count carbs. Sometimes if I'm doing a big complicated meal that I didn't cook myself, I'll run a picture through chatgpt to check my own mental math. You get pretty good at estimating though.

Once you have some meals that you eat routinely, you can save the carb count in your omnipod app. Click the three bars at the top left and scroll down to Custom Food. You can add a meal there and next time you're giving a dose you can choose it from a list

I might consider the Mobi when they release the tubeless one, but man the convenience of Omnipod is hard to beat. No tubes, no worrying about charging, waterproof. The newer Omnipod has a better algorithm apparently so I'll see when I pick up my next order.