My 8 year old son has been in MDI for about three years now and we are ready to put him on a pump. He is very skinny and won?t let us use his stomach or legs for shots. He does let us use his arms and bum for shots. He is very active and I can?t imagine using his arms for infusions sets, since he will most likely pull these out. My questions are: 1)Does anyone have any advice for getting him to want to use his stomach and legs? 2)Is it OK to only use his bum for infusion sets, until he learns to be comfortable with his stomach? I am a pumper myself and have never found a comfortable site on my legs, so I do understand this and maybe this is why I am not pushing this harder. I am working on the stomach, as this is my favorite site, but cannot convince him. Thanks for your advice!
My daughter has been pumping since she was 4. We have only ever used butt /hip for infusion sets, with arms very occasionally. I can't see a time when she'll let us near her tummy.
Justin is a very active 18 year old and his belly is actually his favorite choice for an infusion site mainly because it's easy for him to get to when changing a site himself plus he has the least amount of "no delivery" errors when using his belly. He's slim so he's limited to where he can put an infusion set but he primarily uses his belly, lower back and buttocks. He just doesn't have enough meat or should I say fat on his legs or arms to make them a suitable site plus routing the tubing to his arms doesn't appeal to him because he feels it could get in his way or hinder him like throwing a frisbee which is what he's doing at the moment with his friends.
Here is an album with many of our kids using various body parts for sites. There are many pics of kids using belly sites. Perhaps if your son sees these pictures he might change his mind about using his belly. Mine did! http://forums.childrenwithdiabetes.com/album.php?albumid=10 There are three pages of pictures. You can click on any pic to see it larger.
Kaleb is super thin and he also has only used his belly for sites. He has also only used his belly for all injections prior to the pump. I wish he would use other areas, but he is scared to.
My son is a skinny, active kid with only two spots that there's any fat to inject into -- his "love handle" area and his butt. (We did his arms when he was MDI, but haven't tried there for his infusion sites.) We're just careful to rotate the sites each time and haven't had a problem yet. We use Inset30's as they were recommended for his lean frame and his activity level. He doesn't have any chub on his tummy and refuses to use that for sites. Our endo team had no problem with that. Eileen
Thanks for the input. Our endo team is pushing for the stomach sites and I do think they are the easiest to manage, with less worries for pulling them out, but I don't think it is going to happen. I just worry that we don't have much real estate to deal with on his upper butt and I don't want scar tissue to form. I may try bribery...
My dd has been pumping for a year and we've ONLY used tushie for sites. We have had no problems. She won't let us NEAR her tummy.
Ian was butt and arm only shot kid too. So when we started pumping we initially only used butt. It was familiar to him and it worked. (we used comfort shorts - they are angled - they are the same as minimed silhouettes and the inset 30's) anyway...after a few times we bribed him to start using his tummy. After he realized that stomach sites actually felt better for him it was no trouble at all. Our trick with tummy sites is to make him sit up while we insert them. Plenty of fat to grab that way. And he's fairly thin too.
