Went through 3 pods this evening.....

It was time for Cam's pod change and we went through not 1, not 2, but 3 pods before the 4th one would take the insulin! This has only happened to us once before a few years ago (and I ended up with a lovely insulin facial then ) but to have 3 in a row is ridiculous.

I immediately called Insulet and they are replacing them, of course, however what I found strange was the CSR wanted to know what my son's BG was before the pod change. WTH does that have to do with the pod's not functioning?! Usually they ask what kind of insulin, if it was refrigerated or not, etc. but nope - the only question was what his BG was.

This is the first box out of a new shipment so I'm hoping it's just a fluke.....

 

that does not sound good.

was it more the POD or the cartridge to fill the POD?

We have had a few where the Apidra seemed to have clogged the Cartridge syringe, but switching out the luer lock part was all that was needed.

We keep a cartrige filled in case a POD fails and I cant come to fix it, because I swear I am the only one that can get it done without too many bubbles!

But unless you are prefilling syringes like us, then it would not be the same issue. (which is more of a Apidra issue than a POD issue)

 

That's a new one! I usually get the question about whether his basals are more than a unit an hour and how much insulin we were putting in the pod, and an occasional question about whether or not we pinch on insertion. I've never gotten asked about the type of insulin or it's temp, either.

We had a new-to-us failure a few days ago. We got it loaded, stuck it on and started it. It clicked, then sort of fizzled out, then gave a semi-loud click, then a few soft ones. DS started screaming that the needle was still in his stomach and he's prying it off as fast as he could. It was our second failure in a row so I opened a new box. I felt so bad for him - he actually cried

 

We've had several where the needle didn't retract!!

We are now having leaking pods! That's a new one for us. Have had 2 from the same box. Hana's blood sugar will be in the 300s and not coming down with corrections. Then we smell insulin and sure enough, the adhesive is wet!

 

Us, too!! I didn't call on those because I wasn't sure that they weren't user error on our part. DH put both of those on, and while he had been doing about half of them, his schedule has made it more unlikely and I'd probably done the last 10-12. So, when we had two that just weren't working and they happened to be the first two DH had done in a while, we both thought that it might have been him not taping them down well or doing something weird on the pinch. Interesting that others have had a similar issue, too, though. In our case, they were both from the same box, too.

Does anyone else hate opening a new box? I hate the first pod each time. I find myself thinking, "Wonder how this box will be?" It's like a surprise each time - not sticky enough? Doomed to failures during bolusing? Work okay? Higher numbers for three days that make us wonder if it's a growth spurt or a bad pod?

 

Why would they possibly want that info? Did you ask? I don't get it.

 

By that point, I just wanted to call, get the pods replaced, and be done with it so no, I didn't ask why they cared what his # was. I don't get it either.

 

We have been so very lucky in the past but yes, I always hate opening a new box knowing what others have gone through. And tonight it was not just a new box, but a new box from a new shipment, lol.

 

Last week we had 2 leaking pods. Once again, Insulet told us they knew nothing of this problem. It was just one more thing I put in my "medical necessity" to get the Ping covered by insurance.

 

HMMMMM
I will have to smell her POD.

We are on a new box and lowand behold overnight and early mornings we are having issues. I wonder if its the PODs?

 

There is another poster on here who recently had more than one pod fail to retract the needle, so unfortunately, this is happening to other people too.

 

I can't believe this is still going on. Insulet has had more than enough time to sort out their multiple quality control issues. Then they have the audacity to tell people they are the only ones with the issues that many people are reporting! Something really needs to be done about this...

 

We had 3 in a row with non-retracting needles and they asked for the bg. I think we may have also had a leaker, but it was on upside down, so I'm not entirely sure. It was the first time we saw a leak with an upside down pod, though.

They said there's no such thing as a bad lot, but did admit there could be bad boxes, so I'm waiting for a call back (since Thursday) about replacing the rest of the box.

 

We had another leaker overnight/this morning. This is the new replacement box they sent us for the 10 that had adhesion issues. I was also told when I called in again this morning that, once again, these are not known issues, and that whatever I'm reading must not be true because they're not being called in.

 

By "leaker" do you mean the pod is on, and it seems like the cannula is in, but bgs rise and when you look you can detect insulin on the skin? I've called in some of those, and assumed either the cannula was pulled out or there was some occlusion.

Or do you mean insulin is leaking out of the pod some other way - like through a crack or hole?

We've been having such good succes lately. I hope there aren't new problems out there.

 

In my case, there was insulin and a little blood in the window (and cannula), so it could have been a backed up cannula. But the cannula was in and I didn't see any significant differences in BG, which makes me think it must have been leaking from somewhere else.

I don't think any of these problems are new. It's just the luck of the draw whether you get them or not.

 

There's no indication that there's a problem until blood sugars are in the 300s and not coming down with corrections. When we inspect the pod, you can smell the insulin and usually the adhesive is wet. But from what we can tell, the canula is still in. We've had 2 this week and one last week. But no, the insulin isn't coming out from a hole or crack. By the way, I'm on another message board and people are having boxes that all the pods are leaking. Insulet has replaced them.

 

I think what annoys me the most is the implication I get from customer service, and maybe it's just my perception, that I'm doing something wrong and no one else has problems.

They must be able to look at our records and see we've been using pods for 3.5 years. And we've only had a lot of issues since we got the new ones. Yes we pinch up, no we don't overfill, yes the insulin is room temperature. We're not morons we do this every 3 days.

Why are their customer service lines jammed if I'm the only one who can't seem to make the pods work?

 

No it's not just your perception - I feel this way as well. A month or so ago we had 2 pods fail when my son walked in the door after being outside playing basketball in the cold. When I called them in, they asked us the usual questions and like you, I was getting annoyed because we've been using the pods for almost 5 years now and this was a new thing that was happening. Customer service has to know that the last thing we want to be doing is changing pods, wasting insulin and calling them for replacements. I sometimes think they just don't believe us.

 

I think it's a part of their training to make it seem like we're the only ones with problems. Maybe hoping you'll quit calling them in? I have to or we won't make it to the next shipment. We had two fail while our shipment was in transit and it was a major deal for them to overnight (which is 2 day) the replacements so we didn't run out. They seem to think it's okie doike for you to be on your last pod when a new shipment arrives.

They must be spending a fortune shipping out replacements and returns one at a time.