OmniPods in the Freezer

I will never again try not to be angry when my phone or computer give me little hassles.

I experienced my first PDM error with my OmniPod system. I kind of freaked out, but I followed the instructions to call Insulet customer support. The woman I spoke to was very friendly and walked me through the process of resetting my PDM. Even though the error screen told me to remove my current pod, I left it on to keep getting my basal until the situation was fixed. The whole reset and following pod change only took about 15-20 minutes, but it felt like a life time.

Am I going to have to inject the rest of today? I thought as I listened to Insulet’s automated menu. What if they have to send me a new PDM? I’d have to take Lantus, wouldn’t I?

A simple reset solved the problem and was less complicated than resetting my old car’s cranky stereo. I’m receiving a new pod to replace the one I had to remove, which is great. But it doesn’t really make a difference to me, because my insurance completely covers the pods. What makes a difference is that the pod I removed was about 1.5 days old, and still read as having 50+ units of insulin in it. The most expensive part of my diabetes care is insulin.

I was inconvenienced by having to change my pod at work, but I have my own office with a door so I had the privacy to change it at my desk and didn’t have to retreat to the restroom. I worried that I might have lost my blood sugar history, but it was all intact and my bgs were behaving when it happened so, overall I came out unscathed. Sure it was annoying to have to calculate my lunch bolus, but I used to do all of that manually before the pump.

Then more than 24 hours later, the pod starts alarming in the middle of the night in the kitchen,

rousing my husband from his sleep. He then shook me awake thinking that my current insulin pod was failing. Thankfully, it wasn’t. We finally located the potentially offending pods (one of which had to be the pod that hadn’t been deactivated due to the error). We threw the pods in the freezer and returned to bed.

(We keep my old pods and periodically take them apart so we can at least recycle he batteries.)

Blogger’s Note: This blog is about my personal experience, OmniPod and Insulet Corporation did not request, or know about, this post. The makers of OmniPod also do not recommend that users disassemble used pods. We disassemble my used pods as a personal choice and practice caution as the medical devices contain sharp needles, this post is not meant to encourage other users to disassemble used OmniPods.