The Frugal PWD

I'm attempting something new today in the way of infusion set management. It started a couple of months ago after the check-out lady at my pharmacy said she had four boxes of 9mm canula Quick Sets with 47" tubing and didn't want to use them anymore as she was switching to the 6mm - 23" tubing sets. She asked me if I wanted them, otherwise they were going in the trash bin. Naturally I was appalled at the idea of discarding these precious necessities and immediately said I would take and use them or else find them a good home.

A few days later we made the handoff and they have been sitting upstairs for serveral weeks while I tried to decide how to best utilize these little blessings from heaven.

Let me digress for just a moment and tell you that I only use my mid-section for infusion set placement. I don't think I have enough fat to try other spots comfortably. My method is to draw an imaginary horizontal line around myself from my spinal column to my mid-front, starting about 1" above my pelvic bone. At the first of the month I start placing infusion sets as far back as I can reach and with each successive set change I move forward slightly over half the width of the set being careful to not cover the previous puncture site. I generally use 8 sets per month or two per week. (I read that many of you experience bad sets but I've simply not had this experience.) At the beginning of the next month I draw another imaginary horizontal line approximately 1 1/2" above the previous line and start over again at the back, moving forward with each change as before. After three months I go to the other side.

By doing it this way there is only the remote possiblity that I could hit the exact same point twice in one year. So far this has worked well for me.

Back to my story. Since I have more fat on my stomach than on my lower back I'm using my standard 6mm sets for the first two weeks of the month and then the 9mm's as I work around towards the fattier front. Today's set change felt comfortable so I think I'm on the right track.

I wear my pump on my belt so I don't need (or like) the 47" tubing. Since my previous 23" tubing should be OK (right?), after I inserted the set I switched back to my old pre-primed 23" tubing. I finished by doing a .5 unit fixed prime.

As I write this at approximately 10:00p ET, everything is going well. I did wake up high this morning, for reasons I can't totally explain and it took me till slightly after noon to drive my readings back into the normal range. Since then my readings have been within reason.

Talk about the things we do save a few bucks, but as we all know this can be an expensive condition, especially when trying to maintain tight numbers.

I going to try to use these 9mm sets for the remainder of the month. I'll keep you posted should I encounter any problems.