What’s up everyone today i’m going to talk to you about an insulin pump so recently i was lucky enough to have a trial for a week with tandem tea slim insulin pump and i’m going to give you kind of a review that i have on the pros and cons for that and what i chose to use for the sights and whatnot so first of all actually i’ll show you the t-slim first this is
T-slim insulin pump it is quite slim guys all your tubing and you choose your site i don’t know if you can see this but here’s the needle not quite but shows that it’s not super big so that’s good um the first sight that i used was on my leg on my inner thigh it shows to have it there because i wanted to have it hidden and um first site that i put in was extremely
Painful and i thought there’s no hope for this i’m never going to use an insulin pump however got home changed the site and from that point on it was like it wasn’t even there uh that later that day i did a leg workout i went for a light jog and through that whole workout i couldn’t even feel it i was extremely surprised so that was a bit of good news right there
Um actually i can show you guys how it works too we have the cartridge that your insulin goes into the needle you use to pull out of your insulin pen i use humalogs you pull out of the insulin pen put it in the cartridge and hook it up i also use lantus but as an interesting fact with the pump you don’t use lantus you use humalog and it gives you small doses of
Humalog throughout the day which i didn’t know was even possible so that’s pretty cool um but pros and cons with t7 i’m not going to say it’s 100 awesome and it wasn’t a total failure so with the pros um you can kind of forget about the dosaging really uh it’s got an onboard computer it does calculations for you it can give you um fractions of a unit of insulin
Which with my pen i can only give units of one so one unit two unit three unit with the 10 t slim insulin pump i was able to give 1.2 1.53 units of insulin so it’s very specific and if you input your blood glucose it’ll also give you a correction factor so if you choose to use it if you’re too high see like a 180 or something it can give you a fraction of a unit
To bring you down a couple notches in addition to your meal time insulin so that was pretty cool because not only is it going more specific it’s beeping at me now because it’s not plugged in not only is it more specific uh and more exact on how much insulin you need but it takes the calculations out of it you just plug in how many carbs you need and that’s it it
Calculates everything for you and it tells you how much insulin you have on board that’s pretty sweet so you know how much if you’re going to be stacking meals which is it can be dangerous it tells you how dangerous it really is how much insulin you have on board that time so for the pros we have uh i put in a needle into my leg and i barely even felt it during
A leg workout and this thing does calculations for you it’s it’s fantastic to not have to do those calculations think about uh fractions of units because i can’t even do that with my insulin pens and it just took the guesswork out of it now for the cons like i said it’s not perfect so a with any insulin pump you have tubing tubing is no fun i mean you got this
Stuff you can get hooked on doors it can get hooked on somebody’s hand when they’re giving you a hug and um while it does have this anchor point so this is a needle this is the anchor point that’s going to help um because if it does get tugged on it pulls on that sticker first before it tugs in the needle so that was a great idea thank you guys because i don’t
Want needles getting pulled out of me but tubing tubing’s annoying um what’s connected to the tubing is the pump itself which means whenever uh you get changed you have to hold it in one hand if you’re going swimming you are able to actually suspend the insulin which i forgot to mention you can suspend the insulin for an hour so you can take it off go about your
Business put a like a waterproof cap on it if you’re gonna go surfing or swimming or take a shower or if you just need to break from it i guess but anything over an hour and you’re gonna be missing out on your micro dosages of humalog which you know it’s like that background lantus so under an hour you’re good to take it off back to the tubing though i did not like
That i had to hold it while i got changed i suppose you could suspend it take it off put the cap on get changed and then resume insulin put it back together and go but i found that to be more time consuming anyways um it’s not necessarily a con for for all of people but that first sight that i had was excruciatingly painful then you know what into my muscle and
That’s just expected that’s not tandem’s fault there it uh that’s kind of a con it beeps a lot um it would actually beep and wake me up in the middle of the night because after about 12 hours of not being used it makes sure that you’re still alive you’re still trying to use it and so it would be been waking up around four in the morning so that was not fun but i
Understand why it’s necessary so i can’t fully include that in the con list now the next con i would say it’s it’s inconvenience but it’s also convenient so this is a pro anticon it’s convenient because it takes care of all the stuff where it takes care of calculations it uh it’s instantly at the push of a button so you don’t have to bring your insulin kit with
You that was big for me i can just slide it in my pocket didn’t have to worry about bringing a backpack to put my insulin in however on the con side it is inconvenient because it’s an additional piece additional article you have to bring with you everywhere it’s connected to you so it goes in your pocket or some people have the belt loop and i don’t like being
Tied down to a machine and uh with the pens gave me the freedom to go about my business not have things connected to me however i do use dexcom so that’s connected to me as well but there’s no wires there’s no uh machine that i’m carrying around so having to carry it around having to hold it in the hand while i change and if anybody doesn’t like being known as a
Diabetic this is going to raise some questions people are going to wonder why there’s tubing coming out of you so pros and cons overall it’s a great device extremely helpful but a little bit inconvenient so if you can deal with the inconvenience of having to have tubing connected to you it’s awesome but if that’s something that gets in the way of your daily life
Maybe the pens are for you i’ve still got these haven’t fully made my decision yet but uh my week trial is over so i’m gonna go give it back and uh we’ll see what i decide i don’t know i still i’m on the border because i like being free to move and go about life without worrying about a machine connected to me but it’s also nice being free to be at peace knowing
That this machine is taking care of your insulin dosages i should also mention i tried putting a site on my back and that was surprisingly pain-free i did a whole back workout uh i sleep on my back had no pain there with the needle going straight in i used a true steel connection which is a rigid needle instead of a flexible catheter and yeah very surprised that
There was no pain and pretty comfortable and then you know the the tubing’s long enough to fit in my pocket so it worked out just great now that being said i am going to throw a shameless plug at you guys i rent a diabetic company it’s called ftf warrior and we educate diabetics to help them figure out their blood sugars help them stabilize their blood sugars plan
Meals so that their blood sugars have less spikes and drops and eventually we also teach them weight loss tactics teaching fitness nutrition mindset all this fun stuff and right now this program is actually free and this is the last time we’re gonna be offering it for free it’s a six-week program and it’s starting soon i think it’s starting new year’s day it’s a
January 1st if you guys are interested i will post a link in the comments so you guys can get a hold of me and fill out an application we’ll figure out if you’re a good fit for the program we would love to help you and we look forward to coaching you keep up the fight foreign so that’s the end of my review check it out if you want i think they give free trials
To uh anybody with a hospital or endocrinologist recommendation this thing just loves attention um yeah if you’re diabetic remember to check your blood sugars even if you got a dexcom one they’re not always perfect they’re great but they’re not perfect dude um you know keep fighting it’s a tough disease and these tools are making it easier and they’re going
To keep pushing further and further i know that they’ve got some closed loop stuff in the works right now where they’re gonna have a cgm integrated with the insulin pump so that you can just kind of let your insulin pump do the work for you which you should still be checking but it’d be nice to have that peace of mind
Transcribed from video
My Tandem T-Slim Insulin Pump Review By FTF WARRIOR
