Have you ever tried troubleshooting a problem so much that you start to feel insane, and then like magic, the solution to it becomes clear and you wonder why you hadn’t tried it earlier?

This was the case with me and the mysterious high blood sugars that plagued me for two and a half days.

Once I started noticing a pattern of high blood sugars that got worse every time I ate food, I started doing everything else except changing my pod. I tried taking insulin for double the amount of carbs that I was actually eating, I ran a 95% temp basal increase for 8 out of 24 hours in the day, I cut carbs altogether and ate only 0 carb foods, I skipped meals altogether, and I even tried marching around the house for 15-minute intervals to try to get my insulin pumping through my system faster.

And nothing worked. I was able to get my blood sugar no lower than 180, but for most of that 60-hour window of time, I spent a good chunk of it in the mid-to-upper 200s.

Finally, on the day that my pod was due for a change, I decided that it must be the culprit behind my high blood sugars. When I removed the old pod, I knew immediately that something was wrong because the smell of insulin was so strong; plus, there was a large, damp spot on the pod’s adhesive, indicating that perhaps my insulin was pooling under my pod instead of entering my body.

It took 5-6 hours after I removed the leaky pod, but I finally did start to come back down to my normal levels, and was totally back on track the next day. It was a frustrating experience to endure, but a stark reminder of something that I’ve known in the back of my mind for years: that when I’m in doubt, I should change my pod.