pump site – Hugging the Cactus

This blog post was originally published on Hugging the Cactus on April 1, 2020. I’m sharing it again today because it’s actually one of – if not THE – most popular blog post I’ve ever written. Maybe folks find it helpful as they ponder trying new sites or maybe they’re simply curious to learn what has and has not worked for me. Don’t worry, I spill all the details on everything – read on to get the full scoop!

Like many other people with diabetes, I wear two devices on my body at all times: my insulin pump (my pod) and my continuous glucose monitor (CGM). And I’m often asked whether or not these little gadgets are painful.

Fortunately, the answer is that most of the time, they aren’t. I rarely feel it when my CGM sensor or my insulin pod’s cannula pierce my skin, which makes the whole experience of wearing them a lot more comfortable – and much less dreadful when it’s time to rotate sites.

Speaking of sites and pain, though, I admit that there are some sites that, for me, tend to work better than others. The following are the different locations I use for my pod and CGM sensors, in order of what tends to be best to the worst. My stomach is my preferred spot for my pod AND my sensor.

Stomach: This is the site at which I have the best insulin absorption, so it’s a clear winner for me when it comes to my pod placement. I also find that it almost never hurts when I press up against the pod (e.g., when I roll over in bed in the middle of the night) when it’s on my belly. The same is true for my CGM sensors, which also seem to be the most accurate when they’re placed on my abdomen. I guess there’s a reason why the stomach site is the only one recommended by the FDA for the Dexcom CGM (which is what I use)!

Lower back: I have yet to try my CGM here, but I often place my pod on my lower back without issue. This site can be trickier to navigate because if I forget that my pod’s there when I’m getting dressed in the morning, I can come precariously close to accidentally knocking it off – and I have in the past. Plus, the pod can rub up against me in an unpleasant way when I’m working out; specifically, doing any sort of abdominal exercise on the ground. But it’s not something I can’t tolerate, and the insulin absorption in this location is just too good in general for me to pass over it altogether.

Upper arm: I wear my pod and CGM on my upper arms sometimes, but they don’t always adhere well for some reason. Getting dressed can be even more problematic for me if I forget that my sites are on my arms – I’ve totally ripped off pods and sensors when I’ve been taking off and putting on clothing. And for a long time, my CGM sensors would make me bleed when I inserted them in my upper arm. I never figured out why, and the problem seems to have gone away, but it definitely made me a little more wary about using my arms as a site (PLUS any devices I wear on my arms are highly visible, and I don’t always like it when people stare at them).

Thigh: Hands-down, the worst site for my pods are my thighs. For starters, wearing denim jeans – especially if they’re skinny jeans – are such a feat when wearing a thigh pod. The fabric pushes up against the pod in such a way that I prefer wearing dresses, skirts, or leggings for the three days that I have a thigh pod just so I can be more comfortable. And speaking of comfort, it’s tough for me to get into a cozy sleeping position when I have a thigh pod because I like sleeping on my stomach sometimes, and there’s just too much pressure up against my pod when it’s on my thigh. And for me, it seems that insulin absorption just isn’t great on my thighs (maybe because they’re on the muscular side). BUT, I will say…I recently tried a CGM sensor on my thigh for the first time and I didn’t hate it! The accuracy was good and it wasn’t in the way as much as a thigh pod (I keep wanting to type “tide pod”) would be. I’ve only had it on my leg for a few days now so I don’t know yet how the adhesive will hold up, but I’ll find out.

Spots I haven’t tried yet (but want to): On social media, I’ve seen people wear Dexcom sensors on their forearms (eek), upper butt cheek (tee-hee), and even on their calves. And pod placement can get even wilder with spots in the center of the back (HOW can people reach back there) and, um, the upper-breast area (one word: ouch). While I don’t think I’ll ever work up the courage to try some of those spots, I am curious about others.

The bottom line is, though, that the sites that work best for me might not work as well for you. (The same thing can be said for my worst sites.) But it is important to remember, above all, the importance of rotating sites…even though I’m clearly not a huge fan of pods on my legs, I’ll still suck it up and place them there because I know that I should be careful of scar tissue buildup.

It just makes the pod-and-sensor-change days that much more pleasant when I can move them from a disliked site to a favorite site, anyways.

Insulin pump sites have been a hot topic for me lately.

Not only did I share that I’m in the process of experimenting with some new (intimidating) sites, but I’m also contemplating the efficacy of all of my current sites.

My site lineup (as of this writing) includes the abdomen, upper arms, lower back, and thighs. And I’ve noticed an unusual pattern emerging with one of these sites that I know for a fact isn’t happening just to me – it’s happened to my mom, too…

…and that pattern is a series of failures with sites on the upper arms.

I can’t offer any explanation for it other than it’s definitely been a “thing” for my mom and I these last few weeks. It started happening to her first. I think she had 3 or 4 pod failures throughout August, and it only happened to pods that she was wearing on her upper arms. At first, I was skeptical of this and assumed it was maybe a bad batch or a total coincidence.

But then it happened to me, twice in a row.

On both occasions, I’d been sitting there, minding my own business (well, the first time, I was a passenger in a car and the second time, I was leading a virtual meeting with a couple dozen people on the call…the latter was far more disruptive).

Can Certain Sites Trigger More Insulin Pump Failures_ — Here I am, holding up the second offending pod, right after I wrapped up the call during which it alarmed. Clearly, I was not amused.

My pods hadn’t been delivering a bolus.

I didn’t bump up or come into contact with the pods in any manner whatsoever.

My pods weren’t due to expire for another 12ish and 48ish hours, respectively.

There was no blood at the pod sites.

The cannulas on both pods weren’t kinked.

Static electricity wasn’t a factor.

But what these pods did have in common was that they were on my upper arms – one on the right, one on the left.

It’s straight-up bizarre, and when I called Insulet/OmniPod to report the second instance, I made sure they noted in their records that this phenomenon has occurred not just for me, but also for my mom. The representative didn’t say whether other people have been calling in with this issue, but it’s definitely weird that it’s happened more than once to both my mom and to me.

So while I can’t say for certain – at this time, anyways – whether particular sites result in more pod failures than others, I can say that I won’t be wearing a pod on my upper arm any time soon…and I’m going to be on the lookout for similar stories from other OmniPod users in the DOC. After all, our ingenious community can be even better than the pump manufacturers themselves when it comes to troubleshooting, so I’m hopeful that I can get to the bottom of this before long. I like my upper arm as a site because my insulin absorption is great there, but I’m not willing to use it again until I know I won’t experience another pod failure in the foreseeable future.