New and delightful pod problems

One problem I've had since I started using the OmniPod is the way my skin reacts to adhesives. Every time I change a pod I have a pod-shaped rash left where the pod used to be, and it sometimes lasts for several days. At one point I had three separate pod rashes at the same time. I've been trying to find ways to solve the skin problems, because I don't want to stop using an insulin pump I paid over $6,000 for. First I tried Skin Tac wipes. Skin Tac is a liquid that is supposed to form a barrier when you apply it to your skin before applying an adhesive. Sadly, the wipes did not prevent my rashes. They just left sticky residue on my skin that my clothes kept sticking to. Next I tried a product called Tegaderm, which is a film that you put on the skin. You put the adhesive on top of the film. I put a Tegarderm patch on my arm and put my pod on top of it. But when I activated the pod, I did not feel the cannula insert itself into my skin. I decided to keep the pod in place for a while to see if my blood sugars shot up, but the pod kept beeping as if it hadn't been changed when the old pod expired. After it beeped multiple times in half an hour I removed it and applied another pod without the Tegaderm film. Changing the pod didn't stop the beeping. I had spent the night out of town, and after my pod change it was time to go home. I took a bus and a train out to the ferry, and the pod, which was in my luggage, continued to beep -- LOUDLY -- for the entire trip. I tried to shove it down to the bottom of my bag in hopes that the clothes in my bag would muffle the beep somewhat. When I got home I could still not escape the pod's beeping. I put in a drawer and I still heard the beep. I put the pod in a cupboard in the bathroom at the farthest end of my house from my bedroom so that the beep wouldn't keep me awake when I went to bed; no dice, as the beep was loud and clear even at the other end of the house. I read that someone on the Insulin Pumpers Facebook page had once pried open a pod to stop the beeping, but I had no idea how to do that. Finally, I went to my toolbox and found a hammer. I put the pod on the floor and tapped it a few times. There was no change in the pod. I put it on a mat so that I wouldn't damage the floor, and I hit it harder. Still no damage! (I guess that speaks well of the pod's durability.) I finally took it outside and gave it a few good WHACKS. Finally I saw some damage, and finally, the pod stopped beeping. I still do not know what caused the beeping, and I also still don't know what to do about my skin rashes. I hope to try the Tegaderm again, but next time I will try to cut it around the edge of the pod where the cannula comes out in hopes that will allow the cannula to pierce my skin the way it is supposed to. I just hope I don't have a skin reaction to the Tegaderm itself.

Fifteen Things Not to Say to a Person with Type 1 Diabetes

If you're like me, you have probably heard some or all of these things when you tell somebody you have diabetes. While this is more about type 1 diabetes, I'm sure most of them apply to any type of diabetes.

1) "But you don't look sick." That's because I'm not sick.

2) "But you're not fat!" Thanks, I guess, but that has nothing to do with my diabetes.

3) "Juvenile diabetes? Don't you grow out of that?" I'm sure many parents of children with diabetes would fervently wish it to be so, along with us diabetic adults, but no, you don't outgrow diabetes. (This is why I prefer "type 1" to "juvenile" diabetes.)

4) "You STILL have diabetes?" Why wouldn't I? Is there a cure I don't know about?

5) "Big Pharma found a cure for diabetes ages ago, but they're withholding it so that they can make more money selling diabetes supplies." Let me adjust your tinfoil hat for you. People who work for Big Pharma get diabetes. The children and other loved ones of people who work for Big Pharma get diabetes. If there were a cure, don't you think they would want to use it on themselves or their children? Besides, don't you think they would make just as much, if not more money marketing a cure for diabetes?

6) "Diabetes is a self-inflicted disease." Yeah, when I was four years old I told my pancreas to stop producing insulin just for fun.

7) "You just take insulin because you were brainwashed by your doctor/by Big Pharma into thinking you need it." Those have got to be some amazing powers if another person can convince my pancreas to stop producing insulin and make my blood sugar go up and down just with the power of the mind.

8) "You got diabetes because you ate too much sugar when you were a kid." Infants who have never consumed anything other than breast milk have been diagnosed with diabetes. Where did all that sugar come from to cause their diabetes?

9) "That will go away if you lose weight." How is that you know how to cure diabetes when so much money is spent on research every year to find a cure? Let me show you pictures of me when I was a child, just before I was diagnosed with diabetes. I looked like a famine victim. "Skin and bones" doesn't even begin to describe me at the time I was diagnosed.

10) "People with diseases like diabetes are a burden on the health care system and a drain on taxpayers." What would you prefer us to do — die?

11) "I'd DIE if I had to take needles every day!" Guess what. I'll die if I DON'T take needles every day.

12) "Didn't Halle Berry wean herself off insulin? Why don't you do that?" Let's not talk about Halle Berry unless we're discussing her movies or TV show. It's probable she never had type 1 diabetes in the first place.

13) "If we take pop machines out of schools, kids won't get diabetes like you did." My school didn't have a pop machine, and I still got diabetes. Besides, kids are resourceful. Even if you prevent them from getting pop at school, they're going to find it somewhere. I personally think it's better to teach kids healthy eating habits (and for parents to model them) and alternatives to drinking pop, regardless of their likelihood of getting any type of diabetes, than it is to turn something into the "forbidden fruit," which will just make it more attractive.

14) "Can you eat that?" Unless it's poison, then yes, I can. "You shouldn't be eating that!" Unless you are my doctor, I don't think you are qualified to tell me what I should and should not be eating.

15) "Are you going to die?" Yes. Everyone is going to die someday. Will I die of diabetes? I don't know. Let's just say I am trying my best not to, and leave it at that.