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Choosing an Insulin Pump
Probably one of the hardest decision you'll have to make with your diabetes lifestyle will be choosing the insulin pump you wish to purchase. Sometimes, your Endo will only have one type available, but some doctors will have at lease two or maybe all of the different models at their disposal from you to choose from.
You will need a prescription from a licensed doctor in order to receive an insulin pump. Hopefully your doctor or nurse practitioner will have knowledge to help you make a correct choice and know how to use the insulin pump.
From what I've read in some of the pumper groups I frequent, some doctors have no knowledge of insulin pump usage. Some even don't believe in pump therapy and this by far will be a hard hurdle to overcome if you're set on getting on an insulin pump.
If your doctor was like mine, I had to basically prove myself by attending a one month diabetes education class, meal planning classes, carbohydrate (carb) counting class and I also had to fax weekly blood sugars to her for about 6 months before she agreed to prescribe me my insulin pump.
Experience with insulin-pump therapy indicates that you must be strongly motivated to improve glucose control and willing to work with their health care provider in assuming substantial responsibility for their day-to-day care. You must also understand and demonstrate use of the insulin pump, self-monitoring of blood glucose, and use of the data so obtained.
Factors to be considered in choosing an insulin pump should include safety features, durability, availability of service by the manufacturer, ability of the supplier to provide training, ease of use, clinically desirable features, and cosmetic attractiveness to the user. The non-technical person may not be able to adequately evaluate the safety and dependability of the engineering of a new pump, so prescribers are cautioned to recommend or use pumps with field-proven reliability.
I was gung-ho on getting the Disetronic Pump and was all ready for it when the day came to tell my doctor which pump I wanted to be put on. At the very last minute of my decision, I changed my mind and decided on the MiniMed 508 pump. My mind was basically changed due to the fact my doctor had more patients on that particular pump and she was well trained with it.
If you haven't re-searched what insulin pump to purchase, you should start by visiting the web sites of the top manufacturers of insulin pumps listed below.
These Manufacturers are not listed an any particular order