#i did not switch from the omnipod to the ilet

[chrismerle]

switched from the iLet Bionic Pancreas back to an Omnipod after only a couple of months because it turns out I am MUCH more of a control freak than I realized and I Fucking Hated having such little input over my diabetes

for people who don't have such tight control or who can get away with being more relaxed, I can see the iLet being a very good thing! you do not program in any basal rates. you just let it figure it out based on your CGM, and when you eat you tell it if you're having 'more than usual,' 'less than usual,' or 'usual' for whatever meal and let it figure it out. you don't correct for highs and instead just let it figure it out. but my a1c was at 5.7 in November and it did not get there by me being relaxed.

I fucking hated it! I hated knowing exactly how many carbs I was consuming but needing to just let my pump guess regardless! I hated seeing my blood sugar at, like, 255 and knowing it would take the pump probably at least two hours to deal with it while I twiddled my thumbs!

plus the iLet worked best if you could bolus before you ate, and my gastro issues make that risky. there are pretty frequent occasions of me making food, taking two bites, and then either suddenly getting sick or just suddenly losing all appetite. if I bolus WHILE I'm eating, that's fine. if I've already bolused before eating, my blood sugar's gonna fall through the floor. so my blood sugar was constantly see-sawing because I wasn't and couldn't use best practices.

also the iLet couldn't do a dual-wave bolus???? which i relied on a lot with prior pumps

so, the highs were never QUITE as high as before, but the good numbers were never as good or as consistent as when I was taking a direct approach. my a1c a couple weeks ago was up to 6.1, which is still objectively perfectly fine (pretty damn good, even), but by my standards it was a pretty large jump. I'd expected to just have to suck it up and wait out the iLet's four year warranty, but my doctor and one of the educators went to bat with my insurance for me (which was probably helped by Omnipod being cheaper than most other pump options, lbr) and got me switched. the educator who talked me into the iLet acknowledged that if she'd realized just how Type A I was about my diabetes she wouldn't have recommended the iLet to begin with.

I've been back on the Omnipod for two days. I can already shove the graph on the controller in my mom's face and go 'mm mm mmmmm look at that line' again, because I've been coasting at 113 for four straight hours. it's good to be back.