We are new to this and by no means experts. Having said that, my first action as a new type 1 parent was to check 7 books out of the library, order 3 more, and commence reading the entire internet. After a week or so, I was of the firm opinion that an insulin pump was the best available care for Ainsley given that it most closely simulates the action of a normal pancreas. I then wanted to get her on a pump immediately.

What’s the hurry? A lot of diabetes management is realizing that whenever your, or in this case your child’s, blood glucose is out of range, you  are doing damage to your body – irreparable damage – that puts you at higher risk for diabetic complications like blindness, kidney disease, heart disease, neuropathy, etc. As a mom, I read this as WE MUST GET TIGHT CONTROL OF AINSLEY’S BLOOD SUGAR. I picked up the phone and called my CDE (Certified Diabetes Educator).

I got pushback. It was annoying. Kaiser has rules and regs about pumps and they don’t like to give them out before 3 months post-diagnosis. I look at that as 3 months of damage we can’t undo. I met a mom who was diagnosed at Stanford whose daughter was on the pump within 3 days of diagnosis. I brought this up. I was shot down. This is common.

Still, we like and respect our diabetes team and realize that we will be working with them for the forseeable future. We are working towards a compromise. Next week will be our fourth post-diagnostic appointment. We are hoping to get the all-clear for the pump then. I am planning to take this article along with me:

http://www.jdrf.org.uk/page.asp?section=438&sectionTitle=Insulin+pumps

and this one:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12378187?dopt=Abstract

and this:

I would put a link here but Medscape won’t let me. If you’re really interested in a great article called “The Insulin Pump In Infants and Young Children”, go to Google and type in “medscape 462784″. The second link that appears should be it.

and this:

ADA Abstract #1887-P: Multi-National Study Highlights Benefits of Pump Therapy

In the study of Medtronic insulin pump users entitled, “The PedPump Study: A Low Percentage of Basal Insulin and More Than Five Daily Boluses are Associated With Better Centralized A1C in 1041 Children on CSII in 17 Countries,” 1041 children with type 1 diabetes (ages 11.8 4.2 years) were studied in 30 centers throughout 17 countries. A benefit of insulin pump therapy is that patients can deliver extra insulin (called a bolus dosage) at the touch of a few buttons to reduce excessive rises in glucose levels. In the study, children who delivered more than five bolus dosages per day using their insulin pump had significantly better A1C levels. Moreover, the A1C levels of 710 children with less than half of their total daily insulin delivered as a baseline rate of insulin (known as a basal rate) were significantly better than the 331 children with a higher daily basal rate. This indicates that by fine-tuning bolus and basal insulin delivery with an insulin pump, patients were able to achieve better blood sugar control. Additionally, study results indicate a low incidence of severe high and low blood sugar, as well as hospitalizations, for pump users.