Insulin pumps are devices which can be used to treat some people with diabetes. Insulin is released by the pancreas when blood glucose levels go up, and it works to regulate the amount of glucose in the blood. People with Type I diabetes stop producing insulin at an early age. Insulin pumps work to try to mechanically mimic the way that the pancreas releases insulin. Insulin pumps allow for better control of blood glucose levels for diabetics, but they can require some getting used to before you can use them effectively.
Step 1
Get trained on using your insulin pump. Different kinds of insulin pumps have different instructions, so you will first need to be shown how to properly program and use your insulin pump by a trained medical professional. This is usually done over the course of a one-to-two-night stay in a hospital or as an intensive outpatient program, the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne explains. It is critical that you learn how to adjust the setting on your insulin pump during this training session, because if you are unable to properly adjust the dose of your insulin, you run the risk of getting too much or too little insulin, which can cause serious health problems.
Step 2
Determine your basal pump rate. Your basal rate for the insulin pump will be how much insulin your pump is pumping at all times throughout the day, the American Diabetes Association explains. One way of determining this rate is to add up all the units of insulin that you use each day and allocate half of that for your "basal" insulin. For example, if you typically go through 24 units of insulin throughout the day, you should allocate 12 units for your "basal" rate. Then, divide this amount by 24 to get your basal hourly rate. In the case of the above example, you would program the pump to deliver 0.5 units per hour as your basal rate.
Step 3
Adjust the rate as needed throughout the day. For example, you may need to have less insulin in your body when you are doing physical activity, but at other times you may need to adjust the basal rate up slightly, such as early in the morning. It may take some trial and error to determine the right basal rate for different times of the day.
Step 4
Determine your carbohydrate-to-insulin ratio. You may need to work with your doctor to determine this calculation, but the simplest way to do this is to divide 450 by the number of units of insulin that you used before you had the pump. This number is your beginning carbohydrate-to-insulin ratio, and it essentially allows you to determine how much insulin you need for each gram of carbohydrates. Obviously, this number may need to be adjusted as you see how your body responds to the insulin pump.
Step 5
Calculate bolus insulin doses. Bolus doses are extra insulin that you need whenever you eat a meal or snack. To determine how much insulin you need for bolus doses, multiply the grams of carbohydrates in the food you are about to consume by the carbohydrate-to-insulin ratio you determined in Step 4.
