It’s not you, it’s mio

So I was pretty excited when I went to order new pump supplies a while back, and Medtronic had these new mio infusion sets. 32″ tubing? Awesome. Self-contained inserting device? Neato. Pretty colors? Meh.

What seemed like a good idea in concept does not seem to be working for me in reality. I ordered 1 box of the mio sets just to try them out, and I’ve gotten so annoyed with them that I can’t even seem to get through those 10 set. First there’s the fact that the inserting device just doesn’t work as smoothly as I’d like. I’ve found that I have to apply the IV Prep wipes and let my skin dry to the point that it’s really sticky to prevent the needle from pulling the whole site out when I try to remove it. Nothing worse than inserting the same set twice. And then there’s the issue of what to do with that inserting device when you’re done. There’s really no way to remove the needle part, and I haven’t seen a sharps container* yet that will hold that whole plastic mess.

Another issue I’m not terribly happy with is how the tubing connects to the implanted site. Notwithstanding the fact that it looks sort of like some clear unambitious stingray, it just plain hurts to connect this thing. It seems to require an extraordinary amount of force to get the connection to firmly snap in place, and I’m not crazy about wiggling around things that are stuck inside my body (that’s what she said?). And they only included 2 “plugs” (unlike the Quick-sets, where you get one with each infusion set), which took me about 3 trips to the pool to lose forever to the chlorine-y depths.

So is this blog post just a way for me to bitch about my medical equipment? Sort of. But the bigger picture is this…I’ve been considering a switch to the Animas pump, and looking at their website, their “Inset” family of infusion sets bears a very striking resemblance to the mio. I’m concerned that with Animas the infusion set options are more limited than with Medtronic, and I’m really not sure if I like this design as my primary option. Animas users, any input? Are the Inset sets really the same as the mio? Are there other options that I’m not aware of?

* By “sharps container”, I of course mean “old Clorox bottle”