Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Omnipoddery: OmniPod Suckage

So last night I pull out one of the 5 new replacement pods I received from the Omnipod Insulet Corporation.

I went to activate one.

And the first one out of the box FAILED.

FAILED.

A REPLACEMENT FOR A FAILED POD FAILED.

I called them up, reported the failure. They are sending me another one.

I put on a new pod. Activated fine. But today I tested at 345 at lunchtime.

WHAT THE FUCK SRSLY?????????

The pods generally do this right before they fail (rising blood sugar followed by occlusion error beep, followed by flat line beep). I injected myself with my vial and syringe. I just didn't trust the fucking pod anymore. I expect I'll get a beep any time. If my sugar is still off when I get home, I'll have to change it out again and call them.

I finally wrote Insulet corporation a complaint letter. EDIT: I have now also called them and made a formal complaint. I think my 300+ sugar number is leading to increased amounts of ire, bitchiness, and distraction.

I've fucking had it.

I wouldn't trust a fucking form of birth control with a 20% fucking failure rate. Yet here I am, entrusting my fucking life - and limbs, and vision, and kidneys, and etc. - to a medical device that FAILS 20% of the time.

Back in Februrary, an Omnipod marketing manager had this to say about the "rumor" of a 20% failure rate:

“People on the product have some problems sometimes, of course, but the incidence is very low. That 20% figure is just ridiculous!”

Ha ha. Yeah, a 20% failure rate IS pretty ridiculous!

It's not just me, either. That's the kicker. I knew there was a 5-10% failure rate. I could have - maybe - lived with that.

20% is too much.

I haven't seen this many 300+ numbers since I left the fucking hospital.

2 comments so far. What are your thoughts?

clindsay said...

It would be different if it were, ya know, a bike or a microwave over. But they're fucking with your life here.

Anonymous said...

I know you're dedicated to the pod, and respect your reasons for that - but really - my pump has never failed. I've had occlusion and inject/inset site issues, but the pump has never failed and I've never gone high - my A1c went down 11 points.

Please please please check out Animas.