OmniPod undependable

by Mike
(Buford, GA)

I have been Diabetic for 49 years. I have been on pump therapy for 15 years using Minimed, Medtronic, Deltec, Animas, and Omnipod.

I thought the Omnipod was a great idea at the time. At the time 2 years ago I was on an Animas 2020 that I had only been on for less than a year. I liked to idea of no tubes but then started having problems....everything from the PDM or controller to pods failing.

I only had to replace the PDM once but the pod failures became a weekly thing. Sometimes an occlusion, sometimes an error. The occlusions they will not replace, even if it happened 5 minutes after installing it so you just yank it off and toss in the trash...$35 down the drain.

The errors they will replace but you have to wait for them to get to you which could take a week or 2. The errors got so frequent that I started taking a spare with me to work along with my insulin. It finally got to the point that I never knew if I was going to make it through the day without a problem. The straw that broke the camels back was 1 day I was at work and the pod alarmed with an error. I removed it, pulled the insulin out and took my spare out and filled it and started a new session. About 30 minutes later it alarmed and went into error. Now I'm at work with no back up so I had to leave work missing half a day and by the time I made my 20 mile commute home I decided to scrap the Omnipod and go back to my Animas 2020 which I have never had a problem with. Also with the recession I was down sized and lost my insurance. Omnipod would not work with me at all to make it cheaper for me to purchase the pods but Animas gladly told me about their program which discounts their supplies 30%. Omnipod needs to take a hard look at their product and customer service before they get me back.