Diabetes and its regular care are such hectic things to manage nowadays with the hassle of routine life. Artificial insulin delivery is the need of every diabetic patient whether it is Type 1 diabetes or Type 2. Hence, both types need proper treatment and insulin delivery to avoid severe consequences. Traditional insulin pumps have been part of diabetic patients’ lives since 1970. The traditional insulin pump contains devices with all mechanisms for delivering & pumping insulin, an infusion set that attaches under the skin, a lengthened plastic tubing, and a blood sugar monitor. The patient uses this monitor to calculate the amount of insulin needed to be pumped by another reservoir. So, to make all this phenomenon easier, we have Omnipods now.
What is Omnipod?
Ominpod is the first ever built-in device for automated continuous insulin delivery with a tubeless small pump called “POD” and managed the insulin delivery amount by PDM (Personal Diabetes Manager). This Pod is wearable for up to 3 days without any daily calibration or daily insulin delivery pumping at specific times. It is a waterproof and tangleproof device to take anywhere life takes you.
History of Omnipod: Insulet corporation took initiative to design something which can make the timebound life of diabetes patients easy and carefree. The first initiative was taken in 2000 and in 2003, Insulet was allowed for its product to be placed on display by FDA ( Food and Drugs Administration). In 2005, the first official and commercial form of Omnipod was approved by FDA. In 2008, the unique and novel automated insulin delivery system was available to buy in all 50 states of America. In the later year 2010, this system took its height of appreciation in the United Kingdom & Germany. This innovative system of heck-free insulin delivery has won several awards for its excellence.
Components of Omnipod / POD system
There are 2 components of this continuous insulin delivery system. The first one is a closed loop pod to attach the body for insulin delivery which is basically a disposable insulin infusion device. The second one is PDM to communicate with the Pod according to the customized setting for insulin delivery.
1: POD
The pod is single-use, small, lightweight, and easy to wear discreetly on the body. There are adhesive pads on the base of the pod to attach it to the skin of the body. These pads can hold the pod as attached to the body for 72 hours & easily disposable. Once it is removed from the body then it is not attachable again. This pod is waterproof and can be worn underwater for 60 minutes. The Pod contains a reservoir that can be filled with up to 200 units of insulin. The insulin is directly loaded to the pump in the POD and ready to go into your body.
POD’s insulin delivery: The insulin delivery is managed through the built-in soft cannula on the pod that automatically connects with subcutaneous tissue. The cannula inserts in chunks of a second easily and is compatible with fast-acting insulin of different companies used as per the prescription of the doctor.
2: PDM (Personal Diabetes Manager)
The PDM is a handheld smart device to control the pod system. All the processes of insulin delivery, the quantity of delivery, stopping time, alarm and alerts are managed by PDM. The PDM screen has a clear and full-text display to handle the insulin insertion, start the POD, can check the current status of POD, and many more. The patient would need the PDM in the range of 60cm just to start the POD system or add the customization for alerts. The PDM has one push button to wave the pod so it can infuse insulin wirelessly. Once the process is started then no need to carry PDM in hand.
Blood Glucose measurements: The amazing feature of this PDM is to record the Blood Glucose data of diabetes patients automatically. It can save data or history of the patients in form of graphs along with the delivery of insulin and changes throughout the pre-settled tenure of up to 90 days. It shows all that data of extreme highs or lows or stabled in the list or in graph form which can valuable for the physician and nurses on the time treatment or regular checkup.
Omnipod Insertion Process
It is always best to prepare the site with wet pads to remove any kind of excess or germs on the skin before insertion. The process of inserting Ominpod is as simple as any best product could be. You are just supposed to remove the adhesive pads and cover of the needle from the backside of the pod. Then you just simply place and sticks it onto the prepared site of insertion. Now the pod will be activated with the commands of PDM.
PDM’s Part: The PDM will send orders to pods to activate the mechanism. The insertion needle and soft cannula are in action now. The needle pricks the skin to get into the tissue for insulin delivery and hardens the cannula for smooth insertion. After the insertion is completed, the pod retracts the needle only and leaves the cannula at the infusion site for the next insertion. The Pod keeps the cannula inserted in the tissue at an angle of 45 degrees with the help of adhesive pads. The actual insulin insertion takes only five 1000th of a second to get inserted properly which is very quick.
There are two versions of pods available on Zahrun in high demand. The Omnipod 5 Pods and Omnipod DASH pods so you are free to choose according to your need to manage diabetes.
