# what makes you decide to dual wave?



## hellokitty (Feb 25, 2010)

Hello to all my fellow pumpers  ,
was just wondering on what basis do you decide to dual wave? 
Personally, I never received any advice on this matter. To be honest with you, I was given the pump on a Friday afternoon, they explained the basics of cannulas and that was that. 
Thank you in advance guys 
from Lucy and Carrie xx


----------



## Sugarbum (Feb 25, 2010)

Hiya! Nice to meet you!

Are you going back for further lessions or some supervision or something?

I didnt dual wave or change anything for the first few weeks I wasnt allowed to but I know it appears to be different wherever you go.

Dual waving is great for things like pizza and past where the carb content has a slower profile and push your sugars higher much later on, like a few hours later. So you program it to give an initial bolus and then a smaller release over a few hours.

Takes some tweeky. I would suggest to ignore it for a bit as you will still be working on your basals at this early stage. Dual waving was something it took me ages to get right right (and still sometimes dont!) with the help of some of the more experienced forum goers on the board!

What pump have you got? Its lovely getting new pumpers on board.

take care xx


----------



## hellokitty (Feb 25, 2010)

hello to you too  
oh ive had my pump for about a year now. To be honest, the old team were rubbish after initially supplying me with the pump and I didn't get any proper training or anything really. I did try to keep adjusting my basals myself and have had partial success with blood sugars but seem to have bad spells every so often where they just become suddenly erratic. I am sure many people can share this experience with me. However I did a DAFNE course in the summer and I have recently been able to get an appointment with the DSN that ran that. She wasn't part of my old team and is absolutely lovely  She has told me to reset all of my basal levels and basically we are starting from scratch again regarding my insulin needs. Hope that all made sense and wasn't too waffley x
hello again  and i hope you dont mind me saying but your pump on the other thread is absolutely beautiful 
I really really really wish that I had been allowed to choose my pump. I just got given one and its a black one from medtronic, I think it could be the same model as yours just in rubbishy old black? xxx


----------



## Sugarbum (Feb 26, 2010)

Hiya,

Must apologise- I read your intial post as given the pump on Friday afternoon, and I was thinking "abit early to dual wave surely"!!  Thats what happens when I watch the TV wth one eye and write on the forum with the other!

I must admit, it sounds abit strange, your team invest in all this pumping malarky with you and its disapointing they dont spend the time with you to get it right?

There is a thread on here, "the pumpers thread" which is pages and pages long, but most of it is us thrashing out the old dual wave! When you have some spare time (a few weeks? when you see the length of the thread you will know what I mean!) it might be useful.

There are skins for the paradigm as well, I am guessing that is what you have? I got some through my DSN so defo ask when you are there. I also got some through their website in the 'contact us' bit. As you say your DSN is lovely, I bet she has some somewhere!


----------



## hellokitty (Feb 26, 2010)

Yeah I have the paradigm, Sorry I must apologise for my lack of terminology and clarity  I'm a bit of a diabetes dunce hehe! To be honest with you the pump process for me was very strange, I never even got to pick the thing, I just got given one and whilst I did want to go on a pump and I'm not saying that I'm not grateful for being able to go on one I do feel that the sort of initiation process was far too rushed and I'm quite clueless about the whole process. I don't think that really it was a good experience overall because I feel I was too ill informed to undertaken the decision to pump, something that is my fault and I'm not denying that, just musing with hyndsight xx


----------



## john617 (Mar 21, 2010)

Hiya new to message board,

I have been pumping for about 7 years and still dont know how to use daul wave not much help fron diabetic nurse as she was not to sure.

If anybody has any advice on this matter please let me know. I would also like to try and find out if there are any pumpers in the Berkshire area.

John


----------



## bev (Mar 21, 2010)

Hi John,
You need to join our wednesday 'big night in'! We all eat the same food and say what dual wave or split injection etc we have used and check our levels for the following 5 hours. I am sure this will help you to understand the basics of dual waves etc. I cant believe your DSN doesnt understand them?

Basically you use a DW for fatty or slow release foods like pizza and pasta - so you can stop the food spike. It does sound to me as if your team have let you down and havent explained the full capabilities of your pump. Which pump are you on?Bev


----------



## john617 (Mar 23, 2010)

Hi Bev

I am using the Accu-Check spirit


----------



## bev (Mar 23, 2010)

john617 said:


> Hi Bev
> 
> I am using the Accu-Check spirit



Hi John,
Did you have any training when you first started on the pump? Do you want to join in our experiment tomorrow night? Perhaps between us we could work out if there are any obvious problems and perhaps even get you started on dual waves etc?Bev


----------



## Red Pumper (Mar 23, 2010)

Hi John,
I started using the Accu-Chek Spirit about five weeks ago and have experimented a bit with the multiwave bolus function. Especially for food that releases the carbs slowly like pizza.
The last time I had pizza I used the multiwave bolus and set it up to deliver half of the calculated dose immediately with the remainder over the following two hours. My BG for the three hours after was almost constant at around 5mmols. It could have been a total fluke as I've not repeated it yet - I will find out tomorrow night as we're having pizza again.

Keith.


----------

