This week’s Monday in Motion Q: Since we have been talking team sports (http://bit.ly/12B0VLS), how do people handle wearing diabetes gear (pumps/CGM) while playing contact sports?
Responses: This is question that we get asked a lot, and we’ve put it out to the community quite a few times. It seemed like a good idea to ask once more and then cull together all of the responses. Luke responded to the question, “I don’t really play contact sports, but I do sacrifice my body to get a dig when playing beach volleyball (I really do love volleyball). I don’t think about my pump until I either land hard on my infusion site and it lets me know that it is there (kinda painful), or my pump comes off my shorts and is dangling around my knees. In both cases I just check to make sure everything is working and continue one.”
Most times, people wonder what they can do to protect their infusion sites from taking a hit during play. People have offered the following advice:
- Experiment with different infusion sets: Different infusion sites offer different levels of comfort for different people. Peter said that after trying a variety of sets, in all sorts of sports, he’s found the huge difference for her, as her sites ceased to get irritated and inflamed because of contact.
- Change up the site location: Jen suggested trying different placements for sites, “I’d suggest trying out different placement of the pump sites to find a space that is either not as tender, or less likely to get bumped, rubbed, prodded, etc, during games and practices.” While, Jaime-Lee offered her experiences with playing ice hockey, while on a pump: “I have played hockey for 17 years and I find if I have my site under where any padding would be and also tape it I usually never have problems.”
- Take steps to extra-protect the site: Jaime-Lee further noted that she has heard of people finding it helpful to take a sterile gauze dressing and tape it over the infusion site, in terms of protection from contact during play. Jen reiterates this idea, with a bit of a warning, “You could even consider taping a small piece of medical foam over the site with a Tegaderm or IV3000 patch to protect it (although I have found that the bulkier the site, the more likely it is to get snagged).”
Finally, our friend @Subsept referred us to a cool page on Saskatchewan Roughriders defensive end John Chick, where he has answered people’s questions about living with type 1 diabetes and he gives his personal experiences of wearing an insulin pump while playing football. You can find that page here!
*The Inset-30 is the Animas infusion set comparable to the Medtronic Silhouette sites.
**The Inset II is the Animas infusion set comparable to the Medtronic Mio sites.
Have you played contact sports, or a sport where you were worried about it affecting your diabetes gear? How did you manage? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!
