Are there any insulin pumps which are attached for more than a few days?

Question

People with Type II Diabetes requiring long-acting insulin can inject themselves once a day with a syringe or insulin pen, but there is an alternative to that: insulin pumps. Insulin pumps provide a continuous supply of rapid-acting insulin throughout the day, which has the same effect on the body as one daily injection of long-acting insulin. (And if you require mealtime insulin, you can get the insulin pump to deliver a "bolus" or extra amount of insulin.)

Now insulin pumps come in two types: tube pumps and patch pumps. Tube pumps require you to inject a new injection set into your skin every 2-3 days. Concerning patch pumps, there are two patch pumps on the market, V-Go which is injected once every 24 hours, and Omnipod which is injected once every 3 days. There are also insulin ports like the I-Port, which is also injected once every three days.

But my question is, are there any insulin pumps (or ports) which you can keep attached to your skin for more than a few days? I just want to minimize the frequency of injections as much as possible. Something that you just inject once and then it stays attached for two weeks or a month would be great.

Answer 1

Unfortunately no, I have not found in my research any pumps which can be attached for a longer amount of time, although I did find a study which you may find relates to your question. Link to Study

The following is the rationale behind site transfer and the suggested schedule.

The manufacturers of IISs and insulin formulations used in insulin pumps recommend changing IISs and infusion site every 2–3 days in order to avoid skin and infusion problems. However, in reality, these infusion site-related recommendations are based only on reports derived from anecdotal data sets about use of the IIS in daily practice. Thorough investigations providing a scientific rationale for depicting a safe interval for the changes are still lacking to date.

Answer 2

It would be great to be able to keep an infusion set for that long.

The reason why infusion sets cannot stay as long as CGM sensors is that the cannula used for injecting insulin in an infusion set is a lot more invasive and damaging than the very thin fiber that is used for measurement in a CGM sensor.

CGM users often make their sensors last much longer than the manufacturer's requirements: the Dexcom sensor is supposed to stay on 7 days, but many users use them for 14 days, sometimes much more. In fact, there are online competitions as to who can keep them longest...

On the other hand, I don't know of pump users who commonly use their infusion sites for longer -- I am sure they exist, but it is simply not a common thing. I do hear a lot of users complaining that they cannot keep their site going for three days -- and many users also report that their third-day site absorption is worse than the other two days (a commonly mentioned factor is 20% worse). Infusion sets are a costly part of the system for pump users, so I would expect to have heard about a lot of users reporting on forums how successful they are at making them last very long -- but that's not the case.

So, imho, existing cannula technology is unlikely to allow for an infusion site lasting beyond 3-4 days. It will take some radical innovation, I think, to make it possible.

[EDIT] Per the discussion in the comments section, to reply to the need for more precision in this answer by the OP, I actually asked some users in a diabetes forum to summarize their exposure to leaving infusion sets for a longer duration. The anecdotal results were that, while a small number of people are able to leave infusion sets longer than 3 days, a fairly significant number of posters reported problems on day 3 or later, as well as potential long-term damage to the site (lipodystrophy). When going user-per-user to compare their report to their pump brand using their previous posts, results appear similar across tubeless and tubed pumps.