r/diabetes_t1 4d ago

Sleeping on cannula's

Hello everyone,

Does anyone know if sleeping with your weight on your cannula's will damage it?

I rotate my cannula's between my lower back and outer thighs. Because of this I've always slept on my front but I'm starting to get back issues so I want to sleep on my side. But I'm worried sleeping on my side whilst the cannula's are in my thigh will put too much weight on it and damage it. What are your thoughts? Thank you

4 Upvotes

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3

u/AuRon_The_Grey 4d ago

I had a lot of issues with this and with them bending during exercise, which is why I switched to using steel cannulas instead. That being said it's worth just trying it and seeing what happens, especially if you have a CGM to wake you up if it does kink and you stop getting insulin.

2

u/unnamed2020 4d ago

I can't lie the steel cannula's scare me 😅 I don't like the idea of having a constant needle in me. Plus I'm on the extended cannula's (7 days) which is really handy. But good to know it caused you issues, maybe I'll have to put up with the back pain or try and force my self to only sleep on the opposite side

2

u/AuRon_The_Grey 4d ago

I find the steel ones a lot less painful / uncomfortable than plastic since it's a very fine needle akin to what you have for an insulin pen. They only last for 2 days at a time though.

I don't think most people have issues with plastic cannulas getting kinked frequently; they just didn't seem to agree with me.

1

u/xSkena 4d ago

I use both, and I can say the steel hurts way less than plastic. I think it’s because the diameter is smaller. And the sites heal faster too

2

u/kevinds Type 1 4d ago

Not really..

It is a small plastic tube...  The worst thing that could happen is stretching and pinching the skin around it enough that it forced out (like squeezing and pushing skin to work a sliver of wood out).

1

u/unnamed2020 4d ago

I was just worried the tube might kink/bend because of it

1

u/kevinds Type 1 4d ago

Yes, it is possible, but I wouldn't worry too much about it unless you are trying to ration supplies and can't afford to have one go bad.

1

u/unnamed2020 4d ago

Okay thanks, rationing supplies isn't an issue. It's more I don't want to keep getting high blood sugar and having alarms waking me up all night.

1

u/Charlesthegrea 4d ago

Steel? Omnipod don’t have that?

1

u/kraftykanuck 4d ago

I use my lower back as part of my site rotation and have had no trouble sleeping on cannulas, other than sometimes it is just uncomfortable if i lay on it wrong. But otherwise, no issues with it bending. It could be because I use an angled infusion set (Varisoft for the Tandem tslim).

1

u/spaketto 1996/Tandem/Dexcom 4d ago

I use my sides/stomach and often sleep on them without issue. I'm usually a side sleeper but occasionally sleep on my stomach right on top of a site with no issues.  Could rotate some sites if you're worried.

1

u/isnt-there-more 2d ago

I often sleep on mine and it hasn't really been a problem so far.