By late afternoon of the following day, the Omnipod was finally in for pickup. According to staff,…read moreeven though the prescriptions on automatic refill, they are not allowed to reorder and have it in stock, until the individual orders it, & the insurance company goes through their process of approval. So, in the interim, the supplier does not allow for any stock that may need to be regularly shipped out to that store for that time period, which causes a shortage, problem with delivery and then causes an availability issue to the consumer. Of course, I'm oversimplifying what actually happened in this case. But, what happened was the order was placed in advance. The individual's omnipod was due to run out on Tuesday evening when it was the last available time they could wait to pick up their Omnipod at Walgreens. Wednesday, nothing delivered. Thursday morning, nothing delivered to Walgreens, and Thursday evening after dinner, the Omnipod was available for pickup at the pharmacy. That's 48 hours without an insulin pump. That's 48 hours trying to recalculate insulin to carb ratios for injections that usually happen at a different rate. It's life impacting. It's not like stopping at an air pump at Sheetz, and later at Wawa and then later at an Exxon gas station, until you can get your tire fixed. Insulin impacts the amount of glucose in your blood, thereby effecting all of your organs in your body. The Omnipod with the cgm tries to imitate what a working pancreas does in your body. Someone who is insulin dependent, or type one diabetic, has a pancreas that no longer works. It's not a perfect system. But, it's as close as type one diabetics will get to an artificial pancreas. They can't change their eating habits or exercise more or do anything different to make them use less insulin. They are insulin dependent! Without insulin, they cannot live. However, it seems that pharmaceutical companies, health insurers and other medical related suppliers feel that keeping a regular stocked supply in of diabetic management supplies is too costly and can be reordered and supplied within 24 hours. It cannot, as evidenced in this and in previous circumstances. 48 hours from when the Omnipod was supposed to run out and the time the individual was able to pick up their new prescription. 48 hours of erratic numbers, stress of will it come in, stress of what if, and don't think of the hidden time bomb damage ticking unseen in one's organs as they deal with the damage of have type one since the age of 12 years of age.....
