At the end of my previous post, I mentioned that I was experiencing issues with the Vyalev pump. Now is the time for me to bitch about explain those issues.

Part One: I need to be fatter!

Vyalev advises rotating the ‘insertion site’ once every three days, avoiding previous insertion sites. During my initial setup with the pump, I joked with my Parkinson’s specialist that I should make my belly larger to facilitate more insertion sites. Several months later, this was no longer a joke. I was actually “running out of real estate”, having a difficult time finding a good place for new insertions. I had heard of other Vyalev pump users who were attaching the Canoodler to a leg or to their back, and I decided to try these approaches myself.

I quickly learned that I can’t attach the Canoodler to my back, because I no longer bend that way. Instead, I tried attaching the Canoodler to my side, as far back as I could reasonably reach. This worked quite nicely at first. But then I accidentally inserted on one of my “crumple zones” (an area of the skin that routinely folds over during normal body movements). So, I tried a spot on my thigh.

Both the crumple zone and the thigh Canoodler insertions devolved into massive sores, each of which was raw and burning for weeks. They were so sensitive that I spent days at a time laying in front of the TV in a bathrobe. Just getting dressed or sitting upright at my desktop computer aggravated the sores immensely.

So, I went back to sticking the Canoodler onto my belly, as instructed by Vyalev. But, while the sores on my side and thigh slowly faded, two new sores developed on said belly. And they were just as bad.

Part Two: I need to be gentler!

I eventually learned that technique is very important when applying the Canoodler. For months, I had been firmly pressing the applicator into my flesh before pressing the button to inject the thing. My thinking was that I wanted to be sure the adhesive was thoroughly adhesing, so the Canoodler wouldn’t be easily dislodged.

In time, I realized that the Canola was going in too deep. I found that I could have the applicator barely touching the skin during injection, then just press down on the sides after injection. This seems to result in fewer sores and renders the injection itself completely painless. Usually. It still hurts if you inject directly onto a previous injection site. Or any part of your body that has been bitten by a rabid yak.

Part Three: I need to do this daily!

All told, the two pairs of sores had me pretty much out of commission for a total of about four weeks. During this time, I rarely went to Rock Steady Boxing (RSB) classes or got any other form of exercise. When I finally returned to RSB, I spoke with a fellow boxer who has been using the Vyalev pump longer than I. It turns out he had experienced similar issues. He said that Vyalev recommended changing the Canola every day, rather than once every three days (which was the frequency listed in the initial documentation).

It seems that each time a Canola is removed, it leaves behind what I would call a “fatty nodule” (which was also my nickname in junior high school). Y’see, it seems that a small percentage of the medication going in through the Canola is not absorbed by the skin. Rather, it remains as a slowly hardening gelatinous blob between layers of skin. It’s not hard to imagine that three days of this leakage would result in a much worse situation than a single day’s leakage.

So, I made the change to daily Canola replacement. I have seen no new sore development since.

Note: The information above is simply my interpretation of events and symptoms. I am not a medical doctor; I am just a bachelor of wildlife biology.