I don't do dresses very often, much to my husband's disappointment. I just prefer having pockets to shove stuff into and I hate when my legs are cold. But there are occasions where a dress is called for or, in the case of last Saturday night, I'm sick of looking at them in my wardrobe and never wearing them.
When you have type 1 diabetes and wear an insulin pump where to put it in your dress does present a challenge, for me anyway. I know lots of women have figured it out for themselves but I am still searching for the solution that works for me.
Over the last seven years of wearing an insulin pump, I've tried a couple of different ways to wear it but none have worked really well especially when sheer tights (also known as pantyhose) are involved.
The first thing I tried was one of those thigh support bands. My mother found it in her “magic” rubbish box (don't ask. But I suspect every Irish house has one). It was really old and it worked reasonably well. I folded it over and slipped the pump in the fold. It did slip down when I wore tights but very slowly. Then the older it got the more the elastic in it turned to dust.
This summer, I bought a new one but even though it was the largest one I could find it was so tight it cut into my leg and was extremely uncomfortable.
I knew I was going to wear a dress again last weekend so I came across really wide elastic and Jimmy-rigged a thigh band out of it. However, I only tried it out tight-less and was too jet lagged to give it any more effort.
So on the night, when I was all dressed up and heading down the hotels stairs my jimmy-riggery slid down my leg like it was a child on a slide! So, I tried to relocated the pump into my bra and without giving you way too much information there just wasn't any room in there, it was uncomfortable and it made a lump. But I was going to live with it.
Until my husband said there's a Tesco near here, let's just pop in and see if we can find something that might work. I was thinking that one of those arm bands that joggers wear to store their phones might work and it did. It was comfortable but I still felt it was unsightly.
I'm still on the hunt because I'd prefer a thigh solution and I would love some suggestions with photos and links if possible.
Begin!