The above photo shows the retail boxes of reservoirs for three different insulin pumps. The size differences are quite noticeable!
When packing for travel I’ll always take at least twice the consumables I need, separated into two packages. One set will be with me in my carry-on luggage, and one will probably be in checked luggage. So the space all that stuff takes up is something I’ve been keenly aware of for years.
The centre box in the above image contains 10 Animas 2.0 ml reservoirs, as used on the Animas pumps I used from 2010 through 2017. The box on the left contains 10 Medtronic 1.8 ml reservoirs (as used in my current Veo pump), while the box on the right contains 25 Accu-Chek 3.15 ml reservoirs for the Spirit Combo pump. That box is almost the same size as the Animas 10-reservoir box! There’s also an Animas Inset II (a different version of the Medtronic Mio) cannula in the photo for scale.
The Animas reservoirs never really packed neatly into my luggage, while the Medtronic and Accu-Chek reservoirs are conveniently compact. As you can see in the following photo, a lot of the Animas box is just taken up with space due to the size of the individual reservoir packaging. It usually didn’t fold up neatly for me.
Medtronic seems to make the most sense to me. Compact relatively inexpensive and in around 20 years I have only had two issues with a medtronic reservoirs .
Cost is the same for all of these in Australia: they get equalised through the NDSS subsidy.
I’ve never had problems with any of them, but the packaging of the Animas ones has always seemed a little silly. Apart from convenience for us, I wonder how the wasted space has affected shipping and warehouse costs for them.