Two quick questions about Lantus

[amandazzle]

Hi! It's Sugar Kitty Foster and Amanda again.

I just bought a $345 pack of Lantus ($225 with the coupon, but still yikes!). I certainly don't want to ruin it, but of course did inject a small amount of air into the vial in all my clumsiness. I realize that may reduce the sterility and that this syringe might now leak, but I am not ready to throw away $45.

At any rate, has anyone done this and had any immediate problems? I can be more careful the next time and watch for any changes to the mixture, but I just don't want to throw this away.

Also, I cannot for the life of me draw up a)the amount needed without overshooting and b)get air bubbles out. I have watched the video, but even if I overdraw and tap it, the bubble will not go away.

Thanks,
Amanda

 

[rhiannon and shadow (GA)]

I just saw someone else ask about this today in another condo.
Here's the conversation....

the only part of this i can comment on is the pen. i found that new pens sometimes are weird to draw - they have a suction to them that can make it hard to draw out the dose. once you get some of the insulin used out of the pen it stops doing that. it's annoying until that point and you do want to make sure it doesn't suck the insulin back out of your syringe into the pen, because the suction can be strong enough to do that. did i say how annoying that is!? :lol: a little personal experience with that one!

do you have a bubble of air in the pen? if so, you can get one of the needles that come with the pen (ask at the pharmacy), put it on the pen, turn that dial at the end as though you are giving a dose, put the pen vertical so the air bubble is at the top and push the end by the dial as though you were giving a dose using the pen's needle. that'll push the air bubble out. sometimes you have to do that more than once to get the air out.

just having an air bubble in it doesn't mean the insulin is bad. as long as you don't see floaties or threads or anything else within the insulin, it's probably fine.

 

[KPassa]

It's almost impossible for air to not get back in the pen. By the time I'm towards the end of a pen, I usually end up with a full unit (or more) of just air from all the tiny bubbles that start to accumulate. I'm on my 5th or 6th pen now and have so far never had a problem with potency and they've all been good to the last drop.

One thing that helps reduce the amount of air is to "prime" the syringe first by moving the plunger up and down a few times and then holding the plunger down as firmly as possible when you insert it into the pen/vial.

 

[BJM]

When use a vial, you inject air first so that it is easier to draw out the insulin. It shouldn't be a problem.