Can anyone help - advice for using pen with one hand

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Does anyone know if the doc has been back to read any of this since?
 
Yes have been back to look - thanks so much to everyone who replied to me and the discussion that carried on from that. The man in question is looking at getting a joiner friend to make some kind of clamp to stabilise his pen, and meantime is practicing using it one handed as discussed in previous replies. He is using a velcro patch on a board with the other side of the velcro on the base of his meter to stabilise it, and that's working well. Have been really disappointed by the occupational therapy response to this query in our hospital - but we're still looking. Thanks again for your comments, and by the way I'm a "she" not a "he"!
 
Oops - don't know why we assumed you were a "he", sorry!! Sounds like the man has had some good ideas of his own. Wish him well from us all.
 
I've just come across this post trying (as an occupational therapist) to support a patient to be independent with his insulin with one hand. We've discovered on many sharps bins there are areas you can 'clamp' the needle casing, which allows to remove backing from needle casing, draw up, put needle on, remove needle. We just placed the bin on non stick map, the patient found it much easier than trying to capture it in his elbow, arm pit or knees. Really appreciated the wisdom on here!
 
Einstein said:
A couple of points on standards. The needles do fit all pens, however, the cartridges started as the same standard, only one of the big insulin producers invested time and money in pen development, while others 'got by' as such the healthcare professionals prescribed company a's pens with company b's insulins.

The result was they were selling huge numbers of pens compared to the volume of insulin. So vendor 'a' changed their cartidge style and launched a new pen.

I think it's fair when the only vendor in the market who is prepared to produce good quality, long lasting, fit for purpose pens and make the investment in doing so, should gain the reward of the whole package from their development efforts.

The issues of disposable pens we've touched on before relate to problems with the pen and the pharmacy and manufacturers attitude of throw it away and use a new one - more revenue for them, more cost for the NHS.

A second issue with disposable pens is the disposal of them. When I asked various bodies a couple of years ago the advice coming back was that unused insulins should be disposed of in a sharps bin. As the largest available at the time on an NHS prescription was 1 litre, I couldn't see how you got one pen easily in an empty bin.

The only options in order to dispose of the insulin as required would be to buy a larger sharps bin or to break the pen apart and put the cartridge in a 1 litre sharps bin and the plastic waste in the household waste.

So you have to snap something in half with a glass cartridge in the middle of it.

Hence, I guess most end up in landfills.
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This is a an old thread and many of the posters on it have not visited the site for a number of years.
 
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