Difficulty obtaining NovoRapid for pump

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JohnWhi

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Type 1
On the 28th January, the consultant at my hospital pump clinic recommended that I move to NovoRapid. She gave me a prescription request that I took to my GP the next day. Prescriptions are normally delivered by the GP's Dispensary. Having heard nothing a week later, I contacted the Dispensary and was told "We can't get it anywhere". This strikes me as curious, NovoRapid being a fairly common insulin. I saw a doctor at the surgery today, and he told me there were problems with the delivery of all prescription items, as many distributors were trying to build up a six-month store of items in advance of Brexit, only releasing reduced quantities. He printed me a prescription and I took it to a chemist's shop who are trying to locate some within the next few days, before I run out. Is this a common experience? As it is possible to load a pump reservoir (Medtronic Minimed 640G) from pen cartridges, are they more available, and should I have asked for those instead?
 
Hi John

If you are using a pump, do you have pens as a back up in case of pump failure? I was told that I needed those and have been glad of them in occassions.
I have not had any issues getting either cartridges or vials of Novorapid, although it did take them three days to fulfill my last prescription, but I have no idea what caused that delay.
 
Thanks SB2015. Like all pump users, I have pens, though not NovoRapid. It is coming up to 10 days since the prescription request was placed. I tend to assume prescriptions will take about a week to arrive, though they sometimes manage it in three days.
 
i have had problems getting my pump novorapid too, I just put in an order for back ups of pen cartridges and lantus pen fills and bought a box of syringes too (for if my pump fails on me while i'm out. nothing to do with insulin shortage), doesn't matter what the insulin comes in then you can get it out and inject it lol. My old pump was a combo so it had the same cartridge system as the medtronic and i used to use up my back up pen cartridges before they went out of date to fill it so it is possible, you just have to draw up the insulin into the pump cartridge slower than you would with a vial.
 
JohnWhi said:
On the 28th January, the consultant at my hospital pump clinic recommended that I move to NovoRapid. She gave me a prescription request that I took to my GP the next day. Prescriptions are normally delivered by the GP's Dispensary. Having heard nothing a week later, I contacted the Dispensary and was told "We can't get it anywhere". This strikes me as curious, NovoRapid being a fairly common insulin. I saw a doctor at the surgery today, and he told me there were problems with the delivery of all prescription items, as many distributors were trying to build up a six-month store of items in advance of Brexit, only releasing reduced quantities. He printed me a prescription and I took it to a chemist's shop who are trying to locate some within the next few days, before I run out. Is this a common experience? As it is possible to load a pump reservoir (Medtronic Minimed 640G) from pen cartridges, are they more available, and should I have asked for those instead?
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I got my prescription yesterday no bother inc Novo. Good luck John 🙂
 
Hope you can get hold of some vials soon John. Frustrating and worrying when something you rely on day-to-day is hard to get hold of.

FWIW, it is not impossible to fill a reservoir from pen cartridges, it just needs a little more care than using a vial which snugly fits the connector. When I first went on a pump I began by filling from the leftover pen carts I had at home, to save them going to waste. Never tried from a disposable pen, as I’ve never used them, but cartridges are no problem.
 
My first pump - the Combo in 2009 - we were asked to bring a cartridge of our fast acting and filled the first reservoir from that. I imagine the Medtronic reservoirs have an adapter to get through the bung in a vial or cartridge same as Roche, and disposable pens have a similar bung, OR take the adapter off the reservoir, stick a pen needle on the end of the pen and just inject the entire contents of it into the reservoir.
 
Thanks Jenny. I was shown how to use a pen cartridge when I was given the pump, as one of our number did not have a vial. The Medtronic adapter is the size of a vial, but the prong will easily fit in the cartridge. I did suggest to the GP dispensary and dispensing chemist that pen cartridges could be an intermediate solution, but so far they have been unable to obtain either. I will start to telephone around a 50 mile radius tomorrow.
 
JohnWhi said:
Thanks Jenny. I was shown how to use a pen cartridge when I was given the pump, as one of our number did not have a vial. The Medtronic adapter is the size of a vial, but the prong will easily fit in the cartridge. I did suggest to the GP dispensary and dispensing chemist that pen cartridges could be an intermediate solution, but so far they have been unable to obtain either. I will start to telephone around a 50 mile radius tomorrow.
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Hi John,
just a suggestion but have you tried ringing novo themselves and asking what the problem is? Tell them you are running out of insulin and they might be able to send you some.
 
Thank you Sue, that was useful advice. Novo-Nordisk confirmed that, so far as they knew, there was no problem with supply or distribution. Even so, the chemist I visited today telephoned their three distributors, with the reply "We have none." Nevertheless, the chemist where I left the prescription think they will have a single vial in their delivery tomorrow, so I may be in luck, a fortnight after the prescription was first written. I have now heard several times, from doctors and dispensing chemists, the story of a "government recommendation" that distributors should build up a reserve, and the effects thereof, all prescription items being delivered "in dribs and drabs", late and in reduced quantity. The moral is probably to order a month in advance of needing insulin. I have written to my MP, a Conservative whip, and to the Secretary of State for Health etc., drawing attention to the misunderstandings that may have arisen from that "recommendation", if indeed it were ever made.
 
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