DeusXM
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
So, because I am a hyper-cautious individual who is also forgetful, I try to make sure I always have two Novopen 4s- one for regular use, and a spare in case I lose/break/leave my other one somewhere.
The other week, I managed to stupidly leave my regular Novopen in work on a Friday - not a huge problem, as I have my spare one for the weekend. Unfortunately, it was during that weekend that I found my spare pen had an interesting problem. If you squeeze the trigger too fast, or if there's too much resistance as you inject, or if you're trying to inject anything less than 6u, the plunger screws up and seems to retract on itself. As you can imagine, this led to a weekend of never really knowing how much I'd injected and the consequential blood sugar all over the place.
So it was with some relief that I retrieved my pen on the Monday and thought "I'll be smarter. Maybe I should order a new Novopen as a backup so this doesn't happen again." My GP lets you order prescriptions online and as you type in 'Novopen', it comes up with a list of pens, including the 4 and the Echo. So I chose the 4, because that's what I've got.
You can imagine my frustration when, after handing in my script at the pharmacy, the chemist said "We can't give you this because it's discontinued. It's now been replaced with the Novopen 5."
"Ok, well obviously I want one of those then."
"I can't give you one of those."
"Why not?"
"Because this prescription is for a Novopen 4, not a Novopen 5."
"Yes, I get that. But if the 4 has been continued and replaced with the 5, then surely the obvious thing to do is give me the 5?"
"No, you'll need to speak to your GP and get another prescription."
"And bearing in mind this is for injecting insulin and I die without insulin, do you not think that maybe that might add something of an unnecessary and slightly fatal delay for the sake of there being a wrong number?"
"Your GP should have known not to write a script for the 4. You'll just have to come back with another prescription."
So I've now filed another prescription and had to fill in manually the option for a 5 since the system doesn't seem to have it on it. Let's see if I get this issued, eh? On the plus side, at least this validates my extravagant approach of having more than one pen. Imagine what would have happened if I was trying to replace the only pen I had?
The other week, I managed to stupidly leave my regular Novopen in work on a Friday - not a huge problem, as I have my spare one for the weekend. Unfortunately, it was during that weekend that I found my spare pen had an interesting problem. If you squeeze the trigger too fast, or if there's too much resistance as you inject, or if you're trying to inject anything less than 6u, the plunger screws up and seems to retract on itself. As you can imagine, this led to a weekend of never really knowing how much I'd injected and the consequential blood sugar all over the place.
So it was with some relief that I retrieved my pen on the Monday and thought "I'll be smarter. Maybe I should order a new Novopen as a backup so this doesn't happen again." My GP lets you order prescriptions online and as you type in 'Novopen', it comes up with a list of pens, including the 4 and the Echo. So I chose the 4, because that's what I've got.
You can imagine my frustration when, after handing in my script at the pharmacy, the chemist said "We can't give you this because it's discontinued. It's now been replaced with the Novopen 5."
"Ok, well obviously I want one of those then."
"I can't give you one of those."
"Why not?"
"Because this prescription is for a Novopen 4, not a Novopen 5."
"Yes, I get that. But if the 4 has been continued and replaced with the 5, then surely the obvious thing to do is give me the 5?"
"No, you'll need to speak to your GP and get another prescription."
"And bearing in mind this is for injecting insulin and I die without insulin, do you not think that maybe that might add something of an unnecessary and slightly fatal delay for the sake of there being a wrong number?"
"Your GP should have known not to write a script for the 4. You'll just have to come back with another prescription."
So I've now filed another prescription and had to fill in manually the option for a 5 since the system doesn't seem to have it on it. Let's see if I get this issued, eh? On the plus side, at least this validates my extravagant approach of having more than one pen. Imagine what would have happened if I was trying to replace the only pen I had?