Am I the exception or is everyone out there happy with current insulin pens?
I've had diabetes for over 30 years and was delighted when Novo Nordisk introduced their uber cool silver metal design around 25 years ago. It looked like a normal pen, ie was unobtrusive, could happily be used in public, and most important of all, was accurate.
Then pens had to meet with European requirements - out went the 1.5 glass insulin vials and in came the bulkier 3 ml ones, which meant my wonderful old pen was phased out. In came click-count versions and various plasticky pens which I've tried to like, but have to admit I hate.
For a start, you wouldn't want to use them in public. The design is tacky and has a large aperture showing the glass vial within. Streamlined? Forget it. More crucially, the old metal piston has been replaced with a plastic one which has a tendency to slip back at crucial moments meaning you are as likely to inject air as insulin.
And the latest design innovation? To get rid of the hard (rather smart and easy to use) case formerly found on my daytime-use Novopen
and introduce a soft-top zipped case which is hard to undo and looks remarkably similar to the velcro model used for night-time injections. Now it's very easy to confuse the two and administer the wrong injection. Such is progress.
I've had diabetes for over 30 years and was delighted when Novo Nordisk introduced their uber cool silver metal design around 25 years ago. It looked like a normal pen, ie was unobtrusive, could happily be used in public, and most important of all, was accurate.
Then pens had to meet with European requirements - out went the 1.5 glass insulin vials and in came the bulkier 3 ml ones, which meant my wonderful old pen was phased out. In came click-count versions and various plasticky pens which I've tried to like, but have to admit I hate.
For a start, you wouldn't want to use them in public. The design is tacky and has a large aperture showing the glass vial within. Streamlined? Forget it. More crucially, the old metal piston has been replaced with a plastic one which has a tendency to slip back at crucial moments meaning you are as likely to inject air as insulin.
And the latest design innovation? To get rid of the hard (rather smart and easy to use) case formerly found on my daytime-use Novopen
and introduce a soft-top zipped case which is hard to undo and looks remarkably similar to the velcro model used for night-time injections. Now it's very easy to confuse the two and administer the wrong injection. Such is progress.