Whats the knack anyone?

[gillrogers]

Dont know what the devil im doing but i keep loosing blobs when injecting my basal. This has got to be down to my technique as its after ive injected, wait the 10 seconds and then pull the needke ouy and there it is sat on the end of the needle. Looks like it could be half a units worth. But i seem to be doing this every night. I have to pinch up my skin. Could i be pinching too hard?

 

[helli]

Does it matter?
If you are injecting enough insulin to keep your BG reasonably stable, I wouldn’t worry about a little blob on the end of your needle which may or may not be half a unit.
There will always be some insulin on the end of needle when you pull it out.

 

[Inka]

My tip - and I promise I’m not being sarcastic - is to not look at the end of the needle. There are enough things to worry about without finding more, so I focus on what I’m doing and kind of unfocused my eyes on anything else, if that makes sense? Selective vision and move on to the next thing 🙂

 

[gillrogers]

Does it matter?
If you are injecting enough insulin to keep your BG reasonably stable, I wouldn’t worry about a little blob on the end of your needle which may or may not be half a unit.
There will always be some insulin on the end of needle when you pull it out.

I know what you mean but to me with my small doses that half unit can be 25% of my dose. Its not a tiny blob that i can get and ignore.

 

[gillrogers]

My tip - and I promise I’m not being sarcastic - is to not look at the end of the needle. There are enough things to worry about without finding more, so I focus on what I’m doing and kind of unfocused my eyes on anything else, if that makes sense? Selective vision and move on to the next thing 🙂

I wish i could Inka but that blob looks like its big enough to be almost a half units worth which to me is about 25% of my whole dose. Its not the teenweenie blob on the end of a needle. Those dont bother me.

 

[helli]

@gillrogers it doesn’t matter if that blob is 25%, 10%, 50%, … of you intended dose. What matters is what your BG is like. If your BG overnight is reasonably stable, you are getting enough insulin.

 

[Inka]

But if your blood sugar is ok, it’s fine. When we used to use syringes, I’m sure sometimes I drew up varying amounts as you’re aiming to get the insulin on the appropriate black line, but the line has thickness so, depending on exactly where on the line the insulin is, there must have been fractions of units missing - but it didn’t matter!

Your basal is 2 units - that’s what you need, right? But that’s not true. Maybe one night you need 1.87 units or another night you need 1.90. Perhaps you had a stressful day and you had a tad of lingering stress which pushed your needs up to 2.1? Who knows? The blob could just appear when you withdrawn the needle due to the change in pressure (not being in your flesh anymore) - that is, it’s not part of your dose, just an extra bit leaking out after the injection.

Even if you sorted this, you’d find something else to fret about. I say that not as a criticism but as something to keep in your mind. Anxiety is an awful thing and when it’s bad it can change your way of thinking. Taking control by rationalising it, by questioning it, by gently mocking yourself, by whatever works for you, can help.

 

[Tdm]

I know what you mean...i don't like it when i see 'escaped insulin'
At first i took some extra to make up. That every much didn't work.
Now, i just assume its not part of the dose and that seems to work quite well for me, and my doses are quite small too.
I do find if i withdraw the needle part of the way, leave it a little time, then take it out, that often means less escaped insulin (i don't pinch up) so you may like to try that if you think it may help, but, personally, i can't say it seems to make much difference to the level of blood sugar control.

 

[gillrogers]

Ok.thanks, as usual these days im struggling to get into range. Lucky if i can for 6 hours at night. Im chasing my damn basal again as it came down for a few days due to activity and now thats stopped its on its way back up. It just got me worried that im not getting the full dose and so that could be why.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Have you delivered 0.5u and 1u onto a plain saucer so that you can see the size of it? I wonder if it might be more than you imagine?

Have you experimented with leaving the needle in for a shorter or longer count? Have you tried taking the needle out more slowly, or more briskly?

I‘m not sure there is one single approach that is guaranteed. If it’s anything like glucose sensors sticking to arms my guess is that the precise ’best‘ technique might vary from person to person!

 

[gillrogers]

Have you delivered 0.5u and 1u onto a plain saucer so that you can see the size of it? I wonder if it might be more than you imagine?

Have you experimented with leaving the needle in for a shorter or longer count? Have you tried taking the needle out more slowly, or more briskly?

I‘m not sure there is one single approach that is guaranteed. If it’s anything like glucose sensors sticking to arms my guess is that the precise ’best‘ technique might vary from person to person!

Yes I have, did it a couple of weeks ago. There’s a post here somewhere of me doing it. I had a query on the delivery of half units or not on my human kwik pen. Every so often I discovered that so much was oozing out after priming it for the shot that there was next to nothing delivered. Batch of faulty pens so changed to a new box. I did as you’ve described to find out.