Advice please

I have been a type 1 diabetic for 30 years. (I was born in 1957.) And my condition is exceptionally well controlled.

I have made a number of posting on this Forum relating to how I manage to achieve such control - and how I manage, safely, to get such low HbA1c readings. But your enquiry concerns something much simpler.

Having injections has never bothered me in the least. But one thing I will never do is to use pen-injectors.

I find them big, heavy, cumbersome and clunky.

Instead, I use disopsable syringes. They're simple, small and neat.

Okay, they still have a needle at the end. But I believe that if I were a 2-year-old, I would find them a lot less threatening than the great big gadget which (almost certainly) you are now using to give your child her injections.

The pen-injector you probably use is, I would guess, not much smaller than your child's arm.

The syringes I use are tiny: 0.3 ml. They are the size of my little finger.

There may be a slight problem if your child's insulin only comes in the form of a pen-injector vial. (One of the insulins I use, Novorapid, only comes in such a form.) But this problem can very easily be got around. Please ask me for details.

I might add that I never use those aggressive spring-loaded gadgets to obtain a blood-sample, either. (I'm sure that small children would find the clunking noise they make quite frightening.)

Instead, I simply use a bare lancet to gently jab the side of my finger. They are so exquisitely sharp, they're quite painless.

Poor mother,
it must be hard to hurt the own child without the possibility to explain it.
Maybe there is the possibility for an insulin pump? Then you have to change the canula every three days. It will be hard, too, but not three or more times a day. And then you can use a plaster which numbs the pain. Or you can cool it at first.

With the pen: My daughter used it long time ago and it pained her all the time and then someone told her to use a drop of insulin at first so it won´t bite.
For some children it helps to put the insulin in a room for twenty minutes before using it, so it warms up a bit.

I had a toy to hold or something that would distract me as I was 2 when I got diagnosed with t1 diabetes x


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Bribery also worked x I got told I could do my favourite activity when I had the injection x anything that interests your child should work as it obviously distracts them from thinking about the injection xx


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Hi Imogen's mummy. 4 weeks isn't long and this is all tough on all of you. Do you have good support from your diabetes team? I would also ask them if they could put you in touch with another family whose child was diagnosed around the same age. It's not nice I know, but you know it needs to be done. At the beginning my 6 year old needed distraction, TV or something. Within time... We're 7 months in...it becomes routine and expected and your daughter's tolerance level will change. How lucky you work on site! Do seek the support as it really helps, and you are not alone. Tracy x


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Hi
My little boy was diagnosed in fed he as just turned 3,
Brilliant Facebook group
Diabetic mums

Come and join us. Big hugs x x


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Hi,
Archie was diagnosed T1 at 19 months old last September. The first few months are difficult, very difficult and it wouldn't be honest to say otherwise....however as time passes it gets much better At first it would take the 2 of us just to do a finger prick test, now he actually chooses which finger he wants. The injections were difficult to start with and it needed the both us to actually be able to do it, but again by 4 months he was choosing his own leg. We found it really helpful to let him hold the pen himself (no needle obviously!) And he would put it to his own leg and put it on mummy's and daddy's leg, and we tried to act like this was normal and we 'felt better'. We also got the grandparents involved so he just thought it was a normal occurrence. I think this helped breakthrough a lot if barriers, we call it the 'orange nine' (because the pen is orange and when we counted to ten the number nine was what he could say best....orange nine and he knows what it means, and if peppa pig is on he doesn't bat an eyelid now! So....hang in there, from someone who thought it would never get better, it does!

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There are some useful pieces of advice here - michaeldavid's ideas sound good, and the ones from mums with young children using bribery, distraction etc. Perhaps using a glove puppet to hold the finger pricker and/or injection pen ? I do like the idea of just using a lancet on its own (not in a 'devise') and the disposable syringes sound good. (I am an adult using Novorapid and Lantus so hadn't heard of these - I use a disposable pen but that is bigger). Although my grand children are not diabetic, I often test and inject in front of them so that it is 'normal', although one of them is needle phobic anyway so there will be a problem if she becomes diabetic ! Good luck to Imogen and other children having to have Insulin.