HELP!!! What do i do?!!!!

Hi,

I've never used a needle-free injector. But i remember seeing one in the diabetes clinic. I googled the sq-pen and it looked nothing like yours. So i assume there must be a few different ones available if the one you was using you can no longer get.

Did your GP look to see if there was an alternative available?

how much supplies do you have, do you have enough to last you until you can sort it out?

Your diabetes team should be quite concerned with this as you have a needle phobia and it is their job to make sure you can continue taking insulin!

are you available to go to your diabetes clinic in person, It's easy to avoid a phone call but not someone in person.

I wish i could be of more help and i didn't want to see your post go unanswered.

I understand how furious you must be, use this anger to fuel you into getting an answer about what steps you can take to make sure this is sorted ASAP.

good luck!

There are a few listed here
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/insulin/insul ... ctors.html

not sure how old the info is but it may be a starting point for your research.

Have you tried an insulin pen with 4mm needles? They are tiny. I panic when faced with blood test needles (and injections, but blood tests are worse. I can't even watch on TV when people are having blood tests), but pen needles don't produce the same reaction in me, I assume it's because of the size.

The DSN I saw said the needless ones weren't often prescribed, she said they could be painful (I often do not even feel the insulin injections), are larger than insulin pens and make a noise so aren't very discrete. She could have just been saying that because they don't like to prescribe them because they are more expensive though!

I'm needlephobic. I was diagnosed 3yrs ago and had no idea there was an alternative to the needles I was given (a pen with screw-on disposable 6mm needle tips). I was just staring at the nurse while she was explaining it all, in a total state about it, thinking "You will have to follow me round all day every day injecting me if I'm ever to eat again". OK it's not fantastic to start off with. It's not. But I did it, and my technique (which I taught to a friend dying of cancer who had to inject herself with something for her heart, I think) is to never, ever look at the needle. I realised that therein lies the essence of the problem! You look at your skin, and decide where it's going in. Think about your skin. Only your skin. Decide. Then your hand, which has been joined to your body since before birth, does exactly what your brain has already silently instructed it to do - ie, the hard work of getting the thing into you. You honestly don't need to even look. Just the quickest glance maybe, to make sure it's all in - remember, you're not actually going to be seeing needle at that stage. Just the pen against your skin. What you need to be concerned about at that point is looking at the other end of the instrument - the plunger/dial, to make sure you've put the whole lot in. The hardest part for me was holding it in for a count of 10 while the chamber emptied. So I initially would sing in my head a bit of a song that I worked out was the right length of time. Mind tricks - it's all mind tricks. Then - OUT! And relax. It took several months to start getting past it all, being totally honest, and even longer for me to be comfortable injecting anywhere other than my legs. But I stuck to my technique and little by little it became 'ok'. It was only whenever I accidentally looked at the needle that it became really, really tough - funny how it suddenly looks 10ft long when you're in the middle of a panic session. To this day I do not focus on the needle. I don't like injecting, but I'm no longer phobic when injecting myself.

I would suggest just trying to do it. It's only added loads of fear and tension and panic into your life trying to find an alternative, and I can understand how worried you are. It worked for my friend, it enabled her to live at home for the last several months of her life instead of hospital. She was petrified and had a huge amount more going on than we have to deal with. I know that doesn't really help when you have a phobia but anyway. And yes I'm rubbish still at having blood drawn although having said that, I had it done today, and it was my most 'successful' blood-letting to date even though it was 1st thing in the morning - and the other day, I realised that I'd watched a needle going into someone's arm on the tv without batting an eyelid (I think you can guess what normally happens). I've also become much better at having flu jabs and suchlike. I just think "oh just stick it in". So I'm definitely gradually getting over the whole needlephobia thing by doing my own injections. I just bit the bullet. It was hard, but in the end, for my 'test' injection in front of the nurse, I said to myself "CHILDREN DO THIS!!!" and stuck it in.

You'll feel much more relaxed knowing you have more choices. And if you were to go on holiday and your sq pen broke? You'd be really up the creek. I think you should, and genuinely could, get to grips with it, for your own sake, give yourself a break and more flexibility. Jiminy I can't believe your other option - and you were happy to go for it - was a syringe!!!! I still to this day would lose my cool if I had to use one of those. That would probably require a full 30 minutes of complete meltdown before I could do it the first time. So FULL credit to you for that - to my mind, that's a thousand million times worse than the pens *shivers*

Have a look here,
http://www.iddt.org/about/living-with-d ... on-device/ This says that it is provided by the NHS.
Also read the previous article, Needle Phobia.

Hi,

didnt see the replies until now,

Sorry you haven't yet found a solution. has your diabetes nurse been in touch yet?

If there really is no alternative to a needle free device, and it resorts to using needle i'm sure (and i hope) there will be some sort of professional support in helping you to do this.

Wouldn't the hospital pay for the costs of shipping? as they pay for pumps etc?

I really do hope it works out for you and please keep posting so we know where you are with everything.

I knew facebook had a purpose!!

Looks promising

good luck!

you may have saved quite a few people!

You can get on the NHS Autosheild needle for insulin pens,

The Autosheild is designed so that you don't actaully see the needle it self at all, most clinics have succesfully used this with needle phoblic patients..


NPC FTR948
MPC 329325

Brand BD Autoshield

Supplier Becton Dickinson Uk Ltd

If you give your nurse the details above they will be able to find it on their list of presriptions drugs/items..

My husband has been prescribed these on occasions and you don't see the actual needle because it's covered it's a one shot then dispose can't use it for a second time, they were designed with saftey in mind, as it's impossble to get a finger stick injury off them!

dont b so bloody stupid and use a needle its not going to kill u but u will kill yourself if you dont take insulin,you wossssssssssssssssssss :lol:

That's really nice to hear good luck with your enquiries. My phobia was also caused in childhood - a local anaethetic in the nose. Put it this way, I don't recommend it. I had to be held down by two adults whilst screaming blue murder. And these injections last forever. Oh my God. I kept passing out on the way home. Noses are VERY sensitive!! Before that, I used to actually laugh at the kids who fainted after having vaccines at school, I thought it was hilarious...

Hi,

Been away for a bit, so only just saw your post. Wishing you the best of luck with getting the pump..I agree, once every 3 days is better than multple times a day.

This isn't supposed to sound unsympathetic...becasue, whilst I admit I know that injections can hurt, and yes, like you hated them as a child, I found copin methods, and also using smaller needles etc helped. What I wanted to say was is it possible toget help to face the needles? As a diabtic, it is hard to escape them...and whichever route you choose, there is always a risk, that something will go wrong (or some thoughtless person will withdraw them!) and you need a back up. Even now, while you do your investigating, you do need an "emergency" plan...even if it is getting your significant other to inject you in the bum so you can't see the needle. Have you tried some sort of therapy? I do take your point about it not being a phobia, as there is a very good reason to be scared of needles, but I wondered if there was someway, that the "hate" could be reduced to a mild dislike?

Take care

Hi

Just wanted to say that although insulin pens look like glorified fountain pens, they are very easy to use really and with a 4mm needle on the end of the pen, injecting insulin has been made so much easier now. A disposable insulin syringe has a 8mm needle on the end so 4mm is half the length. The 4mm is also much thinner. I need to put my specs on to replace the needle cover; the needle is that thin and tiny.

Personally I could not get on with the jet injectors. I had no end of bruises and found it a bit painful. An insulin pen needle is nowhere near as bad as the jet injectors ------ seriously. Don't worry, you'll be fine :wink: