Injecting Insulin During Flight

[sapphire67]

Has anyone encountered difficulty when injecting during a flight using an insulin pen? This was my first flight using a pen rather than syringes. When I tried injecting, the plunger wouldn't move, however hard I tried, and I frantically began changing needles with the hope that it was the needles that were faulty rather than the pen! I had no option but to remain without my dose of insulin during the entire flight. I checked the pen again on landing, using a new cartridge, and thankfully it worked. It was a huge scare and an awful way to start a holiday.

 

[Deleted Account]

What a horrible experience.
I have flown many many times with insulin pens and, thankfully, have never experienced a problem during flight.
Hopefully, it was just a one off.

 

[Schon07]

Shon07

 

[porl69]

Has anyone encountered difficulty when injecting during a flight using an insulin pen? This was my first flight using a pen rather than syringes. When I tried injecting, the plunger wouldn't move, however hard I tried, and I frantically began changing needles with the hope that it was the needles that were faulty rather than the pen! I had no option but to remain without my dose of insulin during the entire flight. I checked the pen again on landing, using a new cartridge, and thankfully it worked. It was a huge scare and an awful way to start a holiday.

Hi @sapphire67 and welcome to the forum.
WOW that must have been a very worrying experience. How were your bloods during the flight?
I am a regular flier and have never experienced anything like that (touch wood)

 

[Daibell]

I have never had injection problems during a flight.

 

[Jaylee]

Has anyone encountered difficulty when injecting during a flight using an insulin pen? This was my first flight using a pen rather than syringes. When I tried injecting, the plunger wouldn't move, however hard I tried, and I frantically began changing needles with the hope that it was the needles that were faulty rather than the pen! I had no option but to remain without my dose of insulin during the entire flight. I checked the pen again on landing, using a new cartridge, and thankfully it worked. It was a huge scare and an awful way to start a holiday.

Hi @sapphire67 ,

I did used to get this with the early pens in the late 1980s? Or should i say the brown "bung" in the cartridge would jam...
From memory. A change in cartridge remedied, after checking the dial & ram mechanism in the pen without a cartridge installed.... But this was not during a flight & the old pens were an all plastic assembly?
I'm wondering if the insulin had "crystallised" on the glass & jammed the bung? Just something I saw on YouTube on how insulin is made, years later? (Just supposition.) A pain, none the less....