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Maximum dose pen

D

DunePlodder

Well-Known Member
Messages
861
Location
N Somerset
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
A couple of weeks ago I managed to mistakenly inject my basal dose using my Humalog pen...
It was an interesting evening.

It set me thinking that I would never inject more than say 9 units of Humalog in one go. For a high carb meal I might perhaps need more, but it would be a split dose.
So wouldn't it be great to be able to set a maximum dose? It shouldn't be too difficult to design a pen to do this.
It would have stopped my mistake as I wouldn't have been able to set such a high dose.

I'd go as far as to say it's a health & safety issue - especially with idiots like me around!
 
I think it's the sort of thing that many of us have done once. I'm shamed to say I've done it twice! (In my defence, things were much easier before they made the long and short acting insulin the same (clear) colour.) The first time I was on a camping holiday and realised what I'd done immediately, lined up and started consuming all the glucose/carb we had in the tent/car and kept testing. Luckily my bs started to go up before we'd completely run out of glucose but it was a close thing. The second time I didn't realise until my husband rescued me from a severe night time hypo.... Not fun.
 
I've actually done it twice (in 20+years) - the first time I put the fast acting cartridge in the basal pen . Both times I realised pretty quickly & survived with the help of my Dexcom. At least I was at home & had plenty of food available!
 
DunePlodder said:
I've actually done it twice (in 20+years) - the first time I put the fast acting cartridge in the basal pen . Both times I realised pretty quickly & survived with the help of my Dexcom. At least I was at home & had plenty of food available!
Click to expand...

Now that you've put your idea into the public domain you can no longer patent it!
 
DunePlodder said:
You never know, the company that makes millions from my idea might give me a free pen!
Click to expand...
My diabetic nurse gives me free pens....

But, totally going off topic here, I managed for years with syringes and not pens. Now I'm on pens I've discovered they can become faulty.... Is this really an improvement?
 
I guess the main thing about pens is that they look less "medical" than syringes. For those with vision problems they also "click" for each unit selected.

Going back to maximum doses, I haven't used a pump, but I believe they are limited for safety reasons to a maximum bolus at any one time. Surely the same thing could/should be applied to pens.
I don't think it should be possible give myself a single dose of up to 60 units of fast acting insulin which I can now.
 
DunePlodder said:
I don't think it should be possible give myself a single dose of up to 60 units of fast acting insulin which I can now.
Click to expand...

I have however seem some Type2's requiring large doses at once, mostly on the long acting mind. but some do have large amounts of fast acting too and I doubt the pen manufacturers would want to make two diff types of pens for the same thing (and then you've got the problem of what if you got the wrong one when you collected from the chemist (due to whatever reason))
 
I don't think you would need different pens, the position of the "lock" on the pen would have to be user configurable according to need. Just set it at the maximum dose you personally ever inject.
The pen would have to be redesigned, but I'm sure it is doable.
 
DunePlodder said:
I don't think it should be possible give myself a single dose of up to 60 units of fast acting insulin which I can now.
Click to expand...
Fully agreed but...

Some of our fellow type2 friends need it, despite it would be a sure out-of-this-world experience for most of us Type1s...
 
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