Please change insulin needles and lancing device needles EVERY single time.

JPJones said:

I was hoping for more empirical information and candor on this forum, and less simple passing on of the conventional wisdom. Anyone have any real information?.

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Here's some real information for you; stop being so bloody rude as it will put people off helping you. That information probably passess as conventional wisdom though so who knows what you are going to do with it?

Back to the arguments for changing needles; it's down to you but everyone who has to inject in the UK is able to get a new needle each time. Good stuff for the needle manufactures of course but as has been said because the design of these needles is for 1 use only they will degrade with each further use, probably much more dramatically, as @picklebean's pictures demonstrate, than the older needles some of us where used to...

I don't care about the infection risk as I've never had any infections when I used to change with each cartridge but it makes sense that with a finite amount of space to inject into you would want to keep that tissue in as good a shape as possible.

Obviously, needles get less sharp over use and especially if they are not designed to be resilient which these ones aren't and less sharp degraded needles are going to deliver insulin less effectively and cause more damage to the injection sites. How much? Who knows? But if I'm only injecting 1 unit of insulin it's important that that does what it's meant to do.

Best

Dillinger

I don't buy those pictures at all. In fact they increase my distrust of the information telling us to use needles once only. There is absolutely no way the six times use needle photo is accurate. Six times into a piece of wood maybe? Not into skin, not into clothing, not even a jacket. I deeply deeply distrust when someone (not the poster, who is acting in good faith) is using distorted information to try to scare me into changing my behaviour.

To recap my post, I reuse needles until they hurt or until the insulin cartridge is finished, very usually the latter. I've done this for twenty years without getting hyperlipotrophy or any other problems, let alone infection or injury.

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I'm open to evidence that I should change my behaviour but I don't see any here.

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picklebean said:

These are images I've found really quickly on google image search. It's not so much that it might hurt more with a blunter needle, but that re-using could be doing unseen damage that could become progressively worse and cause more serious problems later on. And if you're basing your judgement on whether or not it hurts when you inject, well, quite often the places where it doesn't hurt so much are the points at which problems may occur because we tend to use them more often precisely because they hurt less.

I have a hard time understanding why people are so reluctant to change the needle every time.

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Thanks picklebean, those are the very photo's that I was referring to earlier in the thread

The photos are clearly a fraud.

I just looked at my lancet under my neighbours childrens microscope and no way do they look as damaged as those needles and I havent changed a lancet in this stabber for at least 4 months and I test at least 8 times a day...
If the original OP wants to answer this question then get a microscope and do the same.
Until then, I will continue re-using.
I may try and get my zoom camera out and see if I can take a close shot if I can get it magnified enough.


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That's about a thousand lancet shots or more. Impressive.

I guess needles would wear out much faster than lancets, being hollow and thinner. I am also trying to figure out where I can borrow a microscope now!

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I'm afraid nothing is going to make me change my lancet and needle every time, I have neither the time, space or inclination to do it! I change them every day (usually!).

Last week I was at a conference which included dinner, having no idea what what going to be on the plate and the timing I do what I normally do and inject as I eat, bread roll to start, bolus number 1, starter another bolus, main course after about 15 mins, another shot then dessert then cheese and crackers! 5 courses over about 90 mins (with copious amounts of wine!) no way was it feasible to use a new needle each time as a:- they take up too much space in my bag, b:- what do you do with the used needles when out? One or 2 you can deal with but by the end of the day I would have had 9 or 10! c:-I really don't want to draw attention to myself (I'm not ashamed or anything but I don't like drawing attention to it all when I'm surrounded by people I don't know).

I would love to see the "real" microscope pics

xAoifex said:

I'm afraid nothing is going to make me change my lancet and needle every time, I have neither the time, space or inclination to do it! I change them every day (usually!).

Last week I was at a conference which included dinner, having no idea what what going to be on the plate and the timing I do what I normally do and inject as I eat, bread roll to start, bolus number 1, starter another bolus, main course after about 15 mins, another shot then dessert then cheese and crackers! 5 courses over about 90 mins (with copious amounts of wine!) no way was it feasible to use a new needle each time as a:- they take up too much space in my bag, b:- what do you do with the used needles when out? One or 2 you can deal with but by the end of the day I would have had 9 or 10! c:-I really don't want to draw attention to myself (I'm not ashamed or anything but I don't like drawing attention to it all when I'm surrounded by people I don't know).

I would love to see the "real" microscope pics

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I use a Lancets that have to be changed each time I test

Still **** at changing lancets. To be honest nowadays I just change if I test other people! Accuchek multickix got 5 or 6 lancets in their stabbing devices and would be easy enough to change.. But naah, never bothered just wait for them to get painful eventually or someone else. I still stab my fingers at least 10 times a day...crikey I would be having a box of lancets a month or less!!

I've never heard of a diabetic losing a finger due to any reason of non feeling or numbness or infection... So after 30years+ I don't really think I'm likely to change...

Just had a look at the boxes I have upstairs. Prescribed to me on 1/5/2012 unopened...and the box before that I'm using was prescribed in Sept 2010 when I got my pump....and still 1 full layer out of 2 in the box...

Perhaps I should say to GP, well Lancets aren't on my repeat prescription and still have... So can I have some additional strips because I am so cheap on lancets??

Donnelleysdogs are you trying to give your gp heart failure asking them that...you will get a cleanliness lecture from here to doomesday about it

In 2002 I had a small infection area in my tummy, but it grew larger and painful. Whilst at the diabetic clinic I showed to my then consultant, she got two more people to look at it and it was probably an infection from a tiny bug from the reused needle. My mum had died 6 weeks before and I was going to stay with my sister over Easter, and didn't have the time to visit my GP and thought it would clear up on it's own . I went to my sisters, but the abscess grew much larger, so I had to go to her GP twice and he gave me antibiotics and my sister cleaned it and dressed it and I still have a faint scar.
I reuse lancets, but I always try to change needles with each use. Sometimes, lately, I haven't been able to unscrew the used one because it wont budge with just using one hand and clenched knees, doesn't work so good sometimes.. But luckily I have never had a infection like that again.

RRB

donnellysdogs said:

Still **** at changing lancets. To be honest nowadays I just change if I test other people!

Perhaps I should say to GP, well Lancets aren't on my repeat prescription and still have... So can I have some additional strips because I am so cheap on lancets??

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LOL - same here on all counts

Robinredbreast said:

I reuse lancets, but I always try to change needles with each use. Sometimes, lately, I haven't been able to unscrew the used one because it wont budge with just using one hand and clenched knees, doesn't work so good sometimes.. But luckily I have never had a infection like that again.

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MyLife Penfine do a needle that just clicks onto the end of insulin pens, given your struggles using one hand this might be an option for you.

Robinredbreast said:

In 2002 I had a small infection area in my tummy, but it grew larger and painful. Whilst at the diabetic clinic I showed to my then consultant, she got two more people to look at it and it was probably an infection from a tiny bug from the reused needle.

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To be fair, that is an opinion about the cause of one incident. It's not even one conclusive incident.

There is no evidence of harm from needle or lancet reuse. The strongest result measuring actual harm shows some hyperlipotrophy. Other studies show other factors (edema on skin, skin flora on needle/lancet) which are linked by *opinion*, not evidence, to other harms, but showed no evidence of actual harm.

None of the reuse studies tested the protocol that actual reusers follow in real life - which is to change the needle or lancet when it hurts or feels odd. Therefore all the adverse findings in the existing studies are potentially explained by the fact that their reuse protocols continued past the point of the patient feeling pain.

These studies are probably cited way up this thread.

To reiterate, if people want to frighten people in order to make them change their behaviour, like the OP of this thread, then they should bring scientific evidence, or go home.

Talking about personal experiences like RRB is doing is totally fine. That is what the forum is for. But scaring people and telling them what they should be doing, as the OP did, requires evidence.

Robinredbreast said:

didn't have the time to visit my GP and thought it would clear up on it's own . I went to my sisters, but the abscess grew much larger, so I had to go to her GP twice and he gave me antibiotics and my sister cleaned it and dressed it and I still have a faint scar.

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Scarring is a known side effect of antibiotics, particularly when used late, as in this case. If it had been possible to treat this when it was first detected I doubt there ever would have been a large abscess or scarring.

Wish I could take photos of my fingers to show any stab damage from re-using lancets constantly....But I can't.. I havent got any!!

I used to have little brown pin marks but they have gone totally... Reason I am sure is due to using coconut oil on my face and hair everyday.... So obviously this goes on my fingers too.

Honestly, I haven't got a mark, despite 10-15 stabs with same lancet for months and months and months!!!

More than willing to take 10 photos as proof and post them.. Will get told off then as well for biting my nails!!

All individual, but naah, for me changing is a waste of my time and NHS money...

what do you do with the used needles when out?

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You are not supposed to keep the needle attached to the pen either so either way you have to deal with carrying used needles but that's obviously just another trick by the industry to sell more stuff.

AlexMBrennan said:

You are not supposed to keep the needle attached to the pen either so either way you have to deal with carrying used needles but that's obviously just another trick by the industry to sell more stuff.

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Who knows,you may be onto something there.

Spiker said:

Scarring is a known side effect of antibiotics, particularly when used late, as in this case. If it had been possible to treat this when it was first detected I doubt there ever would have been a large abscess or scarring.

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Yes in different circumstances it may have been better going to GP sooner but then again no one knows how MY body would of actually reacted, but it was a distressing time (emotionally and psychologically) watching my mum dying from heart failure in hospital with me walking up to the hospital with a very young child, and a 90 minute round trip too, plus trying to be there for my dad as well, also constant phone calls to relatives. But never mind , we only human after all..
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If someone uses 6 needles a day, or uses 6 a week, that's the individuals choice and certainly not a problem. with me,