Subject: RE: Pen Question
From: Annelies (nacht@pandora.be)
Date: Wed Mar 30 2005 - 10:24:08 EST
Hi, I have used the lantus pen for over a year and I tought it was the best pen to use. I wonder why you think you have to re insert the cartridge. I wonder if we have the same pen here in Belgium. You puch the button at the end then you turn until you see the amount you need. Then you push and then you leave it as is. It's then ready to use again. I think you might be turning it after you have used it which is not necessary. You can also see the insulin move trough the plastic part, so you can see if ou give a large dose that you are getting it. The only problem I found is that the clour of the cartridge of Lantus is only slightly different then the humaloginsulin, So I had one mistake of putting a humalog cartridge in my lantuspen, I had no idea why I had all these hypo's in the middle of the night until I changed the cartridge and I saw. Well hope you find a pen that works better for you. Have a good day! Annelies Nachtergaele Benga Nv Juwelen Nachtergaele Mageleinstraat 41 9000 Gent Tel 09/224.33.20 Fax 09/233.06.22 www.nachtergaele.be De winkel is open van 10u30 tot 13u en van 13u30 tot 18u Gesloten op zondag en dinsdag -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: owner-diabetic@Lehigh.EDU [mailto:owner-diabetic@Lehigh.EDU]Namens One Stop Verzonden: woensdag 30 maart 2005 16:54 Aan: Diabetes Discussion List Onderwerp: Pen Question Hi Folks A while back we discussed the new Lantus pen. I think I gave it a fair shot. I didn't like the look, size or feel of the pen but still used it for more than a month, trying to overlook the esthetics and really looking for positives in using the pen. Last week I gave up and went back to transferring Lantus into empty novo cartridges and using the novo pen for the following reasons. I found the Lantus pen to be a pain in the tush to use. There are two buttons on the pen. One to release the cap and one to release the dialup dosage thingy. Unfortunately, when you hit the button to release the cap, it also releases the cartridge "tail" from it's anchor, so each time you release the cap you have to re-insert the cartridge or it won't work properly. When you hit the bottom button to dialup the dosage a window activates with -00- on the window. As you dial up the numbers increase BUT when you give yourself the dosage the numbers stay the same in the window and do not dial down to -00- until you close up the pen, which includes rehitting the dialup button. It always left me wondering if I actually got the correct dosage. The unit listings are on the cartridge, unlike the novo pen, which has the unit amounts on the cartridge cover. On the Lantus cartridge. for me, the unit amounts are difficult to read and I gave that up in the very beginning so if you do not use a lot of Lantus it may take a few days of dosing to actually see the plunger move up the cartridge. There is a battery in this pen. According to the literature that came with the pen, the battery should last 3 years, at which time Lantus will replace the pen. That's nice but I fail to see why they need a battery. It activates the window but to my surprise there is no backlight so you can't read the numbers in the window if you are not in a lit room. I took the pen outside last week at night and couldn't read the window at all. As mentioned before, the numbers in the window do not dial down as you inject so you know it is working properly and I fail to understand why you need a battery operated cap release so it is harder getting the cap released than getting into Fort Knox. Last week I gave up trying to deal with the Lantus pen. A pen is supposed to make using insulin easier than using syringes. This was not the case with this pen. I was also getting outragous fbg numbers, which made me think that I was not getting the Lantus. In going back to the novo pen my fbg numbers are back to under 100, delivery is simpler, no jumping through hoops, no useless battery. I tried but IMHO the Lantus pen is not worth the trouble. I am curious about how others have rated the Lantus pen. Nancy
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