The pharmacist made a passing comment when she gave me the SoloSTAR pens that, “The dosage conversion should be 1:1 between the vials and the pens, but test carefully the first couple of days just in case.”
I’m kinda worried now. Why would the dose change? Is the chemical composition of the Lantus in the vials vs. the SoloSTAR pens different?
Any light you could shed on the transition would be much appreciated.
There really shouldn’t be any difference. Lantus is Lantus, whatever its injected trough. I think the pharmacist is just being careful. I know I didn’t have any issues when I switched.
One thing my pharmacist warned me about though, if you are also taking your bolus in a pen, try not to get them mixed up. It will kinda ruin your night if you switch your basal with your bolus by accident.
Thanks, TimmyMac. Yeah, switching pens would be a nightmare for sure, as I’m injecting 48 IU of Lantus and only a fraction of that for my Novolog boluses.
I already have a plan to tape a big red L and the date opened on the Lantus pen. I hope that will help me tell them apart when I’m tired/distracted.
The insulin is the same but it is possible the dosing could be slightly off. I was all excited when they finally came out with Apidra in the SoloStar pen but ended up going back to the OptiStick pen after I tried it. I use a lot of small 1 and 2 unit doses and compared what came out versus what came out of a syringe - it was not even close. I know someone else that had the same problem. My pump died yesterday and I had to go back to MDI and I had some new Apidra SoloStar pens – I was hoping they fixed that problem but didn’t. I got more out of 1 unit in a syringe than I did 2 units in the SoloStar. My guess is your pharmacist has probably heard the complaints about it.
1:1 means the amount should be exactly the same: 1 unit of vial = 1 unit of pen.
And you should always monitor carefully when changing any medication!
Thanks, Gerry, but if it’s 1:1, then why should the day before I use the SoloSTAR pen be any different than the day after I use the SoloSTAR pen? That was the question – is there really any difference between using the vials and the pen, especially if I’m careful to prime the pen?
I use such a large dose (48 IU every morning) that even if there was a half-unit difference in the delivery due to the mechanics of the pen (vs. my “generous” measuring with the hypodermic) that would only result in a fraction of one percent difference in my dose – not enough to send me careening into outer-diabetes-space.
Oh, well, I reviewed the Lantus website and I don’t see any warnings here or there to worry about. I’ll just be sure to do all my regular testing tomorrow and Wednesday and see how it goes.