Hi. Has anyone filled their cartridge from an insulin pen? I am about to get a new Tandem pump soon (new pumper here) but I still have a lot of Humalog Kwikpens in the fridge - More than I would need for an emergency situation.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
When you get your pump supplies there will be syringe and needle set for each cartridge. Just uses that to access/pull out the insulin in the pen and fill as usual. No need to waste your pens.
Hi, Anthony! My ds also named Anthony :) uses the t:slim. We have several boxes of pen cartridges that I am using to fill his pump. There isn't any air in the pen vials so it's harder to get the insulin out but it does work. Make sure the insulin is room temp first. With the pens, if it's refrigerator cold its a major pain to get the insulin out. We also use Humalog. Good luck!
Can I use the pen and pen needle and just inject directly into the cartridge? The same way I would inject myself with the pen? Or does it have to go into the syringe first? Thanks!
We weren't using the pens for injection. We only had them because they were cheaper than the vials so we were still drawing the insulin into a syringe so I can't answer that honestly. I did try to use a regular syringe once and it was too flimsy. I almost broke the needle :( Now I use the syringe that comes with the pump cartridges because they are much sturdier. I hope that helps.
Don't know if you can dial up a 200 u dose or more. I think you would be having issues with lots of air bubbles if you did repeated injections and might have issues with too many punctures in the injection port if you try multiple injections. You can always try it and see. But I would do that after you are having good results using vial and standard loading process.
I just withdrew the insulin from the part where you apply the needle to the pen. I wouldn’t recommend straight shooting in the insulin as you will have to keep taking out the needle to dial in the dose…you don’t want to risk getting more air in the cartridge.
My pen only dialed out to 60u…so sticking the port x5 may not be great.
I've used a few it works best if you use the syringe it comes with, stick it into the pen dial it up all the way and push it into the syringe.
Hi, I’m a new pumper too. I just finished my training session and was taught how to do this because I also have humalog pens left over. You can’t use the pen needles because they’re too thin. Use the syringe and needle with room temperature insulin. Very easy. Also I learned not to put entire volume of pen into cartridge. Only a little more then you’ll use for life of infusion set (3 days). This way you won’t waste precious insulin. The cartridge gets replaced with each infusion set. Hope this helps.
Hi, I’m a new pumper too. I just finished my training session and was taught how to do this because I also have humalog pens left over. You can’t use the pen needles because they’re too thin. Use the syringe and needle with room temperature insulin. Very easy. Also I learned not to put entire volume of pen into cartridge. Only a little more then you’ll use for life of infusion set (3 days). This way you won’t waste precious insulin. The cartridge gets replaced with each infusion set. Hope this helps.