“Novo Nordisk has redesigned FlexPen®, the number one selling pre-filled insulin pen in the world1, to allow diabetes patients to use less force when pushing the button to inject their insulin and easily identify their insulin with prominent color branding. FlexPen® is only available with Novo Nordisk insulin products, Levemir® (insulin detemir [rDNA origin] injection), NovoLog® (insulin aspart [rDNA origin] injection) and NovoLog® Mix 70/30 (70% insulin aspart protamine suspension and 30% insulin aspart injection, [rDNA origin]).”
All prefilled pens are a waste of resources and money. The likelyhood of mechanic failures is much higher. In the end an investment in NovoPen4 and vials is cheaper. In my opinion these products should be banned.
I’ve had 1 “mechanical failure” in my years of using a Flexpen. I might have 2 or 3 different pens in use at any given time. I also do not discard a needle with each use. One pen I kept too long unused had a needle that somehow became plugged. That wasn’t really the pens fault.
As a person who did not want to use a pump, insulin pens changed my whole diabetes management because of comfort, convenience, and ease of use. I wouldn’t go back to vials and syringes unless it was the last option available to me.
Yeah, I would prefer something like the NovoPen 4 over my Flexpen. I can be pretty clumsy and fat fingered. When I was on syringes and vials, I lost count of how many vials I accidently crushed or somehow broke.
Banning seems a bit extreme. I agree FHS, I’ve only had one fail and they replaced it immediately with an entire pack. The novo pens seem like junk compared to my Lantus and the Humolog I used for years,though. They feel much more solid and I never had a failure. If they’ve improved the pen I never noticed, it still feels like 100 pounds of pressure needed to inject! Even so, I would never go back to vials, it was like the invention of sliced bread! Wish my insurance would cover humolog again, I’d switch.
My NovoPen4 for bolus is blue and the one for basal is silver. You could also use them differently by leaving the cap off for the bolus pen for example. This way the you have another attribute to differentiate the pens. For more than a year I am using the HumaPen Memoir instead of the NovoPen4 for the basal (can be modified for Novo vials). Now those pens can not be confused that is for sure.
