My insulin prescription is for Novolog 3ml penfill cartridges. Been using Novolog penfill cartridges for years. I recently ended up in a place where only Humalog cartridges were available. I presumed all 3ml cartridges were equal and that I could use the Humalog cartridge in my NovoNorsk pen so I bought the Humalog cartridges. Wrong! Even though they are both 3ml cartridges I guess because they are each made by a different company pushing their own pen solutions neither cartridge will fit in the other company's pens. They are just different enough to work only in their own pen. (I don't know whether the needles are cartridge specific too.) Now I've got a bunch of Humalog insulin I can't use unless I ask my doctor to re-write my prescription for Humalog insulin and re-order more Humalog insulin so I can use a Lilly voucher to get a Humalog pen. That's a lot of extra expense and effort to correct one mistake. Does anybody here see a simpler solution? Anybody know of a cheap and easy way to get a Lilly cartridge pen? Is the HumaPen Luxura HD the only pen that will work with the Humalog 3ml cartridge?
Looking at this vignette slightly differently I suppose this was a good mistake to make now rather than some other time when time and conditions are more dire. I travel a lot and design a lot of redundancy into my IDDM systems. I carry multiple glucometers of different types in case only certain strips or batteries are available. I prefer the 3ml cartridges over the disposable pens because the cartridges are smaller and easier to travel with. I haven't used an injection needle for nearly 15 years but I still carry some needles in case only vial insulin is available. So now I know I need to carry multiple pens too.