Has anyone had trouble putting the syringe into the tandem slim cartridge? It was like hitting a brick wall and impossible to push the plunger on the syringe down! This is the second time this has happened.
I wished noticing about 4 or 5 months ago that some of the cartridges ranked a little less in the quality control department, like they injected a little too much glue around that white port, or something. I’ve always been able to b find a sweet spot, but it’s definitely more challenging lately. You basically just need to keep stabbing it in different spots until you find somewhere that doesn’t offer resistance. Does that make sense? As you put through the white silicone (I think it’s silicone??) you’ll feel resistance, and then the syringe will jump forward a tiny bit (maybe 1 mm?), and you know you’ve found the empty void. If you only feel resistance, keep stabbing until you don’t. Sometimes I can find the sweet spot around the edges, instead of the center.
Sometimes you can get a tiny core of that while silicone stuck inside the syringe, too, which will just plug it up. It’s easily fixed just by swapping out the needle. I try to make sure I save a few in a baggie to be reused. Honestly, I save the whole syringe because they’re just handy to have around for art/crafts, repairs, cooking, etc…
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Yes that happens to me too here and there, I try another spot, sometimes I have to push it hard to get it in.
This has happen to me with two different boxes of cartridges. With syringes from those two boxes no matter how hard I pushed the plunger I could not clear the blockage. From those two boxes almost half of the needles would become blocked, it was maddening.
I felt at the time that it was the age of the cartridge, these were from old stock and my reasoning was that the stopper material had degraded. It made me work harder at rotating my supplies.
Every cartridge has a sweet spot which varies from cartridge to cartridge in my experience. Sometimes it takes a poke or 2 to find it, but there is always a spot where the needle will easily insert.
I’ve had this problem 3 times, however, I think it’s a problem with the syringe or needle component rather than the cartridge. I could not push the plunger in and get any insulin out of the syringe even when it wasn’t inserted into the cartridge. So, I couldn’t get any of the insulin out, and all in all I have now wasted almost a full bottle of insulin over the past few months because it was stuck in the syringe and I could not get it out (I did try withdrawing from it with another syringe, but that didn’t work either). Tandem replaced the cartridges, but they cannot replace the huge amount of insulin I wasted.
Hi @hollymateluber I occasionally have this issue with the needle end. I always check to make sure the nylon/teflon/lubricant/whatever they actually use on the needle is clear before filling.
There for a while I was having the issue of the needle getting clogged, but I haven’t in quite a while now. When I was young I had a used insulin syringe that I dipped the tip into candle wax and sucked a tiny bit up. I pulled the plunger out and put it back in and was trying to squeeze the wax out, but instead the needle shot off the end of the syringe… Never did find it lol. I always think of that if I get one that get’s clogged up.
As far as having a hard time getting it into the cartridge, I find you either need to be dead center, or off to the side and go in at a slight angle. Just repoke if it is in a bad spot.