I am on MDI. In the last few weeks I have noticed my morning numbers going up. I am thinking dawn phenomenon. In any event I decided to raise my basal by one. I was using a new pen and when I clicked it went from 10 to 8 and totally bypassed 9. This happened on two consecutive days and my numbers were still high in the morning. I switched pens and clicked really slowly last night and today I awoke in a good range. My question is do you get the full dose if the pen clicks to fast?
That's a very good question. I use the lantus pens and humalog pens and have never had that happen with either of them. My guess, and it is strictly a guess, is if you dialed up 10 units then you got 10 units regardless of how fast the pen clicks.
I never used pens but it sounds like you're on to something? Not good to have happened but nice job investigating it!
The pens work by pulling the plunger out along a screw like spiral. What determines the dose is the total distance you have moved the dial. The clicks are simply detentes that are a convenience, if you dial in your dose fast, you can easily skip over the detents, but that doesn't matter.
I take a large basal dose at night. I don't bother listening to the clicks because they don't matter, all that matters is how far you have selected. In your case you got 10 units whether you dialed it in slow or fast.
I always primed the pins with 1 unit to push any air out of the system then I would dial in my dose. If you just don't trust your pin you can test it buy dialing 20u and leaving the cap on the needle it should fill up the cylindrical part of the pin cap. If you still don't trust your pins just start using a syringe it's not really a problem most of the time you will probably be at home when you inject your basal insulin.
When the disposable pins first came on the market I didn't trust them and they where rough operating and caused a lot of extra bruises so I stuck with the novopin Jr and used a syringe for my basal insulin...
It was kind of a image beaker for a 45 year old man to carry around a insulin pin with green turtles on it but it was or is the very best pin Novo ever made.
Hey JohnG I just got the new pre filled novolog pens and I don’t like them I like The Jr pen better too . I just leave the kiddy top off of it LOL the bottom of my pen is just blue
Thanks for your explanation!