I've thought about this the last few weeks and forgot to do research when I started a new vial. Can any of you visually gauge how much insulin is left in a vial? I use just a tad less than one vial in 28 days and it always drives me crazy not knowing if I have enough to fill my new reservoir. I usually put about 140 units in each one and try to make it last as long as I can. I really hate wasting either insulin or reservoirs. I use Novolog. Ideas?
I am getting it via mail order and end up with a few bottles at a time so I don't run into this too much. For a while, I was close to a vial/ month and BCBS was rounding down so I'd get very, very close to running out. Eventually, I had the doc "cook" my rx to enough to get to 1050U/ month which is, of course, a bit more than a bottle, so the pharmacy agreed to provide two and got me that backup. One never knows when one might need a bit more?! My problem now is that it's hard to see up close. I'm usually pretty tight with insulin and will run reservoirs down to <5U most of the time. The stuff's expensive, why waste it!
I usually just fill from the old bottle till gone (but no air), disconnect the reservoir from the old bottle, and reinsert to the new one to finish filling, making sure to only withdraw from new bottle. This works best when you only need a small amount from the new bottle.
If there is not much left in the old bottle, then first I inject air to the new bottle, and fill partially with new insulin, then switch to the old bottle to continue filling.
Another suggestion I heard from another member, is to fill the new tubing with insulin from the old reservoir, to reduce the amount of wasted insulin.
Unlikely, easiest method is to use a fresh (new) syringe and see how much insulin can be drawn-up. If it fills the entire syringe, you have at least that much. Once done, put the insulin back into the vial