Your techniques for pesky air bubbles?

Sometimes it takes me 15-20 minutes to get air bubbles out of my insulin. What are some of the techniques you use to not draw so many air bubbles in your insulin pump viles and syringes?
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  1. Take the insulin out of the fridge and let it warm up. Cold insulin equals champagne bubles that form large bubble later on.
  2. Fill reservoir
  3. Smack reservoir with a pencil to knock air bubbles to the top and the push up on plunger to force them out of the cartridge. I repeat this step until they are pretty much all gone.
  4. Time 1-2 minutes

Oh, we have some great discussions about this. Go under “FORUM” at the top and do a search for “air bubble.”

And we have a member named Dave who has written up some great suggestions.

  1. Take needle and pull down plundger to the amount you will need. (if taking 40 units, pull to 40 units.)
  2. Push air into bottle (if taking 40 units, push 40 units of air into bottle)
  3. Draw amount needed.

No bubbles! Work everytime.

OF COURSE THIS METHOD IS FOR SYRINGES.

If you get air bubble tap the reservoir on the side of the table and then push the air bubbles back into the vial. This came from my diabetic educator.

If you don’t have a pen or pencil handy to whack the reservoir with, your pump works great too. Pushing air into the bottle does help, but I still get air bubbles in my reservoirs.

I use my pen which is a heavy pen.After drawing the insulin in the cartridge I tap it with my pen and all the bubbles go to the top.By the end of my cartridge I usually get a few bubbles but it doesn’t affect me.

When filling the reservoir I push the air into the insulin bottle when the bottle is upright. That keeps from introducing more air bubbles. Also, when I draw the insulin from the bottle I do it slow, that seems to help a little too.
Hope that helps!