Question:
From Kentucky, USA:
I received, in the mail, an advertisment for the B-D Pen Needle and the
Syringe with Ultra-fine II short needle. It gives a warning to consult
with your healthcare professional before using any 5/16 inch needle (I had
planned to anyway), and carefully monitor your blood glucose when changing
to a shorter needle. Why would the shorter needle make such a difference?
Thanks.
Answer:
The shorter length of the needle may cause a slightly different rate of
absorption of insulin, since the insulin will be injected into a slightly
lesser depth of subcutaneous tissue. As such, I'd advise either using the
short needles all the time, or not at all.
By the way, some people have been trained to inject at a 45-degree angle.
The short needles sometimes seem to be too short for people if they had
been trained to inject at an angle, rather than "straight in" perpendicular
to the skin. If injecting at an angle, which tends to be an inconsistent
angle from one shot to the next, when using the short needles the insulin
may end up in the dermis layer (skin) rather than subcutaneous fat where we
want the insulin to go. The trick is to retrain these folks to inject at a
right angle to the skin surface, or (as discovered by my patients) to use the
Inject-Ease®
with the 30 tip and 50 unit syringes, which forces a straight-in 90-degree
angle and works fine with the shorter needles.
SS
Original posting 22 Jan 97
This site is published by Children With Diabetes, Inc, which is responsible for its contents.