Leaking Penfill or Pen

[soso]

Last week I opened a new box of Novorapid, I think I took my first shot for bf..then I ate out went for a long hike and was surprised to come home to an 11.6... I had a shot (or so I thought) and it still didn't come down.. then i noticed that the insulin was down 100u...not being dead yet, I presumed it wasn't in me...sure enough, the cap and the jar I keep the pen in was awash.
I took it all apart, changed the needle and put it in the jar, next morning..another 100 u gone.....
I got a new pen and all seemed well.
until....
yesterday lunch I started a new vial... dinnertime I was dog tired and did not eat a lot of carbs, but was surprised to see how high my bg was at 2 hrs..however as it was not massive I decided not to correct as I was going to sleep...
did not test after my bf today—forgot.
lunch had my shot, noticeda wet spot on the counter...insulin...turned cap upside down..lots more insulin..stopper in vial now at 180u (I should have used about 10u) took pen apart and plunger was still at bottom of pen, leading me to realise I had just had 2u of nothing at all..so redid my shot and called Costco pharmacy, they are getting back to me.

It's like it leaked, but even if it did, surely that wouldn't suck the stopper up the vial? And why never before, I didn't do anything different with the pen than I have forever....

Anyone else seen this?

[owlyn]

It sounds like you are not doing an air shot. With a pen it is a very critical step, despite what others here may say. If you did an air shot, you would see that nothing is coming out. Keep doing them until some insulin comes out in a stream.

[ant hill]

Last week I opened a new box of Novorapid, I think I took my first shot for bf..then I ate out went for a long hike and was surprised to come home to an 11.6... I had a shot (or so I thought) and it still didn't come down.. then i noticed that the insulin was down 100u...not being dead yet, I presumed it wasn't in me...sure enough, the cap and the jar I keep the pen in was awash.
Hello Soso, Do you keep the hyperdermic needle on the pen?
If so then remove it because then it would leak and the pong of insulin would go away too. Also when you get a fresh cartridge in the pen, Get the plunger to the rubber of the cartridge and see that you have some flow of insulin. :)
Do this every time that you get a new cartridge for your pen.
Do you have a manual (http://www.novonordisk.com/images/diabetes/pdf/novopen_3_instruction_manual.pdf)for these pens Soso?

[soso]

That's the funny thing, I do prime the pen every time..only thing I can think is that some of the leaking insulin was in the needle and dripped out and I saw that as primed, or maybe I was distracted or something.. Sometimes I have noticed I prime and nothing a few times then a great spray of it across the room..
Novo says it is cos the needle is on the pen, plus the fact I had it needle end down in the jar. Then they wanted me to give details of my high bg that one time to another dept...put me on hold for about 3 mins before I thought...yeah, right.... and hung up. I am just a bit foxed as to why it only just started leaking recently...and just as I started a new box too...turned it the other way round so I will see... also my lantus pen was the same way, with no leakage.
I know they say take the needle off, but then I would get out somewhere and just know there would be no needle available!

[silverfrost]

I have had a similar problem before actually, but it was with Humalog. I had a couple of pens from the same box do this... Whenever I would first put the needle on before taking a shot, insulin would just flow out before I even turned the dial. While priming the pen, nothing would come out the first few times, then it would suddenly stream out like it's supposed to. Then, when I would THINK it was okay to take my shot, I would dial it to whatever amount of units, and while I would still be turning it to, say, 4 units, the pen would be leaking the whole time again! So, I have a feeling that a lot of the insulin I meant to take did not go into my body... Of course I ended up having quite a few highs during that period.

When asking my diabetic educator if they had possibly gone bad, she told me that as long as they were kept in the fridge, that wasn't the issue. The thing is, I always kept them in the fridge. I'm wondering if my fridge was possibly just TOO cold at that point or something? I know that extremes either way can do a lot of harm to insulin.

Anyway, the problem was fixed once I bought a new box of 5 pens of Humalog. I also tried turning down the temperature in the fridge. The new box has been fine- no leaks at all.

The odd thing is, the first 3 pens of the box with leaky pens were fine, and they were always stored at the same temperature as the last two. I would have to assume, then, that it was long-term exposure of the last two pens to that coldness that made them a bit leaky.

So it is probably that particular box that's the problem, but maybe you have the same situation with the temperature you're storing them at? Just a thought.

[soso]

I Keep them in the butter section on the door of the fridge... see what you mean though going from very cool to room temp ..however the first vial I took out and left on the counter for a few hours before using as I don't like the pain of the cold shot...