TYPE 1 DIABETES TIPS: SYRINGES

One of the scariest things when you’re first diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes is coming to grips with the fact that you’ll be injecting yourself with syringes multiple times a day until there is a cure.

I had a terrible fear of needles and it took me weeks to be able to watch the nurse give me a shot, much less inject it myself. This is a normal and healthy response. But it can be overcome, the same way you can overcome a fear of high diving through time and faith that it won’t hurt you.

In fact, when you do them quickly, shots don’t hurt much at all. It’s only when you hesitate and do them slowly that it can be painful.

Where do you take your shots?

Arms, legs, butt, and stomach. Any large muscle mass. Butt is the largest so I only do my largest shots there, my once-a-day, long-acting dose of Lantus (24 units). Stomach is easiest to do in public, under your shirt and without looking, so I reserve that for only those occasions. Arms and legs take most of the daily shots, arms when I have long pants on like at my desk at work and legs whenever else possible. You can take shots right through your pants in a pinch but they could leave a tiny spot of blood so I never do this with light colored pants, if at all.

Do you reuse syringes?

In my personal experience, syringes are one expense that can be greatly reduced by using them multiple times before discarding. I use them maybe 5-10 times each. After a while the tips do start to dull and hurt more going in, that’s when I discard them. A new syringe is much more painless. In real life you accumulate a small stream of partially used syringes at various stages of this dullness and the only other gauge is the markings rubbing off like a polished stone against your keys.

I’ve never gotten any infections from reusing syringes but I’m very conscious of keeping the needle itself sterile. I keep syringes loose in my pocket or backpack where I’m sure there are plenty of germs but when the orange cap is off the end I’m very careful to never touch the needle itself with my fingers or anything else. And needless to say if I drop a syringe when the cap is off I never reuse it, even if I have to sacrifice the insulin inside. I also never use alcohol swabs to clean the surface of my skin as I was taught but I spend most of my time in an office and my skin very rarely is “dirty.” Obviously everyone has a different life and you should make your own decisions about your particular circumstances, all of this is simply my experience, for better or worse.

Any other tips?

syringesI buy two types of syringes and always use one for my short-acting and the other for my long-acting insulin. The benefit of doing this is to be able to tell the two apart when they’re in the syringes, since they’re both clear fluids.

On short trips (overnight up to a few days – especially when it’s hot out and your insulin won’t be refrigerated) you won’t always want to take the whole bottles, so you’ll often want to prefill syringes of both kinds, and this is the easiest way I’ve found to keep them straight.

For my long-acting, the larger dose, I use a longer needle, because it puts it deeper in the muscle. Often when you inject too much insulin too shallow you can get a painful lump under your skin. It’s also easy to remember, long-acting, long needle. Short-acting, short needle.

I never switch these because if I pull a syringe out of my backpack, I always want to be 100% sure that if it’s a long needle, it’s my long-acting insulin, if it’s a short needle it’s my short-acting insulin.