Insulin pen injection needles are not reusable. For the sake of your health, do not reuse insulin pen needles.
In addition, insulin pen needles should be capped or placed in a hard plastic or metal container with a lid labeled "non-recyclable" before they are discarded to prevent sharps from being mixed into household garbage, increasing the risk of injury and infection.
Expanded information:
Insulin pen needles are not recommended. p>The hazards of reuse of insulin pen needles include:
Needle breakage
In order to alleviate the pain of injections, insulin pen needles are very thin and produced according to the standard of single-use, and reuse can easily lead to needle breakage in the body, and broken needles will wander around the body and are not easy to be removed, which threatens the patient's health.
Needle clogging
There will be residual insulin crystals in the syringes of the used needles, and repeated use will clog the needles and affect the next injection.
Painful injections
Under a microscope, we can clearly observe that repeated use can cause the tip of the needle to develop burrs, bends, and barbs, which can lead to bleeding and abrasions at the site of the injection, as well as exacerbate the pain.
Causes Hyperplasia or Formation of Hard Knots in Subcutaneous Tissue
Repeated use of deformed needles causes micro-trauma to the subcutaneous tissue, which can lead to the development of hard knots in the subcutaneous fat over time. The hard knots can lead to decreased absorption of insulin, prolonged absorption time, and increased difficulty in controlling blood glucose.
Infection at the injection site
After reuse, bacteria in the air and on the tip of the needle can enter the cartridge through the needle, contaminating both the medication and increasing the risk of localized infection.
Impact on insulin concentration and injection dose
If the needle is not removed after injection, when the patient takes the injection pen from a cool place to a warm place (such as going out in the summer, or into a heated building in the wintertime), the insulin in the refill can expand and spill out of the needle, resulting in a change in concentration of the mixed insulin.
On the contrary, when a patient takes the injection pen from a warm place to a cool place, the insulin volume shrinks allowing air to enter the pen creating bubbles that lengthen the injection time and may lead to leakage after injection, shadowing the accuracy of the injected dose.
People's Daily News - Insulin injection needle ? Don't reuse