Anyone fill omnipod using HumaPen Luxura HD?
Or something similar?
Just wondering if it works or not
Ed
Yes!!!
I have filled it all kinds of ways. If you can use it to inject insulin, you can use it to fill the pod.
Pen, low-dose syringes, large-dose syringes, the omnipod fill pen. Anything will work, as long as the needle is not so large that it blows the seal.
For a pen or syringe - since the needle is longer than the normal fill syringe they give you - just lightly press it into the port until it lightly touches the bottom base.
I now regularly use 1ml (100 unit) syringes to fill my pods, because I find them much easier to clear out air bubbles. I don’t use the syringe that comes in the omnipod container anymore.
But yes, short answer, a pen will work.
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Thanks Eric
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The Omnipod fill pen will not reliably penetrate the Humalog KwikPen rubber. It was a PITA for me until I decided I should ask my doc for a prescription for both pens (emergencies) and the vial (thin rubber). I had not tried a direct pen injection into the pod, silly me; that’s obvious to anyone but me.
Going pen->insulet pen->pod has problems. Somehow the insulin in the insulet pen ends up with a lot of compressed air and the bubbles are impossible to remove. That said, that has never been a problem for me and I do travel by air, so air bubbles in my pod do their worst. My problems may be over rated.
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My apologies to @Eric; restate: It’s not obvious to all of us, information is good and I have learned something.
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John, have you ever tried the negative pressure trick on your insulin vials to reduce the amount of air dissolved in the insulin? It’s pretty easy to do, and seems like it would be very useful for frequent air travel.
I do this on every new vial, and just keep it under a slight negative pressure for the duration of time I am using the vial.
I can share details if you are interested.
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That’s a good point, but it’s pretty much impossible to do with a KwikPen.
At times I reduced the vial pressure while on MDI but it was mainly due to inaccuracies measuring small amounts of air vs insulin. The air-bubble problem I’ve had has been with the pen; it may be related because the only way I know how to get insulin out of a KwikPen is to dial it up and inject it into the syringe (the Insulet one), so inevitably that increases the pressure in the pen.
It’s probably far more difficult to maintain any reasonable pressure in a half empty vial because the surface air pressure varies by about 25% (low to high). That means that if a storm front passes overhead the relative pressure in the vial will drop significantly very rapidly. At times on MDI when I was using detachable needles I’d just jam a bare needle into the rubber to equalize the pressure.
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Could you explain further? I’d be interested to learn this trick!
Gonna post this on its own thread, because the title of this one regarding filling an omnipod, means that other types of pump users may never read it…
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I fill pods with pens using the BD 4mm pen needles (the green ones). My tip is to use the 1unit pens (not the half unit ones) so you get 60 units per shot.
I have tried the Novo Nordisk 4mm needles but they do not work for me. The configuration of the needle does not penetrate far enough into the pod rubber.
BD seems to have just changed their pen needle design to look like the Novo Nordisk ones. I have not tried the new BDs but will.
Filling directly like this is super fast and easy and I never worry about bubbles.
I usually carry around a pen with me as a back-up to the pod so I just use this cartridge to fill the pod and ensure I use up the insulin in my back-up pen. My back-up pen is 1/2u so I pull the cartridge and stick in in a 1u pen for pod filling and then place the new cartridge in the back-up pen.
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And the reason I flagged my own post as Spam is simple:
The images I posted (both of them) have copyright statements, these statements were removed from the resized images posted on fudiabetes; resizing an image doesn’t even create a derived work! Those images retain our copyright. The first image also had extra contextual information, important if the image is reposted or referenced independently of the text I wrote in the posting. That was removed too.
Something that is posted in a public forum does not become public domain; we’ve had enough lawsuits from the rich and famous to prove that. Removing copyright information from works posted by original authors should never happen.
The Insulet needle sticks out exactly 4mm long, but there is a conical piece of glue attaching it to the rest of the syringe so I think that allows it to go further into the pod; the recent pen needles I’ve used don’t use glue and have a flat junction with the needle body. BD (my favorite pen needle manufacturer) makes 5mm pen needles, they might work better.
The old BD 4mm’s (Green) work just fine.
I will try out a new BD 4mm tonight and see if they work.
I use much longer needles. Once the needle hits the pod base, you inject the insulin. It works fine.
I have been doing that for over 3 years and I never had a problem with them.
Mostly I have been using 10mm or 12mm needles. It doesn’t go all the way in, but it doesn’t need to.
Just try one, and you can convince yourself.
Did you create a new thread for this? Struggling to find it.
Thanks
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Yes, is this the one you were looking for?
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Yep! Thanks! 
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