The old diabetic patient Zhang has been on insulin therapy, this day, after insulin injections, Zhang suddenly found that the injection pen needle missing, rushed to the hospital, the results in the X-ray finally found broken into the body of the insulin pen injection needle, later, Zhang removed the broken into the body of the needle after surgery, the surgeon told Zhang the needle has been the body tissue wandering nearly 5 cm The surgeon told Zhang that the needle had traveled nearly 5 cm in his body and was not in the original injection site. Since insulin needles are very small and easily travel in the body, many patients are not as fortunate as Mr. Zhang to have the broken needle removed from their bodies. Why is it easy for a pen needle to break into the body during insulin injections? This is not the quality of the needle, but has a lot to do with the long-term reuse of needles. According to the survey statistics, only 8.94% of patients do disposable use of needles, while 40.76% of patients change once a week, 28.35% of patients change only after using a refill, from the above figures we can see that a large number of patients are reusing needles. The main reason is that the price of insulin pen needles is high and not included in the scope of health insurance reimbursement, so patients feel that they cannot afford to use them; secondly, because they do not know the harm caused by reusing needles, in the spirit of the virtue of “saving”; even some medical personnel are unable to recognize the harm caused by reusing needles, so they can give wrong guidance to patients. The medical staff is not aware of the dangers of reusing needles, so they give the wrong instructions to patients. So what are the dangers of reusing needles? In fact, in addition to the serious consequences of broken needles, which remain in the body and cannot be removed, many problems can occur. For example: Needle blockage There will be residual insulin crystals inside the used needles, which will block the needles after repeated use and affect the next injection, or even the medicine cannot be discharged. Therefore, the correct operation of insulin injection requires 1 unit of venting before injection to ensure accurate insulin injection. Painful injection Diabetic patients all experience no pain when they inject insulin with an insulin pen, but if the needle is repeatedly injected more times, they will feel pain during the injection, and many patients even replace the needle with a new one when they feel pain, why do they feel pain when the needle is injected more times? When we put the reused needles under the microscope, it is obvious that the needle tips appear burrs, bends and barbs, thus causing bleeding and bruising at the injection site, as well as increasing the pain. Under the microscope we can also see that as the number of reused needles increases, the degree of needle burr, bending and barb increases. Causes hyperplasia or formation of hard knots in the subcutaneous tissue at the injection site Repeated use of deformed needles causes micro trauma to the subcutaneous tissue, which over time can lead to the development of hard knots in the subcutaneous fat. The hard knots will lead to a decrease in the absorption rate of insulin, a longer absorption time, and increased difficulty in controlling blood sugar. Injection site infection After repeated use, bacteria in the air and on the needle tip can enter the refill through the syringe, contaminating both the medication and increasing the risk of local skin infection. To avoid infection, many patients disinfect needles with alcohol or even soak used needles in alcohol, which can damage the protective film on the needle surface. It is not known that the protective film serves to reduce the pain of the injection. The result seems to prevent infection, but it actually increases the pain during injection and the risk of needle breakage. Affecting the concentration of insulin and the accuracy of the injected dose If the needle is not removed after the injection, when the insulin pen is stored at too great a temperature difference, the insulin inside the refill will expand and spill out from the needle, causing the concentration of premixed insulin to change or the volume of insulin to shrink so that air enters the refill and creates air bubbles, affecting the accuracy of the injected dose. For your physical safety, 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 and marked “not for recycling” before disposal to prevent sharps from being mixed with household garbage, which increases the risk of injury and infection to others.