Materials Preparation

Premixed insulin pen Injection needle Alcohol pad Needle collection container (with a lid and impenetrable protection)​

Injection Steps

Wash your hands.
Take out the pen and turn open the pen cap.
Check whether the solution expires or goes bad, or whether the bottle has cracks or defects.
Roll the pen on your palm 10 times and shake it up and down 10 times (or shake it up and down at least 20 times) until the solution appears uniformly white and cloudy.
Disinfect the rubber stopper on the top of the pen with an alcohol pad.
Tear off the protective sheet of the needle.
Insert the needle straight into the tip of the pen.
Rotate it clockwise as far as it can go.
Remove the outer cap of the needle.
Remove the inner cap of the needle.
Expel air: Set 2-unit dosage to expel air at the first time of use. Before expulsion, please turn the needle up and flick the cartridge with your fingers several times to make the air concentrated on the top. Press the injection button down as far as it can go so that a drop of the solution drops out.
Set the dose and turn to the dose to be injected (when turning to the wrong dosage, return directly to the required one, without reverting to zero and resetting).
Disinfect the injection site with an alcohol pad.
Choose the right site for injection and press the injection button down as far as it can go until the scale returns to zero, and stay for at least 10 seconds before pulling out the needle.
Put the outer needle cap back onto the needle and screw it off.
Throw the used needles into the collection bin.

Injection Sites

Abdomen: Both sides of the abdomen (cover the navel with the fist, and do not give an injection within the scope of the fist).
Thigh: Upper outer thigh.
Arm: The outer portion below deltoid.
Buttocks: Upper outer quadrants of the buttocks.

Injection Techniques

1. Skin pinching: For patients who are too thin or children, use only the thumb and index/middle finger for skin pinching to avoid pinching the muscle.
2. Injection angle: Inject the needle into the pinched skin at a 90-degree angle to reduce the risk of intramuscular injections.
3. Use different injection sites, without repeating the injection on the same site. The current injection site should be about the width of a finger away from the last site.

​Other Notes

1. Insulin preservation: Unopened pens can be refrigerated at 2 to 8℃ until expiry, while opened ones can be stored at room temperature below 30℃ for 4 weeks.
2. Needle collection: Drop the used needles into an impenetrable container and can choose not only take it to the injection room on the first floor of Lifu Medical Building or the first floor of Critical Care Center Building and discard it but also take it discard to the diabetes education room on the 6th floor of Meide Medical building.