How to do an Insulin Injection

I'm going to show you how to do an insulin injection you're going to be doing an insulin injection whenever a child has something to eat where you're matching the insulin to the food that they're eating or when their blood glucose level is high and you're giving extra insulin to bring the blood glucose level back down to the target range I'm going to show you how to use an insulin pen there are different insulin pens to fit different insulins this pen is a nuovo pen echo and it fits novo insulin so novo rapid and lever Mir insolence when you take the lid off the pen you can see that this pen is refillable with insulin already inside the pen each insulin has a different color on the top of the pen so that you can always recognize have you got the right insulin this is a demo pen so it's white but your pen will have a color if you look in the window you can also see a bung and that bung gives you an indication as to how much insulin you've got left in the pen so the bung is here so I've got this amount of insulin still left to go your insulin pen can be kept at room temperature it can be kept at room temperature for one month spare insulin needs to be stored in the fridge before proceeding with the injection you need to make sure your hands are clean so wash your hands before you start now you've washed your hands you're going to put a new needle on the pen device there are different sized needles and the needle lens that you use will depend on your child and that needs to be a conversation with your healthcare team this needle is a four millimeter needle which I'm going to demonstrate you peel off the end and then this pushes and twists on the end of the pen device twist until you can't tighten it any further take off the clear plastic lid and then being careful take off the needle cover before you perform any injection you need to always perform what we call an air shot you're pushing a small amount of insulin through the needle to get rid of the air if you forgot to do this your next injection dose would be much less than you thought you were giving looking at the pen you can see a dial with numbers on it on this particular pen each line is equivalent to half a unit and when I turn the dial you'll hear clicks each click is equivalent to half the unit so I'm going to dial up four clicks which is two units for an air shot I've dialed four with a needle facing the ceiling I'm going to push on the end of the pen and you expect to see some insulin escaping from the needle if you don't see anything coming at the end repeat the process again with another two units as an air shot having done that you're now ready to give the injection places that you can do your insulin injection will depend on the age of the child and their own preference but sites include the arm around the back of the arm the tummy if you imagine your belly button a happy smiley face around the belly button is where you can do the injection the legs on the outer aspect of the size and the buttocks and each child will have a preference as to where they have their injection the important point is that the sites get rotated so you don't use the same place for every single injection if you do that there's a chance that the injection sites could become very lumpy and the insulin would stop working having decided where you're going to do the injection you now need to give the insulin injection so I'm going to use this injection device to demonstrate so picking up your pen you need to remember to dial a number of units that you're going to give so I'm going to dial and of Units here you don't need to use what we used to refer to as a pinch up technique where you hinge the skin and then inject because the needles are so small that there isn't a worry about them going too deep so you're going to go in at a 90 degree angle and then once you've injected into the skin move your thumb to the end of the pen and push down once you've pushed as far as you can go you're going to delay removing the needle for a count of 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 at this point you can take the needle away from the skin and you've done your insulin injection to remove the needle from the pen do not put the small needle cover back on because of the risk that you'll cause injury to yourself instead use the plastic cover and carefully place it back on the pen and twist off and then the needle can be disposed of in your sharps box put your pen lid back on and you've done your insulin injection now some pen devices have memories on the end so this particular pen has a memory on the base of it so if I pull the lid out and then push it back in it will tell me the number of units that was last injected and also how many hours ago it was given so that can be a helpful reminder if you can't remember when you last gave an insulin injection

Channel: University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Views: 1,369,793

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Id: Pl28IILPDTU

Length: 6min 12sec (372 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 16 2013