Is anyone diabetic and injecting insulin? Could you answer a q for my mum's DP please?

[crokky]

Hoping someone could help...

My mum's DP has type 2 diabetes and he has to start injecting insulin. My mum has just been to the doctors with him to learn about all the equipment and injecting and some of the advice was a bit strange.

He has to set the pen dial to "2" and draw up that amount of insulin and then "dispose" of it before he draws up the actual insulin that he is going to inject (this is to check there is no air present I think). The woman demonstrated this (with real insulin) and the 2 units that she had drawn up and needed to dispose of, she squirted onto the carpet! My mum was surprised and said something and the woman said that it was fine to squirt this insulin on the carpet (twice a day) when clearing the air! My mum doesn't really want it squirted onto her carpet twice a day as firstly it seems a bit funny just to chuck stuff on the carpet, secondly she has a dog and she is worried the dog might lick it up and it could be dangerous and thirdly my baby and toddler go round there and she doesn't want them crawling in it.

So...where should he squirt the insulin that he is to discard? The dog could lick it from quite a number of places so she wants to be careful with it - should it go down the sink? Presumably this is not ideal for the water supply etc or should it go into some kind of container? (She doesn't want an open dish or something like that because of the dog).

Thanks for any help!

My dh squirts his insulin onto the carpet and tbh, slattern that I am, I never really thought twice about it!

I do know however that insulin does not survive the human digestive system, which is why it has to be injected in the first place rather than taken in tablet form. So no need to worry about any ill effects in kids/pets on that front

If you're concerned about your carpet then I'd get him to squirt it down the sink/toilet or into a bottle that can be thrown away.

Neither my mum or dad (both type II on insulin) squirt - must ask them !

I'd just get him to squirt in th esink - as TF says, it is broken down in the stomach, so of no problem to someone else ingesting it

Oh right thanks, I didn't really know anything about it and neither did my mum, it just wasn't what we expected!

shouldn'tneed to squirt at all with a pen exceptwhen you put the new cartridge in at the start-this time it is make sure the ratchet has gone down as far as it can and you are not just injecting air.once insulin is actually coming out of the pen i never find it necessary to do an extra squirt each time i inject.seems a waste to me.

I don't think dh squirts 2 units either, just enough to make sure there are no air bubbles. As cremolafoam says, he only does it when he changes cartridges, not for every dose.