Myths About Diabetes: Injecting Is Complicated (NAPSA)—According to the American Diabetes Association, diabetes affects 25.8 million Americans. Type 1 diabetes can occur at any age but is most often diagnosed in children, teens or young adults. Type 2 most often occurs in adulthood. Treatment options can include diet, exercise and medication that may require multiple injections a day, such as insulin and GLP-1 incretins. For many people with diabetes, the idea of injecting insulin may seem complicated—but it doesn’t have to be. New injection options and recommendations are helping to simplify the injection process. Shorter pen needles are one innovation that is making injec- Abdomen Buttocks @ A 4mm pen needle helps simplify how patients inject insulin for diabetes treatment. tion therapy easier—and more comfortable. Available with thinner gauges and modified needle tips, 4mm needles makeit easier for patients to inject insulin, as hand when administering their injection treatments, which allows for more discreet injections. A onehanded injection technique also “pinch up” the skin when injecting—a technique that is needed when using longer needles to upper arms and buttocks. Proper site rotation helps prevent needle. Needles as short as 4mm are effective for children as well developing under the skin, which can occur when frequently inject- most patients don’t need to avoid hitting the muscle with the as adult patients, including those with a high body mass index (BMI). Longer needles could go too deep into the patient’s body and actually deliver insulin into the muscle, where absorption could be unpredictable and potentially create unanticipated hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) conditions. Not having to “pinch up” also enables patients to use just one makesit possible to rotate to addi- tional injection sites such as the lumps—often called “lipos”’—from ing into the samesite. Recommendations from the American Association of Diabetes Educators emphasize the importance of selecting the shortest nee- dle possible for insulin injections. To find out more about your options, ask your doctor about shorter needles. Visit www. bd.com/nano to see new needle innovations that improve the ease and comfort of injections.
