Argh!!!!


I HATE dull needles!!!

I just attempted to give myself a shot twice. Both times I pushed and pushed the needle into my skin and I just could not get the thing to break the skin. It hurt like heck, but it wouldnt go thru the skin.

I was half tempted to get my autoject out, but decided to give up after the second attempt and will just have my dad stab me in the butt with a needle tomorrow. (I only had two needles out, dont feel like waiting around for another one to warm up)

I guess I'll be calling SS tomorrow, since this is probably the 6th time in the past month (out of two boxes) that I've had the Dull Darts instead of needles that actually work.

Oh, and the second needle, I took a really good look at (magnifying glass) and it was definately dull. Barely a point on it.

Maybe there's someone at Teva who's a sadistic jerk who likes to send out dull needles?

Hey Erin,

I hear ya! I just gave myself a shot 15 minutes ago manually in the stomach. It barely went into my skin, and kind of stuck, and hurt like crazy. These needles completely suck. I tried Rebif for a couple of weeks and the needles were so fine and sharp you could barely feel them going in. But compared to that these C. needles feel like dull sticks being jammed into your body.

What would happen if we went and bought diabetic needles and switched the medicine over? I don't understand why they can't make needles like the Rebif needles. I mean, is the consistency of the C. medication thicker or something? I'm starting to think they are going the cheap route to make as much money as they can.

Natalie

Hi Erin,
I've noticed this too with my Copaxone injections lately also. I inject manually as well ( over 8 years now). At first I thought maybe it was my hand strength getting weaker, but I haven't noticed a decrease in hand strength when doing anything else. I'm going to let the pharmacy know when they call to set up delivery of my next shipment. There should be no excuse for getting dull needles!

When I was in the hospital this past week I gave myself my shot and it was not right. The needle was bigger, longer, and more scarier than anything. I had so much trouble getting that needle threw my skin. So I know ho wyou feel.

What shot is it?

It was Copaxone.


I had problems with the dull darts a few months ago, right after I learned to do manual shots. Had to call Shared Solutions to get replacements.

It's just annoying to do these stupid shots everyday, and then to have a needle that's so dull that butter knife would be consider more sharp than the Copaxone needles. They must have some really crappy quality control going on at Teva, or they went with the low bidder of whoever supplies them with the needles.

I'm not looking forward to the nightly stab tonight. Hopefully I'll get a sharp one today.

When you called SS and complained what did they say? Did they actually cop to the fact that their needles suck? Or did they just kind of blow it off and just send you the replacements?

They blew it off as if it's a rare occurance (at least 3 in every box I've had since I learned to do manual injections!)

They did send me replacement needles...maybe I'll open those up and see if they're any sharper. Havent used the replacement needles yet.

They did ask me the lot number of the box of needles that I was using at the time, and offered to send the nurse out to re-train me, since they assumed that I'm a moron and cant stab myself in the leg with a sharp pointy thing.

My dad taught me to inject (it's good to have a parent who's a nurse) and in my opinion a pretty good teacher (he's taught a good portion of the doctors and nurses and paramedics in Omaha how to inject people along with a few other nurse-ish type stuff, since he works at a teaching hospital)

I'm so tired right now, I dont want to do the nightly stab.

Got new glasses today, and I guess the current ON is messing with my eyes again since my eye feels weird looking thru the new lenses and I'm dizzy because of my eye feeling weird...and I'm warm, in a basement that's almost always a steady 65 degrees. I think I'll go get a couple of Tylenol just in case it's a fever.

I want to find out where I got the MS so I can give it back.

Hi again, I'm sorry your eyes are bugging you. The whole eye thing can be SO annoying--for some reason I get more panicked when I am having problems seeing. I did the manual injection today because the auto-stabber has been hurting a lot lately. And the needle practically bounced off my skin when I stuck it in. Now, I'm not sure I want to do the manual anymore.
One other C. question for you. Do you get stuff dripping out of the needle on your skin when you pull it out? Or is that only a problem with the auto-stabber?

Oh yeah, I have problems with drippy needles too. I usually hold it till it stops dripping, and then try to knock any leftover drippies off into the inside of the cap.

The whole reason I started doing manual injections is because the auto-stabber hurt so badly...which I think could be related to the dull needles. Sharp needles should not hurt as much when being autojected into the skin than a dull needle would.

I was having to wait days and days for the sites to heal before I could get anywhere near them with the auto stabber again. Even rotating and staying at least 2 or 3 inches away from a previous injection site, after a few days, I'd be back to a site that was still really painful. Sometimes I couldnt inject anywhere because I had so many painful injection sites.

Sometimes the injection sites were so sore, and had such a large area that was sore, there was no way I could even inject on that part of the body without having the new injection site mixing with a previous site and making me want to toss the autojector out the window.

When I started to do the manuals, things got better, since I didnt have the autoject stabbing me at 50mph (or whatever speed those things shoot at) and so I ended up having more places to inject.

I dont think I'll ever go back to the auto-harpooner. I'll just get my dad to stab me in the hard to reach places when I need him to.