Additionally, doctors and laypeople often don't know how to administer the auto injector correctly. There have been several cases, especially with parents trying to inject children, when someone accidentally injected themselves, usually puncturing their own finger, thus needing a trip to the hospital for the damaged digit and the lost of the much-needed dose.
This goes to show that everyone needs practice on how to properly administer the auto injector. Also, as this medicine is labile (meaning that even with preservatives, it expires within a year and half of production), Dr. Simons suggested that people could use their outdated EpiPens to practice on an orange to get a feel of how to get the optimal medicine delivery in the quickest time, should you ever need to. However, MAKE SURE YOUR FINGERS ARE OUT OF THE WAY!
If you have been given a prescription for epinephrine but do not know how to use it, talk with your health care provider, go over the need for it, go over your allergy action plan and make sure that everyone in your household, school or office knows the plans and how to administer the medication.
The Future of Epinephrine Delivery
Future plans exist to increase the availability and usability of epinephrine. Teams are working on a sublingual tab, an easy-to-use red button on the auto injectors and oral inhalation and intranasal inhalation devices.
Take-Away
Dr. Simons main point was to stress that receiving a therapeutic dose of epinephrine quickly in response to any level of an allergic anaphylaxis can mean the difference between life and death.
See:
Anaphylaxis & You - What You Need to Know
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