"The doctor was thorough, practical and reassuring"

I have diabetes, controlled by twice-daily injections of Exanitide, which is supplied in pens that deliver 30 doses.

One Saturday evening, my pen proved to be empty. I discovered this after fitting a needle. I got a fresh pen from the fridge and tested it in the usual way. But then the pen jammed. I took my reserve pen from the fridge and it also jammed. This was on Saturday evening, and both my GP surgery and the attached pharmacy were closed until Monday morning. So I phoned Scottish NHS 24. My story was referred to a doctor, who duly phoned me back. He advised me to take my pens and my repeat prescription form to a pharmacy that would be open on Sunday. The idea was that a pharmacist might know a trick of unjamming the pens, or otherwise could issue a new prescription, if necessary conferring with NHS 24.

Strangely, the pharmacist was able to unjam each pen, but I still could not. So she got a new pen, which I found that I could unjam. After some time ranging the paperwork, the new pen was issued to me.

Back home I was disturbed to find exactly the same problem with the new pen. Finally I consulted the directions leaflet. This was something I had not done for years because I had become so familiar with the working of the pen. But this is what I should have done when the first pen jammed.

The message to anyone with the same problem is: TRY AGAIN WITH A NEW NEEDLE.

I was entirely happy with my NHS 24 experience. Handing over to the doctor was exactly what I needed. The doctor was thorough, practical and reassuring. All that was missing was a note in the protocol to check with people like me whether we had been foolish enough not to try with a new needle.