Woah. You just blew my mind. Why ARE doctors the one who make the prescriptions? Pharmacists would seem to be much better suited to this task.
The concentrated insulin I take is U-500, and it’s 500 units per mL. I have to take 24 units of it, twice a day, but I have to use a regular U-100 syringe. That way, it’s equivalent to 120 units of U-100, but I don’t have to stick myself twice.
When I first brought in the Rx, the pharmacist wouldn’t fill it, because he said it would kill me. Even after calling my doctor, he was still unable to do the math. Another pharmacist had to take over.
That makes absolutely no sense. The whole point of units seems to be that a unit of insulin is a unit of insulin regardless of concentration, so 24 units of U-500 insulin is equivalent to 24 units of U-100 insulin, just in less volume. And using a syringe calibrated for a different concentration seems like a very bad idea, even if the risk of error is low.
At my medical center, “IU” is one of the abbreviations we’re not supposed to use because it can look too much like “IV.” :smack: I forget what the chosen substitute is, pretty sure it’s just “units” or something - it’s not something I run into often.
In both Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, it’s the word “units.” We’re also supposed to avoid “cc” because they can run together to look like a “u”.