Every since my son’s peanut and tree nut allergies were diagnosed six years ago, I have been an EpiPen user. He wears two EpiPens in this medication belt whenever he’s away from home, and his belt sits on a magnetic hook in a visible and easily accessible location when he takes it off at home (ours is kept on the side of our fridge). I think of an EpiPen like a fire extinguisher – You need to know exactly where it is and not lose precious moments hunting around for it during an emergency.
Since there are other types of epinephrine injectors on the market, when I first began to sell medication belts in my blog store, I called each customer to find out what type of injector they’re using, though any type of injector fits in the belts I sell. My observation is that about 9 out of 10 customers use EpiPen, and the others use Twinject.
Since I needed to speak knowledgeably to my customers who use Twinject, I recently obtained a Twinject training pen. Here is a photo of the Twinject, in case anyone isn’t familiar with it. It has one end that’s an auto-injector like an EpiPen, and the other end holds a concealed manual syringe for a second dose of epinephrine. Some people carry one Twinject instead of two EpiPens. If you’re not comfortable with the manual syringe for the second dose, you can carry two Twinjects and use only the auto-injected dose.
While speaking with a representative from the makers of Twinject, I learned that they make another type of epinephrine auto-injector, the Adrenaclick. It’s a one dose pen that fires automatically, and there is an approved generic for this product. Adrenaclick and the generic are only available in the U.S.A. It looks exactly like a Twinject pen but with yellow caps. I don’t know how these three injectors compare for price, and your choice of course won’t only be price motivated. Everyone uses what they trust and feel comfortable with, and it’s just nice to know that there are a few great options available.
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