Filling Your Own Cartridges for a Reusable Insulin Pen

I've mentioned in a previous blog entry about how to refill the Lilly® brand of disposable pens.

As discussed, this method was based on the groundwork that was done by Eric, co-founder of the FUDiabetes online forum. You can read all about that original groundwork by visiting this link.

But, in addition to his excellent method on how to refill disposable pens, Eric has also provided all of us with an excellent method on how to fill your own cartridges for use with a reusable insulin pen, such as the Lilly® Luxura® and Luxura HD®.


Eric's idea was to re-use the original Humalog® 3ml cartridges, and refill them with Humalog®, Lantus®, Apidra®, or any other brand/type of insulin you might wish to be able use. The quite valid premise for wanting to do this is pretty simple. The most cost effect pricing on insulin is by purchasing in vials, but the most convenience is obtained when using a insulin dosing pen device and an appropriate cartridge.

So, once again, following up on Eric's excellent groundwork, I decided to see if I might be able to have similar success with refilling my own cartridges, but with a twist. I wanted to be able to use the supply of salvaged cartridges from the empty Lantus® Solostar® or empty Levemir® pens that I had on hand, instead of refilling a Humalog® cartridge. The big question is, would it work? 

The first step would be to place an order for some Lilly® Luxura HD® pens. Eric had mentioned that these reusable insulin dispensing pens were available, at very economical prices, from Canada Drugs in Winnipeg. So, not sure if my idea would even work, I made an order for one Luxura HD® pen. 

Now, right up front, I will admit that, even on my best of days, I am not too terribly patient on waiting for online purchases to arrive. I'll shamelessly blame that character trait on Amazon Prime and look anyone straight in the eye without flinching. This being said, when I still had not gotten a confirmation that the pen had been shipped 10 days after I placed the order, I impulsively placed another order for the same devices from Mike's Marine Pharmacy in Vancouver as well. 

The folks from MMP called me on the phone the same day that I placed the order, to confirm the details of the order, and a second call a few days later to tell me that the order had been sent to their shipping department. 2 days later I received a confirmation that the package had been shipped. Ironically, the very next day, I received the confirmation that the original order from Canada Drugs had also been shipped. So now, I had not just one, but FOUR Luxura HD® pens headed my way.  It was then that I decided that, if I could not get the Lantus® or Levemir® cartridges to work in the pens, I had already invested too much money into this endeavor to just walk away from it if the salvaged cartridges didn't fit. I would just have to ask my PCP to switch me over to the Humalog® brand of insulin, so that I could get some cartridges to use in those pens. Either that, or I would have to go the out of pocket route, and buy some Humalog cartridges from Mike's Marine Pharmacy, just to have something to refill.

When the pens arrived, it was time to get to work. In the picture above, you can see the two different cartridges that I had to work with. The one on the left, is from a Lantus® Solostar® pen, and the one on the right is from a Levemir® Flextouch® pen. Even a casual glance is all it takes to see that there are noticeable differences between the two cartridges. The Lantus® cartridge is shorter, and with a larger diameter. The Levemir® cartridge is a bit longer, and a slightly smaller diameter. It was as simple as trying to insert them both into the pen barrels to see which cartridge might be the correct size.

Despite the diameter differences, both cartridges will fit into the barrel, and the pen plunger will also fit inside either cartridge. But what about the length?

And that's where the final decision comes in. As you can see, on the Levemir® cartridge, the pen barrel will not screw down completely like it should. The cartridge is just too long to let that happen.
But the Lantus® cartridge fits just like it was made for this Luxura HD® pen. Apparently the cartridge used in the Solostar® pen is the same size as the Humalog® cartridge, or at least, close enough that they are interchangeable in the Luxura® pens.

And from that point, by following Eric's excellent instructions on how to clean, rinse, and fill the empty cartridges, it only takes a short while to set up two of the new Luxura HD® pens to dispense Lantus® and Novolog®, using insulin from a much more affordable vial instead. Which is a double bonus for those folks that have insurance that will not cover the disposable pen delivery devices for their insulin needs, but will cover insulin in a vial. In fact, even if you have no insurance, you could still use these same pens, and cartridges, and fill them with the very affordable Novolin R® and Novolin N® brands of insulin available at your nearest Walmart to get pen convenience without paying the obscene out of pocket costs of other brands of insulin!

In an upcoming blog post, I will share a similar method on how to refill your own Novolog® cartridges for use with the Novopen® Echo® device, as well as a way to put those Levemir® cartridges to good use in the Novopen® Echo®, making it every bit as flexible for dispensing whatever insulin you want to fill it with, just like the Humapen® Luxura® devices.