Injection Ports – The Big Decision!

Having now interspersed two 6mm i-Ports and two Insuflons, I’ve come to the realisation that the 9mm i-Ports will never go near my body. The 6mm are only just short enough, so I can imagine how using perpendicular sets for people with less body fat than I have could be a struggle. I definitely don’t need 9mm cannulas!

But on to feedback on the devices themselves. What do I make of them?

The i-Ports are easy to apply and very easy to use. They were efficient and I didn’t have any problems with them. The parallel to your skin placement means that injecting is almost identical to what you do with a needle vertically into skin. Put simply, they work. Well.

The Insuflons are slightly different. These require you to pinch up a layer of fat and then inject at around 30-45 degrees. You then have to stick them down and leave the port free. Whilst this isn’t really an issue (and doesn’t hurt) it causes some interesting challenges. When injecting you have to run the needle parallel to the skin and into the port. If you think about how you use your hands to do this, it limits somewhat the placement of the device. There is then the issue of actually applying it in the correct position. Whilst this is possible, it helps to be ambidextrous as you find that you have some slightly awkward contortions to get the things in place. 

Once in and working properly they are no less efficient than the i-Ports. Of the trial sets I had though, I had a 50% failure rate. One just wouldn’t work properly. Once it was in place, I was having to stick the needle into the septum multiple times for it to feed properly through into the chamber. This took 10 attempts on one occasion, and at that point I removed the Insuflon. I’m not sure precisely of the cause, but I get the feeling that it may have been a manufacturing issue on that particular port as I think the chamber wasn’t fixed securely within the port and the needle kept catching on something as I entered it. 

As a result, when it comes to spending my own money on insulin ports I have opted for the more expensive, but in my eyes, more reliable i-Ports. For me reliability in terms of injecting is ease of application, ease of use and lack of issues, and although half the price, I get the impression that the Insuflons are likely to have more failures than the i-Ports, so I’ve gone with the i-Ports.