We demonstrate how to use epinephrine auto injectors (EpiPen and AUVI-Q) and common mistakes encountered.
Hi guys this is john from happy allergy family and we’re here to talk about epinephrine auto injectors so in this video we’re gonna do a couple things one is introduce the epinephrine auto injector number two talk mostly about how to use it and then talk about common problems that occur my wife and i are big advocates of food allergy awareness and education so we
Hope this video will help you out what we’re going to do in a second is i’m going to have a couple of my students come up with me and demonstrate how to use auto injectors so first and foremost what is an epinephrine auto injector so an epinephrine auto injector puts epinephrine into your bloodstream while there are many uses for it then what we’re going to focus
On is our food allergies now contrary to what some people think food allergies are not just a minor nuisance they could be extremely severe and reactions that you can have in particular reactions called anaphylactic reactions can either you or possibly kill you so these are extremely serious conditions now while we won’t go too much at the biochemistry of an
Anaphylactic reaction at least not in this video it’s enough for us to think of it this way an anaphylactic reaction is a severe possibly life-threatening allergic reaction which can affect multiple systems and literally cause your body to shut down all right so how does an autoinjector play into this believe it or not that dose epinephrine can mean the difference
Between life and death and seconds count so if you deal with food allergies or have a loved one that deals with food allergies i can’t say this enough you need to have that auto injector on hand because none of this will make a difference if you don’t have one available okay one more important thing before we get to the main point of this video and that is even
Though that auto injector is the whole point of this video right it is not the end-all be-all it does not replace calling 9-1-1 so once you’ve applied the auto-injector you need to call 9-1-1 okay you need to have that person looked at by a health professional and there are a couple of reasons for this one the epinephrine can wear off and in some cases believe
It or not if the reaction is very severe and the symptoms are not being alleviated you might have to apply a second auto injector never reapply the same auto injector twice okay but we’ll talk more about that specifically in a later video for this video i want to get to the heart of the matter which is really how do you apply an epinephrine auto injector we’re
Going to focus on two common ones even though they’re pretty similar in applications the epipen and the rbq alright so let’s get to work so i’m going to introduce my student pontia she’s going to help us out and we’re going to demonstrate how you use both of the auto injectors okay so the two most popular ones of course the epipen and an obv cube all right so my
Student ponte here is going to help me demonstrate but basically the idea is when you take this right so we’re going to demonstrate first with the epipen you’re going to take the epipen right grab the barrel you don’t want to hold it underneath or on top because you don’t want to run the risk of injecting yourself so you want to wrap your hands around right wrap
Your hand around remove this cover so there’s a blue cover this is a safety device so if it’s actually there you won’t be able to inject any medicine so what i want to do is i want to take this blue cover off beforehand though a good mnemonic is blue to the sky or into the thigh so once you remove the blue safety we want to take this guy and you want to basically
Aim for the outer thigh again clothing could be in the way this is actually pretty strong needle so it will go straight through the clothing but that means you have to apply a little bit of force so you want to take it you want to apply pressure on the outside make sure it goes all the way in you’ll hear a click and then we do a three count so one one thousand
Two one thousand three one thousand once that’s done you can remove it because the medicine has been applied and don’t worry about the needle because this orange protective cover will automatically cover the needle so we’ll put this down don’t forget to call 911 for help so again we’re going to repeat this procedure and all we’re going to do is do the same thing
Now if the person that’s stricken is actually having difficulty breathing or feels uncomfortable sometimes you’ll have them lie down on their back so whatever works for them but in this case let’s say pontia wants to lie on the floor she feels more comfortable there i’m gonna do the same thing so remember grab it by the barrel right take off that blue safety blue
To the sky orange to the thigh so i’m gonna remove that blue safety otherwise no medicine is coming out once we have this it’s going to look to the outside of her thigh even through the clothing it’s going to be fine so we’re going to take it apply force you hear that click we’re going to count to three slowly one one thousand two one thousand three one thousand
The medicine has been now been applied i’m gonna slowly remove it and of course we’re gonna follow up by calling 911 for help and we’re also going to check to see how she’s doing we’re also going to talk about how pontiac can apply this to herself all right so first we’re going to grab the epibene by the barrel we’re going to take the blue cap off extend our arms
Out and apply to the outer side of your thigh wait until you hear the click and count to three one two three and then remove so the rbq applicator will actually talk you through it but like i mentioned before muscle memory is important so hopefully if you’ve done this enough times you won’t have to listen to it but it’s always good to keep an ear out let’s try
This so we take the guy we remove it from its case all right so like the epipen has that blue safety this one has a red safety and it’s actually telling me that if we’re not ready to use it we replace it so we’re going to take this red seal here and pull it off okay and so now like it says take the black end and push it firmly against the outer thighs and apply
It to the outer thigh like so so this one you’d actually apply for a couple seconds but it will actually tell you when it’s done all right so again like i said before i think it’s very good to have muscle memory especially when it comes to an emergency because everything in emergency seems complex so same steps so you take the epinephrine applicator you remove
It from its case right there will be a red cap here you remove that red cap and you apply it to the outer thigh just like before all right so here we have the ov-cue the first thing you’re going to do is remove the case and once you remove the case you’re going to see a red seal take out that red seal you’ll see the black end of the ova cue you’re going to insert
Into your thigh count to two and then once the count is done you will remove it and you’re all done so here we go removing the case taking out the right key and then we’re all done so i’m going to repeat this but i’m going to do it a little bit more quickly since we’ve seen the version where you’re sitting down this is the same thing so if she feels uncomfortable
She needs to lie down that’s perfectly fine so we’re going to let her lie down we’re going to follow the same procedure we’re going to move the applicator from its case we’re going to take off the red seal and we’re going to take the black hand and press it against our thigh until you hear a click then you can count off two but the rbq should actually do that for
You so let’s demonstrate in real time so you take it remove it take the red seal remove that take the black hand against her outer thigh until you hear it snap then we count off two and then we remove it i’ve gotta offer a big thanks to all our staff that helped out and of course my wife for organizing and masterminding this whole event and in fact hopefully what
We’d like to do is do a series of events in honor of food allergy awareness week because the more we can spread awareness about food allergies the better off everyone is okay but now it’s time to fulfill the final point we made in the beginning of the video which is common mistakes i think might occur okay so number one um i just happen to have this one on me so
I’m gonna use it in the demo but this applies of course to any auto injector i think a common mistake to be aware of is the fact that people sometimes forget to remove that safety okay now in the heat of the moment it’s very easy to get stressed out and confused it’s natural it happens to anyone okay whether it’s an epipen or an object or anything else it doesn’t
Really make a difference if you don’t remove that safety nothing’s gonna happen if in the heated moment something’s not working out and you don’t understand what’s going on it’s always good to check and make sure that safety is removed okay so one other thing that might happen is if you haven’t practiced it right it’s very natural when you’re doing this motion
You basically almost instinctively put your thumb back here as a support okay happen to grab it the wrong way okay the problem is if i brace with my thumb like this i’ve now injected myself it’s not so much an issue for the person that’s actually receiving the injection the dangers for the person that needs that dose so resist that urge to put that thumb on top
Grab it strictly by the barrel but in an emergency situation the only way to really have this down is to build muscle memory which brings me to my third and final point which is kind of all-encompassing but as an instructor i can’t leave this out and that is you need to build muscle memory so now you might be thinking this procedure is pretty simple i don’t think
I have to worry about it and that might be true but more often than not in an emergency situation everything counts things that seem so simple and obvious when you sit back and think about it become immensely difficult in the moment but if you need an auto injector or if you’re a parent right that is a child that might need an application of an auto injector it’s
So worth your time to build that muscle memory even if you think the procedure is so simple my wife and i and the rest of the happy allergy family team we’re always looking for ways to improve our message so if you have any tips or suggestions or there any videos you’d like to see so if you’re curious about in that please let us know and happy allergy food week
Transcribed from video
How to Use Epinephrine Auto Injectors – EpiPen and AUVI-Q By Happy Allergy Family