Epinephrine: Soon with 100% Less Needles?

Over the summer, at one of my kid’s visits, our allergist was excitedly telling us about a new development in epinephrine- a film that dissolves in your mouth. She was so excited to tell us all about it, but I didn’t really get the appeal. Epinephrine is epinephrine, right? However you take it, it’s never something that you want to have to take. It means all of your planning on safety didn’t pan out. Something was accidentally ingested and now you are in a life threatening situation. So, does it really matter what way you take the medicine? Not to mention, continuous vomiting often accompanies my kid’s anaphylaxis… so the thought of trying to put a sublingual dissolvable film into a constant spew of vomit sounds unpleasant and ineffective.

Do you think the epinephrine will kill 99% of bad breath germs, too?

But the more I thought about it (and read about it!), I started to realize the appeal. (Also, it’s not just a dissolvable film, there are also two different nose sprays.) First of all, delivering epinephrine without a needle is great- especially when some people are terrified of needles. When it’s so important that epinephrine is given in a timely fashion, the last thing you want is someone hesitant to use epinephrine because they don’t want to stick themselves. Or a caregiver cautious to deliver the medication just because it’s a needle. Or they don’t know how because they’ve never practiced with that type of injector.

Not to mention autoinjectors are bulky. And my two year old is supposed to have 2 (TWO) on her at all times. If a nose spray or 2 thin sheets of film easily fit in a pocket, it’s got to be much better than two epipens. I mean I suppose it’s called an epipen because it’s supposed to be pen shaped. But, really, it’s more like a pack of 5 pens. It won’t fit in my pocket and it definitely won’t fit in anything two year old sized.

There’s also a potential for the medication to be more stable, and less restrictions of temperature and possibility a longer time to expiration could make a big different when it’s a medication you have to carry with you at all times.

So bring on the innovation! I mean, sure, ideally, the innovation would happen in the prevention of food allergies, or you know, actual treatment to stop allergies, not just stopping people from dying once they have an allergic reaction. But, I guess we will take what we can get.