Enbrel Mini review: Easy, customizable injections

Pros: Easy to use, adjustable injection speeds, optional sounds, one-handed injections
Cons: It’s still an injection

After months of fighting with my insurance company, I finally got my medicine and was able to try Enbrel Mini! It’s a bit like something out of a sci-fi movie—maybe one day all injections will be as easy as this. (The biomedical engineer in me is already thinking about what to design to make that happen. Hmm…)

Humira helped me a lot for a while, but last fall I started having a lot more pain and fatigue, and my doctor suggested moving to Enbrel. Even though I’d had a bad experience with the Humira Pen autoinjector, my doctor suggested Enbrel Mini because the formula used to store the medicine is supposed to be less painful. Enbrel Mini is injected using the AutoTouch autoinjector, which is electronic and reusable. It was only released a little over a year ago (new enough that ads for it were plastered all over ACR18 when I went). So, how does using Enbrel Mini compare to syringes and pen autoinjectors?

The equipment

The Enbrel Mini cartridges are definitely a lot smaller than pens and syringes. They’re plastic on the outside, and the needle is covered by a purple cap until you take it off for the injection. (Does anyone else wanna take things like this apart to see how they work? Is that just the engineer in me?)

Opening the AutoTouch up for the first time feels fancy, like opening a new tech toy. I was really excited to see that the AutoTouch injection speed is adjustable. That was something that really freaked me out about using the Humira pen—there was no way to control the injection after you pressed the button. I liked Humira syringes because I could do them slowly, so I also set the Enbrel AutoTouch to slowest, but you could set it to fastest to get it all over with quicker. There’s also a middle speed.

Usually it has sound cues to tell you it’s working and for when the injection is done, but there’s also a switch to turn sound off. You put the Enbrel Mini cartridge in a side slot that pops open, similar to how some cassette tape players load. It lights up and chimes again when you close it.

During the injection

Using the AutoTouch was really easy and comfortable (for an injection). You just put it against your skin and press the button, and it lights up when it’s positioned properly. It also knows if you take it off your skin before the injection is over and other fancy things (like temperature and injection errors). Another thing that was a problem for me with Humira pens was that there was no way to know how much medicine was left, but the Enbrel AutoTouch has a status bar on the screen that goes down during the injection to eliminate the uncertainty.

I let the Enbrel warm to room temperature first. Being an injection, it did hurt a little toward the end. (The stinging was a little worse than the usual with Humira, but that might’ve just been the location I used.) The experience was a million times better than the spring-loaded autoinjectors. It was so much better than having to maneuver a syringe, too. Since you only need one hand to hold the device and press the button, there’s no skin pinching and awkward needle manipulation involved.

Recap

I really liked using the AutoTouch for Enbrel Mini. If I have to take any injection, I’d pick this delivery method. It has exactly the customization options I need to feel comfortable, and it makes injections super easy. Fingers crossed that Enbrel works for me and I can keep using it!

Edit: Unfortunately, I’ve had to stop using Enbrel Mini due to some technical problems I was having with it.

-Bri

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