Home / Treatments / Multiple daily injections (MDI)

Multiple daily injections


insulin injection

Your diabetes journey is unique. Whether you wear a pump or do multiple daily injections (MDI), use a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), or choose a blood glucose meter (BGM), the journey is yours. But you don’t have to go on it alone.

Smart MDI from Medtronic is like GPS for people with diabetes who rely on MDI to stay in range. The smart MDI family combines a smart insulin injector, injection port, and connected glucose monitor to give you more information at your fingertips, letting you spend less time worrying about your treatment and more time doing the things you love.

What is MDI?

Multiple daily injection (MDI) therapy is a common treatment regimen for diabetes, typically consisting of three or more injections of insulin per day. In many cases, MDI therapy includes an injection of long-acting insulin in the evening to work overnight and in between meals and injections of rapid-acting or short-acting insulin prior to each meal.

One of the main advantages of MDI therapy is that it allows you to take your treatment into your own hands, letting people with diabetes take an active role in tracking and managing their blood sugar. Traditional MDI therapy works for many people with diabetes, but, like any treatment plan, it comes with upsides and downsides.

Within MDI there are multiple dosing methods. Fixed dose insulin therapy requires MDI users to take the same amount of insulin at fixed points throughout the day. Although this encourages people with diabetes to maintain a healthy dietary routine, the rigid nutritional standards necessary for it to work mean less flexibility and personal choice in your diet.

What is Smart MDI?

Traditional MDI therapy works for many people with diabetes but can carry a cognitive burden. Keeping up with injection times, insulin on board (IOB), pain and sensitivity from multiple sticks, carb counting, and other concerns take up mental space, while carrying around injectors and insulin, meters and strips, and alcohol pads takes up physical space.

Smart MDI addresses some of these burdens. It offers the freedom that makes MDI therapy appealing to many, while helping offload the mental and physical burden to an ecosystem of connected devices that do the heavy lifting for you.

The Smart MDI family includes:

InPen™ Smart Insulin Pen: A connected insulin pen that tracks insulin dosage and times administered to help avoid double-dosing and make it easier to stay in range and monitor long-term trends.

Continuous glucose monitor (CGM): Smart continuous glucose monitor that helps people with diabetes stay on top of treatment by constantly tracking sensor glucose levels and helping users stay ahead of diabetes with alerts and notifications.

i-Port Advance™ Injection Port: The i-Port™ helps reduce the pain of MDI therapy — literally — by replacing more frequent skin punctures with a single patch that only needs to be applied once every three days.

The Smart MDI difference

For people with diabetes who aren’t ready for or interested in a pump, Smart MDI offers some of the advantages of insulin pumps while still offering the freedom of injections. The Smart MDI family works together to make staying ahead of diabetes easier. And with the ability to share data with your healthcare provider, it makes formulating the best treatment plan easier, too.


† Smart CGM predicts future high and low sensor glucose events up to 60 minutes in advance.

Talk to a diabetes therapy consultant


Complete the form below to find out more about our products and therapy options.



How can we communicate with you?



Learn more about smart insulin pen


Learn more

Learn more about insulin pump therapy


Learn more

Learn more about continuous glucose monitoring


Learn more

Important Safety Information: i-Port Advance Injection Port
i-Port Advance™ injection port is indicated for patients who administer or receive multiple daily subcutaneous injections of physician prescribed medications, including insulin. The device may remain in place for up to 72 hours to accommodate multiple injections without the discomfort of additional needle sticks. i-Port Advance™ injection port may be used on a wide range of patients, including adults and children. Prescription required. For more, please see http://www.medtronicdiabetes.com/important-safety-information.

Important Safety Information: InPen
The InPen is a home- use reusable pen injector for single- patient use by people with diabetes under the supervision of an adult caregiver, or by a patient age 7 and older for the self- injection of a desired dose of insulin and for calculating an insulin dose or carbohydrate intake based on user entered data. A healthcare professional must assist in dosage programming of the device prior to use, based on various patient- specific criteria and targets. The InPen requires a prescription. For additional product and safety information, please consult the Instructions for Use and bit.ly/InPenRisks.