Lantus Users

[chromaloma]

This was interesting to read. I am aware that this post is 40 weeks old, but I think this is the right place to write up my post.

I've had occasional bad drops after having some blood oozing out after injecting lantus. This is a real big issue to me, because it'll need a 200+ carb fix. Therefor I've started splitting the doses like this:
Morning lantus: 4units x 2.
Evening lantus: 2 units.

I am on the verge to start shooting 2 units x 4 times for my morning dose now. That way I can minimize the amount of insulin working as fast acting. Last night I had a bad drop after my 2u lantus shot (with a drop of blood coming out afterwards). It's for sure that it was the lantus that caused it. Last time as well. And before that. It's not a myth.

This doesn't work really well, and it gives me death anxiety knowing that any injection can cause me severe hypos. I am not walking around with a 200 carb hypo fix in my bag at all times. I've usually got a couple of small sugar bags and one 0,5l coke, and feel that is enough baggage to have with me at all times.

So this Tresiba... Does it work better?

 

[tim2000s]

So this Tresiba... Does it work better?

The pharmacokinetics of Levemir and Tresiba are very different from Lantus so you don't have the same effects. It's worth asking to change if you are seeing issues with Lantus.

 

[chromaloma]

Is it true that if I shoot Tresiba in a vein, or if it mixes with blood, it will not work as fast acting?

 

[tim2000s]

Is it true that if I shoot Tresiba in a vein, or if it mixes with blood, it will not work as fast acting?

It doesn't rely on forming a crystalline precipitate. The slowing is handled by the addition of proteins that are degraded making the insulin effective. I've never had Levemir act as a fast acting insulin, and it has a similar construction to Tresiba.

 

[B583]

In my experience Lantus should be taken as one or two doses per day not 6!! Either take all AM doses together, reducing as required if too much & PM dose as one. In regards to the bleeding that has no effect of BGs. Having bled a lot myself & having no effect. Read more on it if required to research but be careful of number of changes made as can get complicated & confusing. FYI being on Lantus myself for 20yrs.

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[chromaloma]

In my experience Lantus should be taken as one or two doses per day not 6!! Either take all AM doses together, reducing as required if too much & PM dose as one. In regards to the bleeding that has no effect of BGs. Having bled a lot myself & having no effect. Read more on it if required to research but be careful of number of changes made as can get complicated & confusing. FYI being on Lantus myself for 20yrs.

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What difference would it make to take the morning dose in two or three shots instead of one shot, to minimize the risk of hypo?
And wouldn't injecting smaller doses in two 2cm adjacent spots make absorption better?

 

[chromaloma]

I had to take another read through this thread. Today it happened to me again, with the lantus. It was bad. I had a good fasting sugar, but it quickly dropped to under 2,9mmol after taking lantus. I was looking for it to happen, and I also ate breakfast without bolusing, just in case. It can't be like this. It's no life. Additionally, I split the morning dose, to minimize the catastrophe when it happens. I desperately munched raw sugar too.
I am seriously done with lantus now.

I am skinny, and have a very low body fat percentage. I have learnt on Google that lantus needs fat to crystallize. Brilliant to give it to someone who is skinny then. And insulin sensitive. Especially when it turns into fast acting!!! It went wrong even when I pinched my "best site" to inject today. So now where to inject? It is tearing me mentally. I have death anxiety every time I take lantus. I don't want to get up in the morning, just because I know I will have to face that Russian roulette. And of course that is a normal reaction, given the history of bad drops.

Now it's evening, sugar is going higher than usual, of course because lantus was used all at once this morning. I am not looking forward to tomorrow morning because then I will have to shoot lantus again, and face the possible lethal injection.

For many years now, I've experienced strange day to day variations in insulin need. I am now starting to connect at least some of my instabilities to lantus.

I am calling the endo first thing tomorrow, I need to change basal insulin. But to what? Levemir or tresiba? Ive got my guess on tresiba, but I've also learnt that tresiba uses some protein breakdowns, and this might be altered for people processing fats quicker. it's like you need to be fat to be successful in taking a long acting insulin.

What do fitness people, or other people with low body fat do?

 

[tim2000s]

That was what caused me to start this topic @chromaloma. I demanded to change to Levemir based on my experience. I'm not sure why the protein mechanism of Levemir or Tresiba would be affected by how you metabolise fats though.


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[chromaloma]

That was what caused me to start this topic @chromaloma. I demanded to change to Levemir based on my experience. I'm not sure why the protein mechanism of Levemir or Tresiba would be affected by how you metabolise fats though.


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How are you doing on levemir now vs lantus?

 

[tim2000s]

The Levemir was great. Much better overnight and none of the unexpected lows. Since then I've switched to a pump to deal with Dawn Phenomenon which became much more obvious with Levemir.


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[jesse112]

i take novarapid and lantus I know novarapid is a quick acting insulin and lantus is a long acting insulin but my glucose levels are allways all over the place I have just moved and do not have a glucose moniter at the moment any ideas how to get another one cause they will not give me another moniter

 

[GrantGam]

i take novarapid and lantus I know novarapid is a quick acting insulin and lantus is a long acting insulin but my glucose levels are allways all over the place I have just moved and do not have a glucose moniter at the moment any ideas how to get another one cause they will not give me another moniter

You are a type 1 diabetic without a monitor!?

Go to any pharmacy and buy one immediately to tie you over. You'd be nuts to go any length of time at all without one!

Madness.

Grant

 

[Kristin251]

I take lantus and novolog. I ONLY use lantus for background while I sleep. I too am skinny. I take one unit and it keeps me rock steady through the night. I use novolog for my food. I have tried lantus in the morning when I was sick and running high and I hypo'd all day. It is not intended to work on food but it does. If I go to bed a little high I have a small snack and I wake up lower. If I want to stay where I am I don't snack.
I didn't read the whole thread, just this page so are you on bolus insulin too?
Why are you splitting it? Have you ever just tried taking your night dose and not in the morning? Just use bolus for meals?

 

[catapillar]

i take novarapid and lantus I know novarapid is a quick acting insulin and lantus is a long acting insulin but my glucose levels are allways all over the place I have just moved and do not have a glucose moniter at the moment any ideas how to get another one cause they will not give me another moniter

Who are the "they" who will not give you another monitor?

As an interim stop gap you could buy one or just google "free glucose monitor uk" lots of companies will send out their monitor in a free starter pack, with a limited supply of strips.

As you have just moved house, you should get yourself registered with a GP today and then they can sort out a repeat prescription. Alternatively, if it is near enough you could go to your current GP and explain the situation, they will likely sort you out with a script for a monitor and strips enough for a week or two until you are registered with a new GP. Once you have a monitor and test strips on prescription, call the customer services line of the company who make your monitor and ask if they will send you a monitor for free for you to keep as a spare so you don't find yourself stranded without a monitor again.

 

[Ralph sloothby]

At the request of @LucySW I'm flagging this issue that has been observed with Lantus here. @diamondnostril and I have both noticed unusual behaviour with Lantus.

In certain circumstances, it can act like a quick acting insulin and cause sudden blood sugar drops.

My story from the morning is here: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/has-anyone-seen-lantus-do-this.67751/#post-683265

Diamondnostril is here: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/hypo-after-lantus.52342/#post-480900

The summary is that if you inject somewhere where the Insulin is not absorbed properly into fatty tissue, it fails to work properly and effectively becomes short acting insulin.

1. The two side effects of this are obvious. Your blood sugar drops dramatically and unexpectedly (This has happened to me twice)
2. Your basal level gets messed up because the basal insulin has acted and been consumed too quickly.

Please be aware of this!

If anyone else has experienced this phenomenon, it would be good if you could let us know here so that we can escalate the awareness with the appropriate people within the UK and at Sanofi.

Hi finding this all very informative thanks to everyone i have tried various injection sites and now inject lantus twice daily at 8am and 6pm and three injections of nova rapid throughout the day i still get crashing hypo's in the night and no level of normality in my blood sugar tests.
also get hypo's during day if i exercise or work, find it all very confusing which then translates into apathy regarding my attention to the condition.
All very confusing or is it me thanks for reading my moanings

 

[tim2000s]

Hi finding this all very informative thanks to everyone i have tried various injection sites and now inject lantus twice daily at 8am and 6pm and three injections of nova rapid throughout the day i still get crashing hypo's in the night and no level of normality in my blood sugar tests.
also get hypo's during day if i exercise or work, find it all very confusing which then translates into apathy regarding my attention to the condition.
All very confusing or is it me thanks for reading my moanings

That's the kind of issue that is usually best resolved by changing off Lantus.

 

[Ralph sloothby]

Many thanks Tim reading through all these different blogs leads me to believe that treatment for diabetes is the most inexact science and that someone like myself is so confused after 25 years and am still basically self medicating, i am 65 years of age taking lantus 26 units twice daily nova rapid 26 units twice and 12units at lunch time when i see the specialist i get told to alternate injection times more, bm's 12.0 to 18.0 on average no wonder we get despondent .
Thanks for stage to to winge on
regards Ralph

 

[David Wass]

My background insulin doesn't work either. All day myvsugars run high. Before meals sky high correction dose but it goes back up again. I've even fasted between meals (unusual for me as o love food) every morining its goes from 15 up to 27 some day. I got out of bed tested my every 20 mins and its rising between 1 or 2 increments and never slows down. My DN it's my sites l. This i doubt as my novorapid works fine. I'm getting to the point where i an going ti admit myself to A & E and sit there until they sort me out. More to the point i have Thyroid Eye Disease unless my sugars ate controlled i can not have the steroids to help my eyes and in the meantime my eyes are worsening.

 

[ian_walker]

At the request of @LucySW I'm flagging this issue that has been observed with Lantus here. @diamondnostril and I have both noticed unusual behaviour with Lantus.

In certain circumstances, it can act like a quick acting insulin and cause sudden blood sugar drops.

My story from the morning is here: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/has-anyone-seen-lantus-do-this.67751/#post-683265

Diamondnostril is here: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/hypo-after-lantus.52342/#post-480900

The summary is that if you inject somewhere where the Insulin is not absorbed properly into fatty tissue, it fails to work properly and effectively becomes short acting insulin.

1. The two side effects of this are obvious. Your blood sugar drops dramatically and unexpectedly (This has happened to me twice)
2. Your basal level gets messed up because the basal insulin has acted and been consumed too quickly.

Please be aware of this!

If anyone else has experienced this phenomenon, it would be good if you could let us know here so that we can escalate the awareness with the appropriate people within the UK and at Sanofi.

This occurred to me last night, interestingly I noticed quite a blood patch after the injection so must have missed the fatty tissue

 

[Quantum Mechanic]

So helpful to find this thread; I've been diabetic for 30 years now and had my first crashing unexplained hypo about a month ago when I did my morning lantus (20u; no split dosing) with a blood sugar of 14. Within 10 minutes I felt terrible, re-tested and was 1.9; it took an hour to get the sugars above 4. I then steadily crept up to about 20 no doubt due to the basal having been fully used up by the terrible hypo and being dumped into my system for some random reason. I sat high for about 3 days (dipping to about 12 then back up again) and it also instigated a real fear of my insulin. I've been on lantus for about 15 years and did find it to be a wonderful change from monotard/insulatard. I've backpacked the world with it, and had two children, but the last few months have been very hard and I'm yet to find out why. Currently the "drugs don't work" in the way I anticipate; I feel that I can eat the same thing/ drink the same thing and be 4 or 14. I try to explain it with things like stress/work vs non work days/exercise but am now wondering whether it's not all "my fault" and could be worth trying levemir. I currently have lantus as my basal, and humalog as my short acting which I take does of about 6, 8, 6 at meal times. Does anyone have any other reasons for deteriorating b/s control? I've always been pretty well controlled but since Christmas it's felt like a very hard time.

I had the same thing happen to me New Years Eve - I was relaxed.. although my Sugar Level was 16. I took my Lantus usual dose 8pm (I take another one at 8am as I split my dose) and within 30mins I had dropped to hypo levels. This happens about every 3 months or so. Causes so much anxiety.

To avoid this happening more frequently, I do these 2 things: Firstly Each single time I inject, I dial up the dose and inject half into my left side and half into my right side of my belly. The second thing I do is to test again 30 mins later. As in the case described above it was lucky I did. Despite these fail safes I still needed to call out the paramedics. I am wondering if there is a genuinely better insulin that won't let this happen. Although Lantus is better than Insulatard which caused me even greater stress, it's far from perfect as you can see.

Trev...