Average Daily Insulin Dosage

Craig88 said:

Not the most catchy title but I'm looking for a rough guide of how much insulin everyone takes to compare to mine. Long story short I'm trying to lose a bit weight and I've reduced my carb intake to help reduce my insulin.

I'm currently taking 4 units at breakfast - 5/6 units for lunch and between 6-9 units at dinner time. I also take 16 units of abasaglar at night.

My question is would this be considered a lot of insulin to be taking?

Thanks

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Hello

That's all dependant on the amount of carbohydrates you're eating. A rule of thumb for the ICR (insulin to carb ratio) is 1:10. 1u insulin for 10g of carbohydrates. You may need more or less insulin depending on your sensitivity level.

Your TDD (total daily dose) is a combination of basal and bolus insulin. Normally basal insulin will make up somewhere in the region of 40-60% of this number, and the rest is bolus insulin.

If you let us know what you ate with reference or the bolus doses you gave, it will be easier for forum members to comment on the amount of bolus you're using.

How are you BG levels currently? Before and after meals?

EDIT - As @CarbsRok has said, it doesn't matter how much insulin you're using (hence me asking how your BG's are). What does matter is if you're basal to bolus ratio isn't set quite right and you're over using bolus to compensate for a lack of basal and vice versa. Unless your BG is all over the place, I wouldn't worry.

Craig88 said:

Not the most catchy title but I'm looking for a rough guide of how much insulin everyone takes to compare to mine. Long story short I'm trying to lose a bit weight and I've reduced my carb intake to help reduce my insulin.

I'm currently taking 4 units at breakfast - 5/6 units for lunch and between 6-9 units at dinner time. I also take 16 units of abasaglar at night.

My question is would this be considered a lot of insulin to be taking?

Thanks

Click to expand...

It doesn't matter what amount of insulin anyone else takes, you need what you need end of story.

LOL, wouldn't be high for me!

I normally take 50 units basal with bolus anything between 20 and 70 units depending on how much I am eating.

Specialist says this is "on the high side" but nothing to worry about - my HbA1c is excellent and I don't have hypos. Those things are more important than absolute dose, which depends heavily on weight and metabolism.

To try to figure out what is causing the hypos

• You might need to think about basal testing - https://mysugr.com/basal-rate-testing/
• Or looking at your lunch time ratio - http://www.bertieonline.org.uk - it sounds like your ratios needs adjusting and the Bertie online course is a great introduction on how to make those kind of adjustments yourself, you should also ask your team for a referral for a DAFNE course, but in the meantime the BERTIE course is free online and based on all the same principles

Is there any particular reason your target range is 7-11? Do you have a lot of hypos?

Craig88 said:

My question is would this be considered a lot of insulin to be taking?

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Not at all

At the higher end your TDD would be 35u which isn't a high dose, my own TDD is around 30-32u.

Craig88 said:

My BG levels are good 7-11 I am currently carb counting and my ratio is 1:10 but think I may need to reduce my ratio as I feel I'm taking to much and between breakfast and lunch I go close to having a hypo. I also need to eat something at 3pm to keep my BG steady until I get home from work at 5:30.

As I'm trying to lose weight could do without having to eat then, would I be correct in thinking if I reduce my insulin at lunch this would help keep my BG levels up until I got home? I'm scared to reduce in case it isn't enough to cover my lunch.

Hope this makes some sense I've only been type 1 for 5 month

Thanks

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Your I:C ratio may need adjusting, but equally your basal might need reducing. The best place to start is with a basal rate test:

https://mysugr.com/basal-rate-testing/

Once that's set properly, you can skip meals and not need or worry about hypos. Not that I suggest skipping meals, but there she times where it happens for whatever reason. For now, you can use a little less bolus at meal times to stop the hypos, at least until you get the basal rate testing done.

I'm on about 27/30 units per day, x3 NovoRapid and x1 Levemir.

Hi @Craig88 , as @CarbsRok says, you need enough insulin to stay alive and well. What other people have as a TDD really isn't something that you can compare to as each of our bodies is different. Our TDDs also vary dependent on what we eat.

@Craig88 We're all different, so you can only compare yourself with yourself really. I bet I'm much smaller than you yet in days when I ate plenty of carbs on MDI I took around a similar amount of insulin to what you take. When I was pregnant I took much more.

The amount doesn't matter - only that your blood sugar is controlled.

16 units of Lantus per day and anywhere between 12 and 20 units of NovoRapid. 65kg and 175cm.

I have between 60 and 80 units a day with a rough split of 45% basal and 55% bolus.....