Hi everyone , I have been T1 for 10 years & been on novo mix 70-30, but my doc wants to put me on humalog says it's better ,what do use think?
I was on a mix of two insulins for many years. I used to mix them manually rather than having a pre-mixed insulin. That is what one had to do in the early days. I have had type 1 for over 43 years now.
For the last 20 years I have been on a basal dose of Lantus and bolus doses for each main meal. I have been on the DAPHNE (Dose Adjustment For Normal Eating) course and have been estimating my carb intake on a daily basis for many years.
The advantage of this regimen is the flexibility that this gives. Your basal dose should drip feed you with enough insulin to keep you healthy even when you are fasting. The bolus dose should top you up with insulin and deal with the carbs you eat at each meal. I use the ACCU-CHEK Expert meter which does the hard work of calculating my doses.
The bolus dose can be adjusted to match the number of carbs consumed (estimated). The dose can also be tweaked to deal with correction doses (when you are higher or lower than ideal) and you can also add/subtract insulin to deal with exercise or inertia, illness and menstrual cycles.
This gives a great deal of flexibility but comes with the responsibility of calculating or estimating dose adjustments and fluctuating carbs.
The regime you are currently on will give you two insulin peaks per dose. One to deal with your current meal and another a fixed number of hours later. I found that the second peak of insulin meant that I had to have a consistent lunch time or risk going hypo some hours after my earlier jab.
The nice thing about having a basal/bolus (background combined with top-up doses) is that you inject the bolus with your meal, whatever time that might be. You could also skip a meal or have an extra one or even deal with an unexpected high BG result. Your basal dose can be a single daily dose taken at a consistent time of day (e.g. bedtime).
One downside is that you have to do multiple injections. Much closer BG monitoring is also required.
When travelling across time zones you can adjust your basal dose to cope with longer or shorter day lengths.I shall be going to Mexico later in the year and will increase my basal for the longer outgoing flight and reduce it for the return.
If you decide to make this change you will need the support of your diabetes team and education to ensure you can take control of your condition.
Good luck.