Correction doses

When Jess needs a correction dose it's usually at pre-meal injection time. We do a test before her meal, if the reading is too high we add the correction dose to what is required for her meal, she sits down and has her meal. We don't tend to test between meals unless she's about to do exercise and then if anything she usually needs something to eat to cover the exercise rather than a correction dose. Sometimes at night her reading might be higher than we want and then we'll do a correction dose without something to eat (she's asleep). But we are very careful to make sure the earlier Novorapid injection has completely worn off before we do a correction. For Jess that's 4 hours. Otherwise if you correct too soon you are overlapping and end in hypo territory later on.

LWA,

The DAFNE approach to correction doses is to wait until your next meal and add 1 or 2 units in then, just remember that 1 unit of novorapid can lower bg by 2-3mmoI/I. I don't think it is necessary to eat something should you include a correction dose between meals, but be careful that your previous novo dose isn't still active, as the extra units will could possibly send you hypo. Often giving a correction dose between meals can cause a post-meal hypo later, so be careful again!

Perhaps if you find that you are continually having to give yourself correction doses between meals, you may want to look at your insulin/carb ratios at each meal and make some adjustments to prevent your post-meal highs.

Nigel

I was told to take a correction dose 1 unit per X mmols above a certain level (not included the numbers here because I imagine they vary from person to person), and not eat or wait for the next dose. If I wait till my next meal my blood sugar will be high for hours.

HLW said:

I was told to take a correction dose 1 unit per X mmols above a certain level (not included the numbers here because I imagine they vary from person to person), and not eat or wait for the next dose. If I wait till my next meal my blood sugar will be high for hours.

Click to expand...

That's why it is important to get the correct ratio right from your previous meal! :roll:

Nigel

Wow you are lucky, to get the insulin right from the first day you start taking it. Most people are not that lucky, so will need to do correction doses while they get the dose right.
If you didn't mean to imply I was an idiot for not getting the insulin right first time, you would not have used that 'smilie'.

HLW said:

Wow you are lucky, to get the insulin right from the first day you start taking it. Most people are not that lucky, so will need to do correction doses while they get the dose right.
If you didn't mean to imply I was an idiot for not getting the insulin right first time, you would not have used that 'smilie'.

Click to expand...

Hi HLW,

Don't think Noblehead was implying anything of the sort, or that is certainly not the way I read his post No one gets it right first time but undoubtedly, the most important thing going forward is to find the right doses which work for you and then you should hopefully find you don't go high after your meal so your correction doses aren't needed every time

To try and answer your original question, I can't do a full in between meal correction dose without a snack. If I have got the dose wrong or am having a bad day and have gone high after a meal or have miscalulated etc, etc then I would correct with half the correction dose if I wasn't going to eat anything. Can you administer half units? are you using pens? if you can't do the half dose then I would suggest you eat something with your correction to avoid hypo later 8)

It would depend on how long the next meal is away in the main... DAFNE suggests that if you are going to have a meal in the next hourish, then wait and make the correction with your meal, if it's longer then correct no need to eat, but if you're having something to eat after the correction remember that there will be active insulin to take into account, most people find that at 2 hours, they used 80% of the active insulin... The rest will slowly decline until around the 5 hours mark for most some quicker and some slower

Debs

I'm ponder whether you've got your correction wizard perimeters (sp) set correctly, as in theory it should calculate a correction, with active insulin on board, BG etc so should correct without sending you hypo or needing food to counteract..

jopar said:

Debs

I'm ponder whether you've got your correction wizard perimeters (sp) set correctly, as in theory it should calculate a correction, with active insulin on board, BG etc so should correct without sending you hypo or needing food to counteract..

Click to expand...

It does, I was giving pre-pump advice to avoid confusion

Debloubed said:

Don't think Noblehead was implying anything of the sort, or that is certainly not the way I read his post

Click to expand...

Well I'd hope so, but then why that smilie? Anyway nevermind.

Debloubed said:

No one gets it right first time but undoubtedly, the most important thing going forward is to find the right doses which work for you and then you should hopefully find you don't go high after your meal so your correction doses aren't needed every time

Click to expand...

It's only happening late in the day, I think it's the levemir wearing off. Going to speak to the nurse on mon re: splitting the dose.

Debloubed said:

Can you administer half units? are you using pens? if you can't do the half dose then I would suggest you eat something with your correction to avoid hypo later 8)

Click to expand...

No half units, yes pens. The nurse said to do a correction dose 1 unit per 3 about 9 at the moment, she said we'd talk about lowering it to less than 9 on mon, so I guess that is why I haven't had a problem with hypos after a correction dose? I'll ask the nurse for more advice on mon.

jopar said:

It would depend on how long the next meal is away in the main... DAFNE suggests that if you are going to have a meal in the next hourish, then wait and make the correction with your meal, if it's longer then correct no need to eat, but if you're having something to eat after the correction remember that there will be active insulin to take into account, most people find that at 2 hours, they used 80% of the active insulin... The rest will slowly decline until around the 5 hours mark for most some quicker and some slower

Click to expand...

Thanks for that, something to keep in mind (that there will be some insulin left).

HLW said:

Wow you are lucky, to get the insulin right from the first day you start taking it. Most people are not that lucky, so will need to do correction doses while they get the dose right.
If you didn't mean to imply I was an idiot for not getting the insulin right first time, you would not have used that 'smilie'.

Click to expand...

No I wasn't implying anything HLW, I didn't know you were newly diagnosed, but I was merely trying to offer some help.

As you said in another post that your bg would be high for hours until your next dose, I was only suggesting that you may want to look at your insulin/carb ratio from your previous meal to work out where you went wrong. Far too many people assume that correction doses are fine to use in-between meals to lower bg's, but often they can be a cause of pre/post meal hypo's a few hours later, so it is far better to look at your daily food and insulin intake and make adjustments where possible.

No smileys this time!

Nigel