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doses of insulin...

E

ebony321

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heeeey all...

i've reading a few posts and seen that some peoples doses seems to be significantly lower than mine!!

i have 24 lantus and 16-24 novorapid per meal...

im 5''3 and weigh about 8 and a half stone..

is this unsusual,

i don't carb count as i'e tried to do it with information i've found and it went wrong like my body deliberatly defied my attempts haha so i pretty much eat what i want ( not like i gorge on choccies and sugary stuff)... and i dont have a large appetite (maybe why i havea small frame)

im waitng for my HBA1C to be able to do dafne,

do you think because i dont carb count and eat a lomount of carbs is the reason for my (what seems large doses)?

i've heard large amounts of insulin can lead to insulin resistance in later life and i dont want this to be the case...

oh and my sugars lately have been between 5-9 apart from the occasional spike and numerous hypo's ovr the past two weeks but i a tweaking :)

any advice info or otherwise would be greaaaaaaaaaaaatly appreciaed

Ta
ebony
 
Hi
I dont think the Lantus is hellish high as I am on 16u Levemir per day- and I believe those using Lantus note that total dose for the day is a bit higher than you would need with levemir so I may well need around this, or just less if I was on Lantus and to be honest your background insulin needs are what they are. They have nothing to do with diet as such

I know there is a kind of machismo about doses at times but as I say, it is what it is
Now, the difference is of course going to be what you need for what you eat. I personally think 24u Novorapid is HUGE for one meal, and is probably more than I have in a day -ie only had 9u in total yesterday, 11u the day before. Everyones insulin sensitivity level is different and this may tell you how your body reacts to carbs and waht you need

Eg 1 u Novo will only ever drop my bg by 1.8mmol at the absolute MAX, though some get a drop of 3mmol with it. Do you have a notion of what this for you?

I can only assume that you have high requirements or as you say your diet requires this to be the case. I know weight gain is the biggest indicator of insulin resistance I do recall something about huge amounts of insulin doing it. However, if I recall correctly its more to do with the huge amounts of carbs, requiring huge amounts of insulin which then encourage you to retain weight ergo resistance over time possibly

I do think carb counting would help hone your doses a bit as well as a look at diet generally to see if this is why you require so much at meal times. As for chocs and sugary stuff - diabetic fallacy to some degree- -its all a matter of carbs, speed of them hitting bg and timing of insulin .

You might find however that ifyour ratios are a bit higher than you think for the food you eat, that your basal insulin needs tweaking

Just thoughts
 
totally agree with the above,
my lantus is 12u daily and 2/3 units novo at brekkie, 1/2 units at dinner, 1/2 at tea and 3units at supper so for a type 1 your dose does look huge,
even before carb counting i never used that much, me personally went lower carb so i lost weight and didnt need to inject much insulin :D hope that helps
 
HI Ebony,
I kinda agree with both Totsy and Lillibet, but everyones requirements are sometimes soo different. My 11yr old ( 4ft 11" 6 1/2 stone) is on 23 units of Levemir at bedtime and 4 in the morning, and humalog varies from 5-9 units per meal and we do carb count. Now before we introduced his morning Levemir his humalog could have been double what it is now. Maybe thats what you need to look at is your basal. Its such a juggling act and i can guess how frustrating it all is. Some people do find certain foods take a higher ratio to carbs, ie 2units to 10g carbs. I think a Dafne course is the way to go, then learning carb counting would put your mind at rest for your large doses.
Suzi x
 
Hi ebony,

much good advice already. It's interesting to see what a wide range of insulin requirements there are amongst the members here, from the very very low such as totsy to the spectacularly high.
Generally speaking, your insulin needs will be governed by a fairly small number of variables. Diet, obviously,is perhaps the most significant but insulin resistance can still skew things significantly. This is one reason why T1's, who often have little or no insulin resistance, can keep doses low whereas T2's find it much more difficult. There are people out the injecting 3 figure doses if that makes you feel any better!
Body weight, particularly excess adipose fat, tends to mirror insulin resistance fairly closely so you could say that has a direct influence too - overweight and insulin resistance go hand in hand it seems.
Excercise is another significant input in the equation and can make the body's cells much more sensitive to insulin thereby lowering the requirement for the hormone.
The bottom line is that we each have significant levels of control over the inputs to the equation throught the food we eat, the exercise we take and the shape we keep ourselves in.

All the best,

fergus
 
thanks for all your replies!

i wasn't exactly worried as the doses i'm on now give me so much better bloods than i have ever had before so it definately is helping,

just my curiousity prompts me to ask such questions you see :)

hopefully after my HBA1C test a week tomorrow will reveal a much better percentage than you see below then i can be referred to DAFNE and start carb counting with better help etc,

then i can count and hopefully reduce to get my bloods and HBA1C even better which may result in lower doeses,

will certainly be interesting to see :)

thanks again xxx
 
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