fatty lump

sophsmam

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our daughter told us when she injects her levemir it feels like theres a lump under her skin.is this a fatty lump she will only inject in her thighs for her levemir.i read that she could inject in her thighs and buttocks which i already knew,but it also said in her abdomen i didn't think you could.
 

Celtic.Piskie

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She really needs to change her injection sites around more.

You can inject in thights, bum, stomach, and tops of arms.
http://www.lillydiabetes.com/content/in ... ctions.jsp

^^ has a good diagram of where you can inject.

Frequent over-use of the same sites can cause tissue problems that can change the absorption rates of your insulin quite significantly.
It really is important that she changes her site, and doesn't allow any tissue build up.
 

suzi

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Levemir injected into her thighs insures that her basal gets into her system quickly, where it needs to be. Andrew always inject his Levemir in his thighs and in alternative legs. He is having a break from injecting all of his Humalog doses into his tummy at the present( only doing 2) as he was getting a bit of a paunch around his belly button. I thought he was filling out a bit! Its hard for them to keep finding new sites, they haven't as much flesh to choose from like most adults, and kids do become comfortable injecting in the same place. Does Sophie use the fronts of her thighs like Andrew does? if so tell her to move around slightly towards her outer thigh, about a hands width from where she injected before, like Andrew was advised by his DN. Its should help.
Suzi x
 

iHs

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I would say that both Lantus and Levemir are best suited injected in the side of the bum. Basal insulin needs to work slowly not fast. Bolus insulins are the ones to inject in the tummy, arms or legs where they will be absorbed quickly.
 

howie

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i agree with you all about rotating sites but i know an 80yrd old T1 db for 50 years thats uses the same site every time and has a leathery patch on his stomach (+ he uses syringes). thing is when i spoke to him for advice his last hba1c was 5.4! weird?
 

sophsmam

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she does her novorapid in arms tummy legs but only her thighs for her levemir.and we've told her time and time again to do it in her bum.but she won't think she's a bit embrassed.
 

iHs

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Hi

I think you will find that the reason why yr daughter is getting the lump in her leg is because she is injecting one huge amount of insulin (31u of Levemir?) in one go :roll: If she injects it in her bum,it will be better absorbed and will not notice so much because the bum is a fatty area 8) Its also a lot less painful and will not sting.
Another option is to eat less food before going to bed and inject less insulin or see if splitting the basal - bedtime and breakfast deals with the problem.
 

iHs

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Hi again

Splitting might be the best option but if you do, inject the 31u levemir in the evening but in the morning then inject say 10u levemir and compensate like you do with the bolus. You should hopefully start to see the bg lowering effect that levemir will do from late mid morning onwards until early evening. Its action is usually somewhere between 8 - 12hrs so you will need to still use whatever amount of bolus that you used to cover the evening meal. Leave the next levemir dose before going to bed but then just inject 21 units. The next morning use 15 units and so do the split gradually over a few days.