Faulty Insulin

Since last Saturday and up until last night my bg has been elevated despite increasing my insulin doses over this time. At first I thought I may be coming down with something but this wasn't the case, I then thought my basal insulin needed adjusting and did 2 fasting checks which ruled this out, doubled checked the carb content of my meals but to no avail, finally yesterday after increasing my novorapid by nearly a third it dawned on me that it might just be the insulin.

Last Saturday I replaced my cartridge and since this time my bg has been high, so last night I decided to use one from a new box to see if this resolved the problem, after my evening meal I was 7.9 post 1 hour, 6.1 two hours after and 5.5 at bedtime, much the same today as my bg has returned to normal much to my delight. I decided to throw away that box of insulin thinking that it could have been a faulty batch, never experienced this before after nearly 30 years of using insulin, it's certainly taught me a lesson and perhaps next time I'll check and change the insulin sooner. In hindsight I should have reported the insulin quoting the batch number but to late now as my bins been emptied.

Nigel

Snodger said:

which insulin was it?

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It was novorapid Snodger.

Nigel

franimal said:

Just out of interest do you think the novorapid was exposed to low temperatures at all? The two times my bolus insulin has stopped working in the last year have been because it got frozen - once in the back of the fridge and once in an hours walk in -5 temperature.

I've found that cold temperatures seem to spoil the insulin more than exposure to hot temperatures - has anyone else had this happen?

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No I don't think this was the case franimal but can see where your coming from with regards to temperature, perhaps before I received the insulin it wasn't stored correctly by the pharmacy or their supplier and hence why it lost some potency......who knows?

Thanks

Nigel

Joper,

It could well be that your OH is building up anti-bodies to novo if he has had similar issues with animal insulin, it would be good though if it was just down to a faulty batch and he didn't have to go through the upheaval of changing insulin's again. I'm afraid I didn't keep the box and it went out with the recycling the following morning otherwise I would have been more than happy to pass on the batch number.

Copepod, unfortunately as I was saying to Joper the box has long gone and with hindsight I should have kept it or even reported it, we live and learn!

Nigel

copepod said:

But do you still have a cartridge?

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No that has gone too.

Nigel