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Help I took long acting instead of short!

L

LauraBox

Member
Messages
5
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
I wasn’t paying attention and just now (6.30pm) did a full dose of my long acting insulin (trulicity) instead of my evening meal dose of novorapid.

I have already had a full dose of trulicity at 7.45am today and only take it once daily.

What do you think it will do to my levels? What would you do apart from checking sugars regularly? I’m thinking I won’t take any novorapid for now. So annoyed with myself!

Thanks in advance.
 
Hi, not done it that way round but have one taken short acting instead of long so understand the panic it causes when you notice!

Might help others if you give an idea of usual doses for both?

My advice would be to test test test and probably pause the short acting for tonight. One night where you run a bit high won't have long lasting damage but you don't want to risk hypoing obviously. I'm not familiar with your basal so can't comment on how long it takes to 'kick in'.

I hope you have a smooth 24 hrs - I would suggest the way round you have them mixed up is more of a slow burn so might result in a day or so of out of sync readings. Hope this helps!
 
Thanks for your quick reply and glad to know I’m not the only one who’s done this kind of thing!

I take 24 units of trulicity and would have taken 8 units of novorapid with tonight’s meal.

I think you’re right about the slow burn - I can cope with a high night and would prefer that over low when sleeping. Am lucky to have good warning signs.

I’m also wondering how many times I’ve done this before - it’s been 34 years so likely to have happened before!
 
LauraBox said:
Ah sorry you’re right - long acting is called tresiba not trulicity!
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In that case I'd have a little something before bed to be safe and keep a close eye on your numbers for the next 3 days, you might find you'll run a bit lower than usual, and it may well be you need a little less bolus insulin.
Great to hear you have good warning signs!

If your meal was worth 8 units of Novorapid and you haven't taken any, I'd expect you're going high right about now. Take it easy on the corrections, if any.

Good luck!
 
LauraBox said:
Thanks for your quick reply and glad to know I’m not the only one who’s done this kind of thing!

I’m also wondering how many times I’ve done this before - it’s been 34 years so likely to have happened before!
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Well I can assure you (from personal experience) that if you do it the other way round (inject bolus instead of basal) you notice very very fast as your bg crashes. :)

But given that you've injected basal instead of bolus I'd hope that the effect would be quite mild, though I'd recommend frequent testing, maybe even going as far as setting an alarm for the middle of the night. Given how long acting tresiba is you probably won't need to decrease your bolus that much, but watch for those night time hypos.

Good luck.
 
If I was in your shoes I’d run a bit higher before bed and set my alarm for 3am to do a check then, if all looks ok then just carry on as normal and test again in the morning, as tresiba has a long profile of around 36 hours it’s one of the easiest and most forgiving basals to get wrong so you should be ok.
 
Morning! Yes a bit low first thing but all good and have reduced morning basal a little to hopefully counter the mistake.

In other news, I’ve realised how incredibly old school I am calling it short and long acting! Am I alone with this?!
 
No not at all ! It’s easier to think of them as long and short or quick acting insulin’s, and as you’ve experienced it’s easy to confuse basal and bolus - have done it a couple of times myself, it’s an easy mistake to make but once the panic has faded it’s making sure your head knows how to manage it.
 
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