How long before eating to take insulin

thats a postpandal (sp?) rise and is normal both for diabetics and non. your bloodsugar is exactly right otherwise.

I find 15 mins max is sufficient time to allow the insulin to get a head start before the food begins to digest, this is injecting in the stomach mind where it works faster than in the arms, legs and buttocks.

I have read that some leave it longer especially in the morning, however if you do decide to leave it longer I'd be very careful and keep some fast-acting glucose to hand, much does depend on the food eaten as you say.

You may find something useful in the following article about post-meal spikes and how to prevent them:

http://www.diabetesselfmanagement.com/a ... ke-ii/all/

Hi Andrea,

I see similar sort of delays in my sugars coming down so I tend not to worry about my levels within a few hours after eating since the insulin (depending what you are taking) can be active for several hours.

Nobblehead raises some good points though, I tend to adjust where I inject and when (before / after eating) depending on what I am eating and how quickly it will hit me. For example wholegrain pasta I tend to go for buttocks, sandwich I usually use my arms but a nice treat (puddings ) tends to be stomache so I can catch them quickly.

I think as long as your levels are right by the time you get to the next meal then you are doing grand. That's pretty much what I took away from DAFNE after I had a chat with one of the instructors about seeing similar behaviour as you are seeing.

/A

Perfectly normal levels short acting insulin lasts 4-5 hours looks like your doing fine


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Hi Andrea, you should aim for your pre- and post-meal readings to be consistent with each other. Long-duration highs like that will certainly harm your HbA1c and put you at increased risk from complications. In fact, any highs will, so you should always aim to be between 4-7 pre-meal and 4-9 post-meal.

I used to get what you are describing, so what I did was to take enough insulin so that my pre- and post-breakfast readings were consistent and then have a carby snack 2 hours after breakfast to cover me until lunch time. I put it down to the dawn phenomenon; mine seems to have calmed down recently (since I started low carbing), so I no longer need a snack mid-morning, but I still need extra insulin for breakfast. If you do go down the snack route, you will need to experiment to see what amount you need. From memory, I think I needed around 15g, so I ate a cereal bar.

Sam - I see you saying the above regularly but I don't quite understand it.

Insulin like Novorapid has a 4-5 hour "life" and peaks around 2 hours. So say for example your BG was 5 pre meal. If you aim for 5 at the 2 hour mark you still have up to 3 hours of insulin and so run the risk of hypo before your next meal?

I aim for below 9 at the 2 hour mark with the intention of being back to 5/6 for the next meal. I just can't seem to wrap my head around your logic!

If you add a snack that you didn't previously require are you not risking weight gain?

Fruit is a good idea health wise, it just doesn't make sense to me to be feeding your insulin though.

Sam usually has good logic though so hopefully he can explain more when he's around next!

Hi Hale, you may have seen insulin profile graphs where there is an initial peak, before tailing off. The technical term for this is a "PK graph". The decay of blood insulin concentration is determined by the rate your body removes insulin from your system. The insulin you inject is nearly identical to human insulin and the artificial insulins have been designed to have the same PK graph (insulin profile) as insulin PK graphs for non-diabetics. For non-diabetics their insulin profile matches the absorption rate of glucose from food that is being digested. Therefore, you should expect your levels to be consistent if you get your dose correct.

Granted, there are of course other variables in this and we all know there's plenty of room for error, but by-and-large if you get your profile to match what your pancreas would've done and you get your dose correct, then your levels should be consistent.

Andrea, glad I can help! Yes, since low carbing my levels are nearly always within range. Wasn't always like this though, when I was on carbs I used to get a lot of highs and lows. Low carbing has reduced the frequency and severity of both. I can definitely recommend it and I can almost guarantee that it will give you near-perfect levels, but since you're new, probably best to give carbs a chance first!

Regarding weight-gain, I guess it's a catch 22. Slight weight gain from a mid-morning snack or high sugar levels - I know what I'd choose! Perhaps you can reduce your calories elsewhere so that you can accommodate the snack mid morning?

Thanks Sam, that makes a bit more sense! I guess it depends on the person, I personally see fairly dramatic drops in BG at the 3-5 hour mark (still in discussion with DSN over my basal though), so I suppose for others the insulin action time could be shorter and hence it's safer to aim for the 2 hour matching the pre meal BG?

Post honeymoon period I guess my body will have a better grip on things!

No probs. We all know that things don't always go to plan! I think it should always be the aim to have consistent pre- and post-meal readings. And you're right, we're all different, so it will be difficult for everyone to aim for this. A drop 3-5 hours after bolus is in a grey area of whether it's your basal or bolus, by 5 hours you'll have next to no bolus in you, but it's difficult to say.

drahawkins_1973 said:

I also read (and I think its cvoered in teh document you sent noblehead) that you can "hold back" some of your carbs, has anyone tried that?

Click to expand...

Is that the part where he suggest splitting your main meal in two and eating the remainder 2 hours later as a snack? No I've not tried that and wouldn't want to tbh, I prefer to eat my meals in one go and not have to snack between meals, besides dosing up front and not eating the whole meal might mean an increase in postprandial hypo's which I wouldn't want.

Take on board what everyone has said Andrea and all will become right in the end

Haha I'm an engineer.... I know all about the numbers!

I've had a great 2 days, didn't go over 6.9 since Tuesday! But woke up at 7.7 today. It's still only just out with my morning target but I was on such a good streak....