human insulin

Welcome Kev,

I've used Animal, Human and Analogue insulin's, were you previously using animal insulin?

Some type 1's who moved from animal to human insulin didn't fair well and had to switch back, I believe there were many reasons for doing so including diminished hypo awareness, allergic reaction to the insulin to name but a few.

Personally I didn't lose my hypo awareness on human insulin.

Hi @philsims

I was ok with regular human insulin but had a problem with analogues. I now use animal insulin.

Yes, my experience of human insulin was similar. I had no warning symptoms when my BS dropped at all. My worst experience was on a Friday evening. I watched a film till 11:30pm and then got up to switch off the TV and head for bed. I had had hot chocolate and digestive biscuits about half an hour earlier during a commercial break, but was waiting till I actually got to bed before my evening basal injection. When I put off the TV, I discovered that my legs would not support me and dropped to the floor feeling shaky. I crawled to an armchair, but was unable to pull myself up. My mind was perfectly clear and I immediately decided that my sugar level had to be responible for what was happening to me. I could not reach my handbag with my glucose in it, or my coat hanging up in the hall with glucose in the pocket, so had to crawl into the kitchen for the Lucozade. I could not reach a glass or cup, so had to drink it out of the bottle, supporting myself with one hand. By now, I was totally exhausted and lay on the cold kitchen floor for about ten minutes before slowly crawling back to the sitting room, pushing the bottle of Lucozade ahead of me because I needed both hands to crawl, but was afraid to leave it behind. Once back on the warm carpet I fell asleep or lost consciousness, unsure which. After about an hour and a half, I woke up, feeling dreadful, aching all over, with a thumping headache. My meter showed 6.1 mml - and I had drunk at least half a large bottle of original Lucozade.

I reverted back to animal insulin as soon as this was possible. Until then, to stay alive I had to keep my BS above 6 at all costs. On later occasions, my legs would suddenly give way when I was crossing the road and I was lucky to make it to the pavement. It was all a nightmare I will NEVER EVER forget.

I'm using human insulin right now (no analogues). I'm not a fan of this insulin and I'm gonna try to switch to analogues asap.
Doctors (and patients) will usually tell you that it has more "flat" curve, meaning it doesn't peak as hard as rapid acting insulins, but that's not true. Hunan (regular) insulin peaks very hard and the only difference is that it peaks later and it has later onset (roughly speaking: onset is 30 min after giving a shot, peak is 2 to 4 hours after giving a shot and it works for up to 6 hours).
When you're takin rapid insulin, there is a chance your food will be slower than your insulin and you'll have a hypo, then you'll eat something and use the insulin that was intended for the meal and then you'll go high. That is why doctors sometimes prescribe human insulin (although it's a stupid decision and they shoud just educate patients more).
When you're taking human insulin, usually you'll eat something and your bs will go very high because the insulin isn't really working yet, and then at some point, when it starts working you'll go really low.

My point is: to avoid dangerous lows you need to think about what kind of food you're eating and how much of it and when you decide that, you need to find the insulin that works for you.

I was talking about what happened to me when put on 'Human' insulin in 1985. For me it was life-threatening. I had perfect warning symptoms and was very well-controlled until this point. Within the first five days of using Human insulin I became very frightened. I could only tell that my BS had fallen when my legs gave way. Patients like me were ignored by all HCPs. I was told that all diabetics eventually lost their warning symptoms and my requests to go back onto my previous insulin were refused. This is why the IDDT organisation was originally set up. It was originally started by a British GP who was a type 1 diabetic and would not accept that type 1s had to put up with this. The IDDT supports patient choice of insulin type. The OP and I were not asking for advice on how to avoid hypos. We were both talking about an experience which came close to killing us.
I am still on animal insulin. I would give myself less than six months on 'Human' insulin. A type 1 diabetic is bound to have some hypos, no matter how careful. It's just in the nature of things. I would just prefer that a hypo does not kill me. If I was given 'Human' insulin again, it almost certainly would.

JMK1954 said:

I was talking about what happened to me when put on 'Human' insulin in 1985. For me it was life-threatening. I had perfect warning symptoms and was very well-controlled until this point. Within the first five days of using Human insulin I became very frightened. I could only tell that my BS had fallen when my legs gave way. Patients like me were ignored by all HCPs. I was told that all diabetics eventually lost their warning symptoms and my requests to go back onto my previous insulin were refused. This is why the IDDT organisation was originally set up. It was originally started by a British GP who was a type 1 diabetic and would not accept that type 1s had to put up with this. The IDDT supports patient choice of insulin type. The OP and I were not asking for advice on how to avoid hypos. We were both talking about an experience which came close to killing us.
I am still on animal insulin. I would give myself less than six months on 'Human' insulin. A type 1 diabetic is bound to have some hypos, no matter how careful. It's just in the nature of things. I would just prefer that a hypo does not kill me. If I was given 'Human' insulin again, it almost certainly would.

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Oh, it's a misunderstanding
I was just trying to help.
Do you think you had your problems because body reacts in a certain way after a transition from animal to human or because human insulin is bad on it's own?

I don't know the answer to that, SweetSophia, but as some people take it and have no problem, I don't think any of us can just label it as 'bad'. I was on animal insulins of various types from diagnosis as a child of ten in 1964 until 1985 with no problem. That's a reasonably long time so I suspect my body got used to it. The problem was that in 1985 no doctor would agree to take you off 'Human' insulin. I don't believe attitudes changed until the 'dead in bed' problem hit the headlines some years later. A pathologist somewhere in England realised he was performing a lot of post-mortems on children and young people who were type 1 diabetics. This was before analogue insulins were available in the UK. He realised that this sudden dramatic rise in unexplained deaths coincided with the introduction of 'Human' insulin and wrote to 'The Times', 'The Guardian' and the other broadsheets. There was then a sudden change of policy, so if you requested a change back to animal insulin you got it.
EDIT: If anyone wants a reference for this, the IDDT website is probably a good start.
https//: www.iddt.org/about/gm-vs-animal-insulin/a-little-bit-of-history