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Intermediate insulin, Humalin I

Valsal

Active Member
Messages
25
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi, Just asking whether anyone using above insulin regime, once a day injection? It doesn't seem to kick in for hours and hours and then supposed to stop after say 18hrs max BUT I end up low early mng???
Thanks
 
Hi, Just asking whether anyone using above insulin regime, once a day injection? It doesn't seem to kick in for hours and hours and then supposed to stop after say 18hrs max BUT I end up low early mng???
Thanks

Humilin 1 is an intermediate insulin, as you can see from the curve below it is expected to take a few hours to get going.

upload_2020-10-20_12-17-19.png
Insulin performance will be dependent on many factors including your own metabolism. This graph appears to show the variation in the working time may be quite large, anything between 14 and 24 hrs. Note though that most of the info on the web states 14 to 16 hrs as a working time for Humulin 1, so less than the 18hr number in your original question.
 
Hi Valsal,

I am also taking Humulin I ie. the long-acting basal insulin only. We are all different and my journey has been different to yours. I was diagnosed as Type 2 eight years ago, and then re-diagnosed as LADA or Type 1.5 last year and have now been on Humulin I for 15 months. This regime does not give the amount of control that a basal/bolus insulin regime (ie a mix of the long-acting and short-acting insulins) would give.

I started off taking 10units at night. This was changed to splitting the dose into two morning and evening doses of 5units after a couple of months as I was getting night-time/early morning lows followed by rises throughout the day (for exactly the reasons shown in Urbanracer's graph). Recently I have experienced a lot more continuous hypers, in particular the insulin was not covering my evening meal which is usually the largest of the day. Diabetic nurse suggested both upping the dose and changing the timing so rather than spacing my doses 12 hrs apart I now take 8units c.9am and 10units at 6pm (usually eat evening meal 7.30/8.00pm). I have only been doing this for five days so far, but my readings are much better. In my case I do feel I ought to move on to basal/bolus, but that is a whole other story......

I aim to eat c.100g carb a day and I am physically pretty active walking 4-5miles or more every day. If it's any help, my typical carb intake over a day would be breakfast <10g, lunch 20-40g, evening meal 40-70g.

Are you able to get a phone appointment with your Diabetes team and discuss splitting the dose? Depending on what you eat and when, and how much exercise you get then issues of timing and dosage might also be worth tweaking, but probably best to take it one step at a time

I can see you have had a really rough time, everything crossed for you.

XX
 
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