levemir Cut in two halfs

TorqPenderloin said:

I would dare to say that the majority of us who use Levemir have it split into morning/evening doses. Most data I've seen suggests that Levemir is consistently absorbed for about 16 hours before it begins to lose its effectiveness.

That can be a good thing as it allows us more ability to control our basal. For example, I give myself 10 units at 8pm and 5 units at 4am. The higher evening dose made sense for a number of reasons (for me), but the short answer is that I was going high at night/morning and low in the afternoons.

To address your question, I doubt it will be as simple at splitting your 36unit dose into two 18unit injections Then again, you have to remember that 36units once a day apparently wasn't the right dose in the first place (otherwise you wouldn't be in this situation).

What I did is literally draw a 24 hour timeline and map out exactly where I was going high or low. I then did the same thing and mapped out the timing of my two Levemir injections and compared the two.

The end result is that I give myself a 10u injection at 20:00 which should last until about 12:00, and a 5unit injection at 4:00 which should last until about 20:00. In theory, I have the most insulin in my system between 4:00-12:00 which is where I had issues going high, and I have the least amount of insulin in my system in the afternoon/evening just before my 8pm injection.

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Kloe said:

So I went for my diabetic check up today and my doctor was talking with me about my Sugar levels that they seem to rise more later in the day , she said to cut my levemir in to two halfs (from 36units at 11pm) to (18units 11pm and 11am ) to see if it helps with the rise of my sugar in min day as it could be wearing off by then . But my worry is now I've cut it down so much at nice I will wake up high, dose anyone else do this we there levemir if so how did it help/affect your morning readings and did it help keep sugar under control more throughout the day ?

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GrantGam1337 said:

I see you have now switched to a staggered split dose of Levemir rather than your previous 1-2u QA correction on waking to counter DP.

How are you finding this new approach?

Grant

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TorqPenderloin said:

Great question, and thank you for bringing that up.

For those who aren't aware: I had previous issues with (what I considered to be) dawn phenomenon, and previously had to give myself a 1-2unit injection nearly even morning or I'd see a a jump to 10+ without even touching a bite of food. I believe it was @tim2000s who suggested that it might not be dawn phenomenon and that I should consider a change in my basal injections.

To answer your question: the new approach is working GREAT and I rarely have to give myself a morning bolus anymore. HOWEVER, I have made other necessary changes as well. It seems my morning blood sugar increases were largely attributed to eating healthy (25g+) amounts of protein just before bed. While that satisfied my hunger, the theory is that my body converted the excess protein into glucose (gluconeogenesis) only to be released by my liver in the mornings when I woke up.

I increased my morning basal injection (from memory I think it was 1-2 units), try not to eat so much protein just before bed, and I try to get at least 3-4 miles of running in everyday (in addition to my heavy weight lifting). The running is sometimes a pain in the a**, but it has done wonders for keeping my insulin requirements and blood sugar readings low (in a good way of course).

In contrast, if I do have a big meal the night before, I'm likely to get the morning spikes and will need to give myself a small (~1u) bolus. My insulin needs also change significantly (as much as 50%) during the weeks I'm less active.

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