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Novarapid timing

B

bennyg70

Well-Known Member
I wondered how people in general tend to time their novarapid injections? I was always told to take with food or just after? But I find I have a good 30 minute delay and to really time my injection with the digestion of food I need to inject around half an hour before eating. My post meal results do seem to have improved doing this.

So I wondered is this a commen thing? And how do others time their injections?
 
30 mins would be too long for me, however I do tend to inject 10 mins before eating unless the meal has a high fat content then I'll inject immediately before eating. I do find....much like you that the timing of injections does have a positive outcome with regards to postprandial bg readings
 
I don't eat carbs anymore, but if I was eating something low in GI, I'd need to inject straight before. If it was high in GI, I'd inject 20-30 mins before eating.
 
Sam - Id love to cut out carbs , if not all carbs some - What sort of things have you substituted for?
 
hi my name is Lauren and got diagnosed 4days ago now type 1 and im on novorapid iam all new 2this as i nvr really knew wat diabetes was and how it affects ppl. i tend 2 do my BG nd ketones then inject an eat straight after as this is wat i hav been advised 2do from my nurse at the clinic x
 
When I was still injecting (Been on a pump since July) I would inject immediately after eating, this was so that I could dose for the amount of Carbs I had consumed during the meal, never had problems like that. On the pump I just bolus at the start of my meal after doing a BG test and letting the pump do the work in getting the Bolus right. Still get a few dodgy results, mainly due to bad carb counting on my part, but overall much easier.
 
Hi Benny

I'm on the same insulin as you, I came off Apidra onto this one and have found it is not as fast acting as Apidra, which for me is a great thing as I am very insulin sensitive so Apidra was just gobbled up by my Cells. As to when I would inject before a meal,it would depend on a number of things. The main one would be what my before meal reading was, if it was low 4's I would wait ten minutes into the meal to inject, as the insulin would kick in too quickly and I have hypo'd before while eating.

Also if it was a high fat meal which most of mine are as I low carb, then I would stager my doses as to cope with the delayed food absorption and the protein spike which is inevitable later on. Also I would stage injections to previous physical activities and proposed activity to come....So yeh, it's taken me a lot of testing to get this all worked out and experimentation, but I have got there with it all.

You need to test a lot for a while and see when you need to inject for you, as we are all different
 
Hello benny As it is NovoRapid, it does work rapidly and I was told to inject just before eating, but depending on the BS I might leave it 10 minutes, but never ever 30mins :shock: Best wishes RRB
 
I inject before I eat, anywhere from 10-30 minutes before...I wake up at 5 in the morning, take my Novorapid, mix up a protein shake, get into the shower, and it's pretty much a case of drink the protein shake when I remember/before I get too shaky

Failing that If I take it same time as eating I get huge spikes roblem:
 
Hi Benny,
I have omelette for breakfast, salad or soup for lunch, nuts or pork scratchings as a snack and meat with a plate full of veg for tea, or stew. My levels have never been better with such little effort. Any otherof questions then ask.
 
Glazed doughnuts, im the same as you, I dont know whether its my body absorbing the carbs really quickly, or the insulin not kicking in for half an hour, maybe a mixture of the two, But since leaving a 15 - 30 minute gap, depending on the type of meal and blood test before, I havnt had spikes like I was having before.

Sam - Does that mean your completly off the nova rapid? Or do you still compensate the little carbs in the veg, nuts, etc? Also Sam, If you eat fatty meat - with no carbs, do you suffer any BG spikes from this later on?
 
Glazed doughnuts, im the same as you, I dont know whether its my body absorbing the carbs really quickly, or the insulin not kicking in for half an hour, maybe a mixture of the two, But since leaving a 15 - 30 minute gap, depending on the type of meal and blood test before, I havnt had spikes like I was having before.

Sam - Does that mean your completly off the nova rapid? Or do you still compensate the little carbs in the veg, nuts, etc? Also Sam, If you eat fatty meat - with no carbs, do you suffer any BG spikes from this later on?
 
Hi all
According to John Walsh (he's the biz!):
"A carb bolus can be given just before meals that have only a small number of carbs, but for meals that contain larger amounts of carb or foods with a high GI index, the carb bolus has to be taken 15 to 20 minutes before eating to prevent the blood sugar from spiking an hour or two later"
 
Erm... I'm not sure I can give you a universal number - soz! For me I'd say over 10g.
When your BG is 5.5mmol, the entire blood supply contains only 5g of glucose. (That's a Walsh fact!) So I think a high amount of carb probably isn't that much at all.
Hope that helps!
 
But what is considered high carb - for me its anything 30g or over
Click to expand...
I don't think Walsh would consider that high carb. (and I'm just repeating what he says, not what I necessarily believe or do; sad but I feel it necessary to have to put that in)
He has traditional views saying (p72 pumping insulin ) that someone eating 2000 calories 'needs 240/300g carbs a day. He points out the calorie differences between fat grams and carb grams suggests that people eating significantly less should increase the amount gradually ( abrupt changes can cause big control problems.
He also spends time talking about where those carb grams should come from(not nutrient poor/high GI) .
 
No, I still need Novorapid. There's an interesting thread going on in the Low Carb forum about insuling levels on a low carb diet - viewtopic.php?f=18&t=34164

It basically says that your liver pumps out some glucogen when you eat protein with no carbs. Even when I don't eat protein and have something fatty, I still need the same amount of insulin. I have 4u of Novorapid at breakfast, 3 for lunch and 3 for dinner - no matter what carb-less meal I have. Presumably my liver is creating equal amounts of glucogen at each meal (I take more for breakfast because of the dawn phenomenon). Buy Richard Bernstein's Diabetes Diet, it talks about low-carbing for diabetics there.

I started off just changing a meal at a time. If you do switch make sure your basal levels are correct as it could skew any results you get.
 
Phoenix - you are right to point out that he does offer more information than I have mentioned and I should be careful not to just throw half the story at people.

I just meant that the idea that, even today's faster acting insulins are, as quick as the pancreas can't be true: insulin from a pump or pen is does take a while to get into your bloodstream and kick in.

And for the benefit of those who haven't read the book - just to say that the carbohydrates that he says should make up around 50% of ones diet are: "breads, grains, vegetables, fruits, low-fat milk and so on." Not white bread, pasta and sweets! :lol:
 
I tend to inject around about 5-10 minutes before eating.
Never really experimented with injecting after eating as i was originally told this would be a bad idea
 
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