quick release/slow release carbs....

jonesy

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this may well be a stupid question. apologies if it is.

the other night my boy injected novorapid instead of levimir by mistake. we worked out that we needed to get about 160g of carbs into him to counteract the dosage.

now....if i give him glucose tabs or lucozade, i know that these contain very fast acting carbs. i also know that bread, cereal bars, bagels etc contain slower acting carbs.

my question is this.....do the faster acting carbs get 'used up' and dissappear quicker than the slower ones, or is a carb a carb? basically, could i give him 160g of quick release, or do i need to give him slow release too because the quick release ones will dissappear quicker?
if i fill him full of glucose tabs and lucozade up to 160g, will those 160g just sit in the blood till the insulin has balanced out the equation, or do they 'dissappear' over time and need to be replaced by slower release carbs while the insulin is still working?


for the record....i mixed it up over about 45 minutes, and it worked fine, but he was so full he felt horrible. he had already had his dinner and was certainly not hungry. it would have been easier to just drink a load of lucozade, but i wasn't sure

jonesy
 

Debloubed

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yikes! poor chap, must have felt full enough to burst, bless him! :p I would suggest 15g of quick acting carbs if he was registering a low BG but if it was an error and you were aware and he could stomach it, then count enough 'normal' carbs to counter act the insulin OD and that should be fine. Otherwise you would be waiting for the hypo?! but then you would/could be armed to correct with 15g quick acting (small can full fat coke for reference, x5 glucose tabs or x5 fruit pastilles contain approx 15g fast acting carbs).

Not sure that has answered your question actually, as I don't know if quick carbs 'disappear' :p someone on here will know though :wink:

Ps - no questions are stupid, just some of the answers :lol:
 

jonesy

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doublebed....

i know how to traet hypos and this situation, but thanks for trying anyway.

just intrigued if there is actually any difference, or is a carb, simply, a carb.

jonesy
 

Debloubed

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my name is Debloubed not Doublebed! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Not to worry, there will be someone along with a link to a website about carbs before you know it :D

All the best
 

Debloubed

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:lol: :lol: :lol: I'm still chuckling!! Wonder how many others people have done that 8)
 

hanadr

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AS far as total carbs are concerned, a carb is a carb, but if you are matching carbs to speed of insulin, I'd go for Low GI[the slowest] and keep monitoring.
 

jonesy

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hanadr.....

that's exactly what i did, but if a carb is a carb, then surely it would be ok to just get 160g into him in any way. would it not be the case that the quick release carbs would just be there till they were all used up and couterbalanced the dose of novorapid.

or do they somehow disappear and need to be replaced by more carbs (ie slow release) over the time period that novorapid lasts????

surely, if the amount of novorapid is needed to counter 160g, then he coul;d just make sure that he gets 160g in him and leave the novorapid to work on that amount over time.

or not??

jonesy
 

Debloubed

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ahhh, now I get you! yes, I agree, 160g of quick acting should do the trick and counter the insulin as a basic remedy, but as Novorapid peaks at 2-3 hours and quick acting carbs peak within about 15 mins or so, longer acting carbs would be more suitable.

Good question! :D
 

jonesy

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hey doublebed.......

i'm not going to do it, as i guess that would send my boy's BG shooting up before the novorapid got to work and brought it down again. i was just curious if quick release carbs had a 'shelf life'. i always assumed that a carb is a carb and is there till countered with the insulin. i just wanted confirmation.

jonesy
 

Debloubed

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blimey, i'm going to be pondering this one all day!

Doublebed 8)
 

leggott

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Hi, I know some one who gave their son novorpaid at bedtime and didn't realise it - she had put the wrong cartridge in the pen by mistake and gave novorapid instead of levemir for 4 nights! Her GP was amazed that her little child didn't wake up in the night with serious hypo!

Wasn't sure if you knew that you can get Levemir in disposable pens. My husband has them and they look very different to the Flexi Pens so there is no confusion. The only thing I'm not sure about is if they come in half units ( may be someone else knows).

Re the carb thing, I would of probably done something similar to you. Cereal bars are a good one since they contain oats as well as sugar, so you get a mix.

Leggott
 

leggott

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... just been reading Type 1 Diabetes by Dr Ragnar Hanas and it is recommended that if the wrong insulin is taken at bed time you should consume foods which are rich in carbohydrate but low in fat. It is also stated that you should take your bedtime dose as well, but this should be lowered to approximately half the normal amount and given a few hours after the accidental dose....
 

jonesy

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thanks leggot....

i actually still gave him his full amount of levimir as i figured i'd cancelled the novorapid out with the 160g carb intake.
everything went to plan anyway.

jonesy
 

LittleSue

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leggott said:
Wasn't sure if you knew that you can get Levemir in disposable pens. My husband has them and they look very different to the Flexi Pens so there is no confusion. The only thing I'm not sure about is if they come in half units ( may be someone else knows).
Leggott

As far as I know, there are no disposable Levemir pens that do half units. I have to explain about half units to the pharmacist when they try to dispense Flexpens even though my prescription says cartridges.
 

kegstore

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jonesy, going back to your original question about whether a carb is a carb etc...

It sounds like you did the right thing, I doubt your son will make that mistake again very soon! In a similar scenario I've split my consumption of ("normal") carbs over a couple of hours, to try to match the activity of what is quite a large dose of short-acting insulin against blood sugar rises. 30 minute bg testing too until I'm sure the offending insulin has done it's worst.

The difficulty with any kind of insulin therapy is it's a bit like controlling a satellite on it's way to Saturn and beyond - it might take 20 minutes or longer for a command you've sent to be received, then another 20 minutes to get confirmation back. No direct interactive control. Grrr...
 

hanadr

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Quick carbs would cause a spike. Slow carbs would produce less of one.