Starting Insulin tomorrow

Hi Chrissy2K and welcome to the forum

I cannot help you with your query really as I have no experience although logic tells me that your HCP will give you all the gen when they start you off with the insulin.

Best not to get too stressed about it as it won't help the numbers on your BG levels. :roll:

Hope all goes well for you!

Hi Chrissy

Glad all is going well so far and hope it continues like that for you! 8)

Hi
After being on pills for 20 years, I was put on insulin 4 weeks ago.
I'm finding it reasonably painfree.
My B/S levels have dropped from a weekly average of 13 to 10.
I started on 10 units and am now taking 14.
I do still find that carb bumps up my readings so I'm sticking with my lowish carb diet and make sure I have emergency supplies at home, work and in the car.

Good luck

Hi Chrissy,
I so know where you're coming from .. have been on insulin myself for 3 weeks now, after being permanently sleeping my life away for about a year and catching every ailment known to mankind. I have noticed a change, I'm not so tired and feel more alert (previously it felt as though I was moving through a permenant fog), although I still feel more tired than normal (ie prior to being diabetic). They're uping my dose every week, so in theory every week I should feel slightly more 'normal', eventually I'll be injecting with meals too. Am still taking metformin, but have dumped the gliclizides (sorry can't spell). Hope things improve for you too

Hi,

Len has been type 2 and on pills for quite a number of years. However on 25 May he ended up in hospital with blood sugar levels off the scale and he is now on insulin. He was started on 12 in the evening and 16 during the day but every few days in consultation with the practice nurse they have been increased now 35 in the evening and 40 during the day. However b lood glucose levels have not come down all that much. Still blurred vision, unable to walk very far, extreme exhaustion etc. We are just wondering if this is all normal? Will it come down and when? If it does when will the blurred vision etc rectify itself?

Any help very gratefully appreciated.

Juliet

Chrissy2k said:

<snip>, at the moment I'm so tired that I'm sleeping 16-18 hours a day which is a waste of my life. I'm glad I found this site, hopefully it will help me to get sorted, thanks everyone

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Slightly off the current topic, but I had similar (but less severe) symptoms from Symvastatin which cleared over a period of weeks when I went onto Pravastatin.

I have a (non-diabetic) friend who is on Symvastatin as well as various other drugs and I sometimes wonder if the signs of tiredness and mental confusion he sometimes shows can be at least partly attributed to the Symvastatin.
Difficult to tell when you are on multiple medications which is having an effect.

So (knowing that most diabetics are encouraged to take statins) I would encourage people to check on the possible side effects of other medications (if any) as well.

The blood sugar levels are an obvious culprit in this case but it is always worth checking for additional causes rather than putting all the symptoms down to one cause.
It can be both depressing and confusing when you treat one cause successfully but don't entirely clear the symptoms.

HTH

Dave R

[quote

So (knowing that most diabetics are encouraged to take statins) I would encourage people to check on the possible side effects of other medications (if any) as well.

HTH

Dave R[/quote][/quote]

Regarding the statins I can only speak for myself. I stopped taking them a year or so ago due to a swelling on my neck that appeared and general muscle pains. To be honest after changing my diet my cholesterol isn't that high (over the recommended limit) but not too high. For me the side effects weren't worth it.

The sleep issue is definitely down to high sugars, blurred vision, feeling constantly ill, poor concentration and the poor memory all come from my unstable sugars. I have been on a slow release insulin now for maybe 7 or 8 weeks and I am needing less sleep (still more than the average bod) and my concentration and ability to cope with life in general are improving. So there is light at the end of the tunnel. I started taking 10 units per day and am now on 28, sugar still averaging around 9.5 so still some way to go, but I'm hopeful it won't be too long before life evens out.