[IceMan]

I almost did that one time. I was real close but snapped to it and didn't shoot. After that I put the glargine in my night stand on one side of the bed and always took my humalog sitting on the other side of the bed closest to the door. Before I just kept them both in the nightstand and that's how I almost got mixed up.

chow......d.

"all is energy...and energy follows thought"

My Diabetes Page (http://www.datainthehouse.com/diabetes/dwdiabetes.htm) -- updated weekly --
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[Miss_Hattie]

If you use glargine, a long-acting insulin, be careful that you don´t confuse it with your short-acting insulin.

Most of the long-acting insulins are cloudy, and people have gotten used to that over the years. But glargine is clear, like the short-acting insulins. Even though glargine is packaged in a vial that´s taller and thinner than other insulin vials, people still make mistakes. Here are two cases, reported by the diabetes team at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.

A 25-year-old woman who had had type 1 diabetes for six years was on a regimen of 22 units of glargine at night and lispro before meals. One night, she took 22 units of lispro. She realized her mistake right after she´d given herself the shot. She called her health care team. Her blood glucose level was 160 mg/dl. She was told to start eating carbohydrates and check her blood glucose levels frequently. She ate what she could, but she was feeling nauseated and couldn´t eat as much as she needed. Two hours after the injection, her blood glucose was 57 mg/dl. She was taken to the emergency room where she was given intravenous glucose. Five hours after she had taken the shot of short-acting insulin, her blood glucose stabilized in the 160 mg/dl range.

The second patient was a 52-year-old college professor who had had type 1 diabetes for almost 40 years. She normally took 17 units of glargine in the mornings and lispro before meals. One morning, by mistake, she took 17 units of lispro. She ate almost nonstop for the next three hours. Before the shot, her blood glucose had been 315 mg/dl. It dropped as low as 67 mg/d, and eventually leveled out at about 85 mg/dl.

The clinicians at Yale suggest that Aventis, the manufacturer of glargine, consider tinting glargine to give people another visual cue about which insulin they´re drawing up.

What You Can Do:

After the publication of these two case studies, several diabetes care professionals wrote in with a solution. In their practices, they have patients use insulin pens for their short-acting insulins. Glargine doesn´t yet come in an insulin pen and has to be drawn up and injected with a syringe.

Note from Miss H: I'm starting to see the same solution above with many of my diabetic patients, too. And when one patient asked to have his short acting in a vial, the doc said no.


Diabetes Board Community Leader ~ miss_hattie@yahoo.com

"I am determined to fight and win my battle against Diabesity!"