one problem no answers

[krashcam]

Hello, Im new to any forum so please excuse my ignorance. I'm 33 yrs old and diabetic for 4 yrs. I'm on 21 units of novolin 70/30 mix twice a day. I keep pretty good control my last A1c was 5.8. My problem is sometimes, mostly in the evening but not always, I take my shot and before i can even finish eating my sugar stats to bottom out no matter what my reading is when i take it. Also i inject in my stomach. Can any one help.

[Cinnabon]

I was on 70/30 and never really liked it. Just the though of not really knowing how much of each Im injecting, worried me. Im glad that your A1C i sso good. Have U thought of Novolog & Lantus?

[krashcam]

My doctor metioned it but until my insurance kicks in i cant afford to do that yet

[Cinnabon]

Oh, I know. These insurances can make our Blood sugar out of wack!
U should look into it. U already have great control so it shouldnt be too hard.
Have U ever tried to start eating and then shoot up?

[krashcam]

No actually i'v never thought of that maybe ill give that a try. My doctor said the only thing he could think of was maybe i was hitting a blood vessel. I dont know.

[duck]

Very, very hard to consistently hit a blood vessel if you are not aiming for one.

Without knowing the timing of each shot of the Mix, I would say you are experiencing the typical issues people taking NPH experience: uneven performance. Some days, it shows up and does its job, other days, it decides to take a break and gives you no notice. It's some scary stuff, actually.

[krashcam]

I thought it would be hard to hit a vessel that many times. The worst part is when i feel it coming on i try to compensate with juice or sugar tabs and i never get it right and then my sugar goes up to much. Hopefully here soon i can get on something better.

[DeusXM]

Change your Novolin mix. If it's 70/30 in terms of fast-acting/slow-acting, then maybe 50/50 might work better for you.

[Stuboy]

I was on 30/70 too... managed to get an HbA1c of 7.2% out of it but that was hard drive and involved eating at the same time everyday. Even then it was difficult to keep the levels stable.

Most people on here will tell you that mixtard30 is ****, and i agree with them. Sinse i've changed to Basal and Bolus 13 days ago i've noticed a marked improvement in control, and that was from day 1 that i noticed!!

Good luck!

[notme]

I have never been on 70/30 so this my ideas may not be helpful. What if you took your insulin after you finished your meal? Could you change the timing a bit? Sounds like your A1c is good, so maybe a small change like timing might help the situation of lows.

[spike]

Hello, Im new to any forum so please excuse my ignorance. I'm 33 yrs old and diabetic for 4 yrs. I'm on 21 units of novolin 70/30 mix twice a day. I keep pretty good control my last A1c was 5.8. My problem is sometimes, mostly in the evening but not always, I take my shot and before i can even finish eating my sugar stats to bottom out no matter what my reading is when i take it. Also i inject in my stomach. Can any one help.

if the 70 is the novolog, that's 14U of fast acting. I'd go low right after i ate too, if i did 14U! Seems like a lot to take unless you are eating one **** of a big meal. You aren't going to hit blood vessels that often,either. If you injected that much directly into your bloodstream, you'd be out like a light before you could dial 911, anyway.

[grace girl]

I used to take a mix and I experienced the same thing. The only solution I ever found was to eat more....which eventually caused me to go higher later in the evening and I began to gain weight at a point. I was on a mix for 4 years, I've been on basal/bolus insulin for about 6 months now and it is so much better that it's really hard to express.
I understand the cost....I have no insurance at all and changing over to this regime has been more costly than when I was on the mix....but soooo worth it!
The unfortunate part about the mixes is that you are pretty well controlled by your insulin. With basal/bolus, you control it, instead.

[BlueSky]

Novolin 70/30 is 70% NPH and 30% regular. So 14 units of 70/30 would contain 4.2 units of regular, which doesn't really get going for 45 minutes after being injected. So it seems unlikely that the bottoming out could be caused by the pre-meal shot. And the NPH component won't have much effect for 4 hours.

So I would agree that bottoming out has something to do with uneven absorption of the NPH from the previous shot (12 hours ago?). NPH is supposed to max out at 4-12 hours, so one wouldn't expect this. But a major problem with it is inconsistent absorption.... :hmmmm2:

[krashcam]

Well thanks for all the ideas since the doctors are a lot less helpfull than i had hoped. My insurance should start covering this in march so if i can hold out that long it will not be as expensive. Thanks to everyone

[kgm0612]

I used 70/30 for almost 2 years and always bottomed out after dinner. My endo kept lowering the units, but depending on what I was eating for dinner, didn't always work.

Karen