question

[nAku]

Hi.I'm from Romania and my father has diabetes for 7 years now.He's 54 years old.The problm is that he takes 4 shots of insulin a day 18u in the morning,18u at noon,10 u at evening of Actrapid from Nova and 14u of Insula tard at 22 hours and he still has the level of glicemie between 200-300 and i know it should be somewhere under 150.He kinda respects the diet.Tell me what he should do.Should he chance the insulin he takes,should he take amore strict diet(what kind of?) or what sugestion do you have.Thank you.

[2high]

There are newer, better types of insulin available now, which give a far better result... I can only assume that they would be availlable in Romania as well as the rest of the world...

I would recommend that your father see his specialist or regular dr (whoever manages his diabetes) and ask about more modern insulin therapies.

Also, he may need to test more often in order to gain a better idea of his blood sugar level during the day and night to adjust his insulin needs.

Good luck :)

[xMenace]

The standard procedure is to test 2 hours after eating, determine why your sugars are off, correct the high sugar immediately with an adjustment injection, and adjust your dosage up or down in subsequent meals based on this experience. If you don't know your adjustment correction, there is some math you can do, but the basic adjustment is 1u for 50pts you want to reduce by. If this is too much, reduce it next time. If it's not enough, increase it. Test 2 or 3 hours after correcting.

Some other things he should consider are injecting a half an hour before eating. This is not always possible, and I don't do it if my sugars are low. He should strive for a high fibre diet, and he should not eat because a doctor tells him to; he should eat because he's hungry. He should also exercise 30 minutes or more each day. Walking is great!

And welcome to the forum!

[nAku]

Thanks very much for answering.Anyone who has any other sugestion pls reply here also.thank you again.

[andypoo]

Thanks very much for answering.Anyone who has any other sugestion pls reply here also.thank you again.

yes, the idea is to test, adjust accordingly with insulin,and the test again. Of course in between all this testing ,you eat your meals and test again. That's basically it I can't stress enough about the testing and adjusting.Hope everything works out for him.

[nAku]

we test him 3 times a day and the sugar lev remains the same(over 200).we curently can't buy other types of insulin as sugested because there aren't on the market.(Romania).About increasing the insulin amount injected,i don't know if it's possible because he already takes 60u/day 18,18,18,14 i think and i know this is kinda maximum dose(according to some doctors).He eats few carbs a day...aprox 100-120.Less than that i dont' think it's possible for him.He's starving with this diet already.And the other problem(major) which is is that he refuses to go to ay hospital...he sais that it's better to die happy at home than starved in a hospital.So...thanks for the sugestions so far,maybe someone who has ar had the same problem could advice me better.Thank you again.

[xMenace]

There is no such thing as a normal dose. I take 60-100+ daily, some take less than 20, and at least one takes around 500u! We all take what works for us, not what the doctor says should work for us.

Anyone on insulin has these problems. It's a full time job to balance everything. And things also change as we age and our lifestyle and diets change.