Anyone take Novolog after meal?

[Oradev 10]

Does anyone take their Novolog bolus after they eat?

[cat_collector 11]

depending on what my blood sugar is I might wait until after my meal . But foro the most part I take it right before i eat .

 

Tracy

[sweetlife 23]

My daughter doing this since last 2 days after lunch and on 1st day her ppbs was 122,next day it was 160.

[Oradev 10]

My daughter doing this since last 2 days after lunch and on 1st day her ppbs was 122,next day it was 160.

 

Why did she start doing this? I was wondering because when I take my Novolog before my meal my sugars are always low after the meal (one to two hours). I think it's reacting too quickly.

[Subby 19]

Oradev, given relatively normal carbs in the meal, this suggests to me you are taking too much, not that it's too fast.

[brendersue 10]

I used to be on Novolog. I also had gastroparesis, which made my digestion go very slow. I always had to wait until after I ate to take Novolog, or I would go low as I was finishing my meal. If I ate Pizza or anything with fat or lots of cheese in it, I had to eat, wait 30 minutes, then bolus. Lots of meat will take longer to digest also. Not sure if your high fiber would affect the situation, but others might know.

[sweetlife 23]

Oradev

Coz of exams going on and timings are such that she hardly finishes her study,get on dining table for meal and then go to school after taking shot,this is temporary but I dont see any major change in her ppbs if she takes shot b4 or after meal.

 

Problem is with our diet,we are 100% veggie and most of our foods are with carbs,can't help,no she has no issue of going low after or before meal in any case.

I was wondering because when I take my Novolog before my meal my sugars are always low after the meal (one to two hours). I think it's reacting too quickly.

[Oradev 10]

I have not digestion problems (I've had that checked). Also, when I take a correction (sugars above 200), my sugars drop really fast (like within 30 minutes). Is this normal or way too fast? What is everyone's experience with this?

[Subby 19]

Can you give actual examples of how fast a correction typically works, and what happens with your BG?

 

As an observation, if it really does all rush in at 30 min, the low with your boluses would be more likely to be at 30 - 50min mark, not 2 hour mark.

 

I'm not saying it's not possibly a problem of speed, but given no digestion issues and normal carbs, at the 2 hour mark your carbs should be well and truly in effect, and it's more likely too much effective insulin eing too much for the carbs, once the fully fledged battle is joined at that stage.

 

How do you know your I:C is currently correct, and not just too low (too much dose)?

 

What happens at the two hours.... what do _you_ do, how do you BGs react? What occurs over the next few hours?

 

The reason I'm suggesting you look right into this first, is that if you follow the track of it being a speed issue and it is not, and you decide to defer your bolus, it can appear to improve the situation, but will complicate things and will not be able to ultimately provide the solution.

[Mich 10]

I take my novolog afterward sometimes if I am eating a low GI food, or if a large part of my meal is a low GI food.

 

For me, fiber and fat added to a meal cause slower absorption. Wasa crackers with anything else makes it lower GI, for instance.

 

Mich

[UpNorth 13]

I mostly take my bolus while eating or just after finishing my meal. I only really take it before eating if i'm a little bit higher than i'd like to be. And i never know before how much i'll eat LOL

[Lizzie G 24]

I generally bolus up to 30 minutes before I eat, depending what Im eating. If Im eating pizza I would tend to take say 3 units 20 minutes before then another 3 or 4 units about a half hour after; i cant think of a time where i would take it all after a meal unless i was eating something super high fat!

[Tomas090 10]

Can you take Novolog in an attempt to simply lower your BG?

 

Say you take a reading in late afternoon, 4-5 hours after you have eaten and find yoru BG is 180-200, and don't plan on eating again for a couple hours, can you take 10-15u of Novolog for the purpose of lowering BG? AND will it do a anything? I realize the posibility of Hypoglycemia, but barring that issue.....

[poodlebone 13]

Yes, taking a fast acting insulin to lower an already high BG is called a correction bolus. However, I wouldn't take random doses. Most people have a "correction factor", so they know how many BG points will drop per 1 unit of insulin. The number is very individual. One person might need 1 unit of insulin to drop 75 points. Someone else might only drop 30 points with 1 unit. I think that even for people with a good amount of resistance, taking 10-15 units of Novolog might be overkill to get back in range from a number like 180-200.

[Tomas090 10]

Yes, taking a fast acting insulin to lower an already high BG is called a correction bolus. However, I wouldn't take random doses. Most people have a "correction factor", so they know how many BG points will drop per 1 unit of insulin. The number is very individual. One person might need 1 unit of insulin to drop 75 points. Someone else might only drop 30 points with 1 unit. I think that even for people with a good amount of resistance, taking 10-15 units of Novolog might be overkill to get back in range from a number like 180-200.

 

I wish, I believe I am severely resistant. taking 100u Lantis at night to get around 140 average, 20u Novolog before a "huge"meal of fish and tomatoes and I still jump to 180 or so

 

I got angry today at what seems ineffectiveness of Novolg, ate a darn Whopper Jr (31 carbs) after taking 20u Novolog 20 minutes prior, was 190 at 2pm, took 20u Novolog at 3:30, by 5pm I dropped all the way to 180 :-(

 

My apologies, I ended up in this thread by searching "post meal Novolog" and didn't realize it was for Type 1 and I am Type 2

[LaCansada 24]

This is where a pump is really helpful. I always, always, give my boluses over the course of 1-2 hours for food and only give my correction bolus up front. I do have some gastroparesis, but nothing too severe. I do not know how I would survive if I had to give all my Novolog up front. I would have to do two injections- one at the time of eating and one an hour later. Especially if I want to go for a walk after dinner in the summertime or am active after breakfast while on vacation.

[Tomas090 10]

This is where a pump is really helpful. I always, always, give my boluses over the course of 1-2 hours for food and only give my correction bolus up front. I do have some gastroparesis, but nothing too severe. I do not know how I would survive if I had to give all my Novolog up front. I would have to do two injections- one at the time of eating and one an hour later. Especially if I want to go for a walk after dinner in the summertime or am active after breakfast while on vacation.

 

Unfortunately with Amerigroup a pump is not an option

 

Doctor added Actos, that seems to be helping and woke up with 128 this morning , felt best I have in a while

[harshderashri 10]

i measure my bg if they are not wht i expected i dial in correction and eat and again dial in after half an hr

 

but to my amazement novolog takes a good 4 hrs to react in my body is it me or i am doing something wrong ???????????

[jenb 22]

No - nothing's wrong. Novolog starts to work about 20 minutes after you inject. It reaches its peak at around 2 to 2.5 hours, then tails off for about another 2 to 4 hours - the full course can be up to six hours, depending on your metabolism, what you ate and the dose. I find that small doses (I usually use between 2 and 3 units) clear a little faster - usually within about 4 hours.

 

Jen

[Subby 19]

i measure my bg if they are not wht i expected i dial in correction and eat and again dial in after half an hr

 

but to my amazement novolog takes a good 4 hrs to react in my body is it me or i am doing something wrong ???????????

 

Do you mean you get NO action from novolog for 4 hours? How did you assess this?

 

It is possible to get rarer delayed absorption issues, I say that because I have it but only occasional run into other people with similar issues. If I take a large bolus it can take up to 2-3 hours for novolog or another rapid to START to work in me, however, to ascertain this careful testing in the absence of food was required. If you are talking about a non-ideal result after a meal, it may be instead a case of inappropriate food or inadequate dose.

 

An issue of a certain degree of delay, generally up to 20-30 min, seems to be in mainstream medicine's view, and will often be called "pooling". It may be related to using over-used sites, or not delivering the insulin to the right subcutaneous layer.

[poodlebone 13]

i measure my bg if they are not wht i expected i dial in correction and eat and again dial in after half an hr

 

but to my amazement novolog takes a good 4 hrs to react in my body is it me or i am doing something wrong ???????????

 

I'm not sure what you're saying here. You check your BG before you eat and if it's not what you expected, you dial in a correction. So, by not what you expected do you mean that it's high - since you mention a correction. You then say you eat and again dial in (I assume you mean inject with a pen).

 

If your BG is high to begin with and you only take a correction and then eat, your BG is going to go even higher. You wait half an hour before giving more insulin, which gives your BG time to climb. Once it gets high enough it can take a long time for it to come down. So you may not see your BG come back down for 4 hours, but that's only because you let it get too high in the first place.

 

If I'm not reading this right, please correct me. I never like to eat when my BG is high and if it is high I give myself insulin for both the correction and my food all at once. I then wait awhile until my BG is coming down before I eat. This way I know the insulin is kicking in and my BG won't have a huge spike.

[Sneezer 10]

I always take my correction dose 15 - 30 minutes before a meals and try to take my meal bolus right after eating with a combo square wave bolus for an hour. Sometimes I forget to take after a meal - which is why I set up reminders in my phone.

[Subby 19]

Why always take a correction dose before a meal? To me the best time for a correction dose is when your blood sugar is high, whenever that is. As long as it is not in the couple of hours after a meal (I will sometimes take it then, if I am sure of how the meal will work out and/or what went wrong to cause the high).

[jenb 22]

If my BG is a elevated when I test prior to eating I do include a little correction with my bolus. But you're right, Subby....corrections should be done when necessary, not just at mealtimes. Knowing when to correct requires pretty frequent testing, though, and I guess some people only test around meals. (Those darned strips should be free....I think by now I must own a significant chunk of the Lifescan company!)

 

Jen

[Subby 19]

I also correct with meals - most of my meal boluses include a small correction, the way my BG tends to slip and slide around. Notwithstanding test strip restrictions, I was just wondering if Sneezer had been told or had heard only to correct with meals. But, this might not have been what they meant, but rather that when they do happen correct with meals, they have the correction early and the other component later. Got to love english sometimes.

 

I do wince at the idea of test strips being $1 a piece or whatever is common in the US and elsewhere. Here they are not free - they are subsidized and for the end user they are about 20c a piece. You definitely pay, but 6 or so times times a day is affordable even on a tight budget.