Re: Humalog dosage

[Guest guest]

HI Harry,

The way a pump works is that it takes your basal dose and delivers it

throughout the entire day. Long-acting insulin like Lantus does this by

spreading out the insulin absorption over a 12 or 24 hour period, while the

pump does this by delivering tiny amounts of insulin every few minutes. But

the actual basal dose that your body needs stays pretty similar no matter

how you get that insulin delivered.

So, for example, if you take 25 units of Lantus a day and were to start on

an insulin pump, your basal rate on the pump might be that it delivers 1.05

units of insulin per hour (25 units divided by 24 hours in a day). This is

how a starting basal rate would be determined (though it might be decreased

slightly because many people find they need less insulin when using a pump

since it is more precisely matched to what their body needs at any given

time). And if a pumper decides to take a break from the pump, they add up

their basal rates (which the pump does automatically) and just take that

much Lantus in one or two shots per day. For example, my pump says I take a

total of 25.8 units a day delivered as basal insulin, so if I wanted to take

a break from the pump and go back to using Lantus and Humalog, I would take

26 units of Lantus.

The power of the pump, of course, is that while you might start out with a

flat delivery of 1.05 units/hour throughout the entire day, there may be

some times of day when you need a bit more basal insulin, so you might put

your basal rate up to 1.15 units/hour during the early morning hours to

cover the dawn phenomenon. You may also find there are periods during the

day when you need less basal insulin, so you might put your basal rate down

to 0.95 units/hour during the afternoon to avoid going low. You can figure

out what your basal insulin needs are by skipping meals and seeing if your

blood sugar rises or falls during the period; if your basal rate is set

correctly your blood sugar should stay relatively flat when you skip meals

or overnight.

Hopefully this all makes sense. The pump is more complex than shots because

it offers more precision, but the basic idea of providing a baseline of

insulin all day and night and providing boluses of insulin to cover

carbohydrates or high blood sugar is the same.

Jen

[Guest guest]

/////wonderful .

Harry, to show the differancemy basal Rae is onl10.2 units per 24 hour

period and I add more insulin from my pump (called a bolus) when I count

carbs during the day. I usually need only 5-7 more units during the day.

The pump is set to give me on .5 unit per touching the bolus button. But

tese pumps can be set to bolus at as small as micro unit to as uchas 10

units at time. (the 10 unit mark might be incorrect.