Lantus Is A Long Lasting Insulin

Health.

Humulin or lantus, which insulin for your child? - humulin or lantus? You should have seen me that first day of training after a long night in the emergency room where she was diagnosed. When my daughter, was first diagnosed, who was 8 the Children' s Hospital that was treating her put her on an insulin program of short acting Humalog NPH and long acting Humalin N.

I was a raving lunatic to begin with so my brain was mostly mush at that point. - mix this" h" with that" h" but first charge this" h" with air, then draw this" h" first followed by that" h" but make sure you roll this" h" between your palms and for crying - out - loud don' t shake that" h" . Add to that everything began with" H" . Anyway I guess osmosis worked and all of that information finally seeped in. For those of you who may not be familiar with it, Humalog and Humalin( short and long acting insulins) are mixed in the same syringe and injected 3 times a day usually before meals. We were officially diabetic now.

Your child is allowed a certain amount of carbohydrates for each meal that the doctor figures out based on age, etc, weight. , and that' s your number. - however your child hits their magic number that' s it. My daughter' s was 65 carbs max per meal and 35 max per snack. Whether it' s 65 slices of ham or half a pop - tart. Well the time came when she decided she wanted a little more freedom of choice and asked me about trying Lantus. Plus she had to eat 6 times a day at certain times everyday.

My first thought was if it' s not broke don' t fix it. - so we looked into it. But I can have a cupcake whenever I want so I decided my opinion was secondary. Lantus is a long lasting insulin. But wait, you also have to take a shot of short acting insulin( a bolus) everytime you eat. 10 meals 10 shots, 3 shots, 3 meals. One shot at night and she had a 24 hour basal dose of insulin. "One shot" I' m thinking to myself" that' s great" . Even I could figure that out.

Talk about freedom! - you base the amount of short acting insulin on the number of carbs you are about to eat. Compared to what she had been doing it was like being re - born. she didn' t care that it would mean more shots. Birthday cake, popcorn at the, pizza parties movies, boy she was ready to go. All she heard was she could eat what she wanted when she wanted. The first thing she wanted to have was a Blizzard from Dairy Queen. That was half a days carbs in a paper cup!

I looked at the chart on the wall and it read 125 carbohydrates. - after a couple of days of gluttony things got back to normal pretty quickly. This insulin regime is a lot of shots. Remember that freedom I mentioned, it came at a price. Add those to the required blood tests and your talking about a lot of holes per day in a little girl. In her case it went in like battery acid.

One more thing, her nighttime Lantus shot was 19 units. that' s a lot of insulin all at once. - these shots are no fun. All in all it was the right thing to do. However, after several months on the Lantus regime her life and the rest of my family' s lives are pretty close to pre - diagnosis normal. If your doctor is suggesting Lantus or your child is asking about it, consider all of the above. We' re glad we did it.