Afrezza Blog by DiabeticAaron

Tried the smaller of the two doses. Breakfast of oatmeal but added coffee and brownie. Took dose for brownie. Dose too small. Lunch is where afrezza can fill in a gap in my treatment. Dose worked as expected. Ate peanut butter and jelly with no spike and three hours later did not go low BG. I reduce basal during work but can’t reduce it enough with lingering bolused.

Your results are getting better keep it up, like any other insulin it’s nowhere near self explanatory. I’m finding myself shifting my entire diet somewhat towards faster digesting foods that match the afrezza better… And am reminded every meal how critical timing is… With novolog I shot for 20 minutes before eating but figured anywhere from 10-30 minutes was close enough. With afrezza I’m seeing differences with just 2-3 minutes difference in timing, bright side is its a lot easier to toot the whistle after you eat than to inject a bunch of insulin and hope to god the food is ready on time. Currently I shoot for dosing 22-25m after I start eating ‘standard’ foods but will increase that with slower foods.

Basal 0.2 BG went low before first break. Corrected with candy. At break ate two sprouted wheat toast beef sandwiches and took 3.7 units insulin for 60 carb with 1.3 units on board still from breakfast. I reduce bolus amount while working. At end of break (15 min.) blood test said 203 unlike the 95 of CGM. So I took a 4 unit Afrezza. Tested blood half hour later 115. Then at lunch time 135. Lunch is when Afrezza is my only good treatment option. If I take sub cutaneous insulin my BG will go low during work. So I have to under dose and allow an after meal spike. Or I could eat all afternoon. That doesn’t fit my style. So yesterday I took the 4 unit Afrezza with lunch and presto. Doing that again today. And it’s so great to not have the diabetes symptoms to have energy and to not have a gnawing hunger.

Adjusting basal. Afrezza8 first break 5" subway sandwich plus 36 carb snack bar. No spike but BG drifted up. Afrezza4 with lunch but I coughed while trying to inhale and BG rose like I didn’t have enough insulin. It was a coughing fit while tring to inhale five mini coughs. This drug is very very hard on the lungs.

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yes from what I am reading you don't want to get into a coughing when you inhale, but also from what I've been reading, it is not common. You are the first I've read at all who say it is hard on the lungs. Maybe for you there is a technique you can develop.

You may have what doctors have told me I have: sensitive j-fibers. These are cough-triggering sensors in your trachea, they are called j-fibers or j-sensors and they are in your trachea. In people with a lot of contact allergies, pollen allergies, hay fever and such, they can be sensitized, and if you have asthma they can be sensitized. Mine were already somewhat sensitive and were helped quite a bit with antihistamines. Then I had some heart surgery and they had to put a tube into my trachea, they were manually irritated and they still are. I have managed to do well by simply being aware, not inhaling much when I eat or drink. But it's been a lifelong unique thing in my case and I just have to be aware of inhaling when I eat or drink. Actually inhaling too much when eating or drinking can be something of an unconscious bad habit. But with awareness i have found much relief.

Something else I once learned that may be interesting or of help. Sometimes if I inhale too timidly, my sensors get sort of caught in a wind that is "too slow." That's the only way I can describe it. I found that if I did the non-intuitive act of actually deepening, not hesitating, my inhale, somehow my airflow sort of "blows through" my sensors and they stop being irritated in mid irritation. Sounds opposite of what one might expect, but I actually can stop a coughing "session" by inhaling deeper. Anyway I've found that it sometimes settles my coughing j-fibers down.

This sort of thing is also something I noticed when I was a young kid, a teenager 40-plus years ago: when I was experimenting with smoking. The smoke made me cough. But if I inhaled deeply, instead of my instinct to lower my inhale, the cough went away. I think it had to do with making the same amount of smoke available to much more aveolar surface, so there was much less irritation per unit of avelar surface. Anyway the coughing quit right away. Is it possible to inhale too tentatively for some very sensitive people?