Anyone take the wrong dose of insulin?

When I was on MDI (Lantus - once a day and humalog), I kept the Lantus in my bedroom and the humalog near the dining room. If you’re taking basal twice a day that might or might not work depending on your schedule.

Maurie

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Yes, this is really scary! Especially if you take much more basal than bolus. I put together an ‘insulin overdose antidote’ kit as I call it. I figure if I inject Humalog in place of Lantus I may be too frantic to figure out how many carbs to take in. So I made a kit consisting of measured juice and counted easy-to-chew candies matching the units of my daily basal. I keep this by my glucagon kit. I also wrap my Humalog pen in Hockey tape so it feels different in my hand.

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I’ve done it occasionally. Usually, I realize I’ve made a mistake, but a couple of times not.
it looks like you did a good job of recovering anyway. One high in the morning isn’t too serious.
When using insulin vials, I wrapped the long acting vial in a band aid.
Using pens, the humalog and lantus are quite different shapes and sizes, so that helps. Not foolproof, but it helps.

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This is scary, and yes, I’ve done it a couple times in the past 27 years. During the ordeal I generally beat myself up (“how could I be that stupid?”). Then I get to eat a bunch of yummy crap I wouldn’t normally eat and laugh it off the next day. We make oopsies, we deal with them, then we learn from them. Knowing what to do ahead of time is a great idea. Also, when any kind of mistake is made, tell someone. Even if you’re alone, call someone so they can check on you.

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My daughter now has an insulin pump, but when we still injected her, we had two separate cases with different bright colors. One with her fast working insuline and spare, the other one with her slow working insulin. Since we only use the slow working insulin at night, we always kept that in her bedroom. I can be very absent-minded at times, but we never messed up. Her spare cartridges in the fridge were also in two separate brightly colored plastic containetrs. Even in the morning when I was groggy and still half asleep, I never grabbed the wrong insulin.

Keep things separated, sorted, and structured.I know, easier said than done.

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I sometimes can’t remember if I have taken a dose or not. Sometimes even with fast acting I use my app to calculate how much I need, note down in the app how much I have taken, and then forget to take it. An hour later I have no idea. I use Novo Pens and one of them is a newer model with a built in memory - it tells you what your last dose was and how long ago you took it. It is fantastic but I use it for my bolus shots. I definitely need one for my fast acting, too.

As far as taking the wrong insulin - I have done that too! My pens are different colours and I generally keep the bolus pen in the bathroom, but nonetheless I have managed. Keeping the bolus insulin in a different physical space might help, though. When I take the bolus I am alone in the bathroom.

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I’ve done it, too. When I was doing mdi with levemir and humalog vials, I had little plastic cases that slipped over the vials and were different colored and shaped. ( sort of like the securitee blankets) I don’t think you can get them any more. I also put little round garage sale stickers on the bottom of the vials, which I changed every day. I would write when I took a dose and how much on the stickers. I would use green ones for the levemir and orange for the humalog. And I STILL took humalog instead of levemir one morning when I was planning to sleep in. I am so thankful my husband called and woke me from a dream I was having about being dead. My BG was in the 20s. After that I made a bunch of personalized alarms by recording my husband and a friend and myself saying and singing things like “Wake up! Take your basal from the green bottle!” With many variations.(for my phone) Now that I have a pump and CGM I feel safer. The injections get so automatic that it is easy to make scary mistakes. Good luck!

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Somehow managed to miss this when it was first posted. I keep opened vials in their original boxes. Each is a different size, shape, and color. That combined with the extra time required to remove the vial from the box has been very effective. I think I’ve made the bolus-for-basal mistake maybe twice, ever. Each time, I realized the error almost immediately so I was able to take countermeasures right away.

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@Crystal621…I hear you! I have done it and in every case I was pre-occupied. Forgetting too many times to take Lantus at night, I opted for a less effective morning routine. Sometimes that morning routine turned into me taking my Lantus in my office at work, reading email, drinking coffee, and thinking about my next meeting. The pump does such a better job with my basal dosaging then me or Lantus. Short of getting a pump, privacy and a minute of meditating to clear my thoughts helped. When it happened last with an injection of fast acting insulin of my normal basal insulin amount on top of a bolus I had just taken, I was at work. I pulled out my stock pile of candy, filled several dixie cups with sugar water, and informed one person at work that took insulin. I told him what had happened and to check in on me every 30 min but to keep it under raps. Yes…I had a lethal dose of insulin and in true fashion was looking out for my image. I went into my office laid the meter on my desk along with the sugar water and candy. Now, since I had just bolus for breakfast and had IOB, I had to wait a pretty long time before doing any corrections; about 2 hours. I then tested every 20 minutes, took either small amounts of the sugar water or small amounts of candy. Then I waited for my sugar to drop to 70. Took some more, BG went slightly higher, then dropped again. I did this for several hours. I never went sky high, because I tortured myself with small incremental treatments. I left work at the normal time, and then went home an passed out from the stress and slept. Now I have a pump and CGM. I am confident it won’t happen quite like that again with the new tools.

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That sounds to familiar. Trying to make thru day and to crash at home. Just holding together as much as possible. Hope pump is in near future, have one gave to me by friend, but waiting to see doctor and see about supplies for it. Thankful for comments and shared experiences.

I use a syringe for long lasting insulin and a pen for fast acting. I feel it helps in making sure I know which I am taking. Plus my husband now knows after a few wrong doses that as soon as he sees a needle in my hand to not talk to me until after I am done. It’s just too easy when you are taking it all day to mix up what you are taking or then remember what you have taken if you get distracted. Double took fast acting once and had to eat and eat and drink test eat and eat and drink etc, when I wanted nothing more to do with food or sugar!!!
Probably will switch to a pump eventually.