I just wat he’d Dr. B’s post on diluting solution for small increments of insulin . I can see real benefit for children and those insulin sensitive. I often correct with my pump .1 through .5. Should I ever go off the pump this might be the ticket. Thoughts anyone?
Diluting insulin is a tried and true technique that has been around for a long time, and it works just as advertised. It can be a logistical hassle, depending on where you live and what the pharmacies are willing to stock, but it’s a perfectly valid technique.
I agree with David. It’s a great solution for those with very small insulin needs. When my son was diagnosed at the age of three, his honeymoon kicked in strong and he was down to about 1.5 units of insulin a day and it was tricky to accomplish.
During this time, we were converting to a pump and were concerned that the only way to achieve such small dosing was to use diluted insulin. However, once Caleb was off NPH insulin, the units he needed of just Novolog increased and we managed with .05 increments of basal per hour. But we were prepared with diluted Humalog.
As David said, it was logistically difficult. We had to special order it from a pharmacy not exactly local to us, and had to use Humalog as opposed to Novolog. Caleb’s endo found at the time that Humalog had a propensity for clogging in pumps, which is why we held off on using it from the start of pumping.
But again, a great option if insulin needs are very low.
And just to clarify what @Lorraine noted. The prescribing information for Novolog says to not dilute Novolog for use in a pump, but it does approve the use of diluted Novolog when injecting on MDI.
Thanks, Brian. I don’t think I ever knew this. I just know there was no pharmacy willing or able to dilute Novolog for us.
Thank you to all who responded. I am thinking someday I might want to be
off the pump. My insurance will not be paying for apidra anymore and will
only do humalog after December. I had not heard about the possible
clotting of humalog in a pump. I will be asking my endo about this when I
go in a couple of weeks. Again thank you. I learn so much from you.