I’ve been on levemir for a year or so now and I’ve noticed an odd trend. For the first few days with a new pen, my sugars are 40-60 points higher even when I try to trim down my eating. After day 3 or 4, the sugars tend to mellow out.
Curious if I can say that my body is being fickle or if this is something that others are experiencing.
(I miss my old NPH/UL regime that worked perfectly)
It’s true. I would take NPH to cope with my crazy morning highs. Levemir seems to do very little and over the past year, my endo just keeps upping my nighttime dose to try to counteract. Still shocked that no one has sued over the fact that the 24 hour wonder insulin doesn’t actually work for 24 hours.
are you using the sample novofine needles that come with Levimir pen?
for adults these are tooo small, which will often lead to higher BS…
just a thought! I had some issues with that when I first started as well.
good luck!
The manufacturer claims that Levemir can last for 24 hours. What the package insert is missing is the curve of effectiveness of Levemir. This curve would show you that this insulin degrades rapidly after 12 hours. If you compare Lantus and Levemir then Levemir will match the performance of Lantus only if injected twice a day. But do not jump to the conclusion that Lantus is always better. It is not guaranteed that Lantus will last for 24 hours.
In my personal opinion I really prefer reliability over convenience. I am applying Levemir twice a day and this gives me very steady control. Furthermore I see these advantages:
-applied twice a 24-hour-coverage is guaranteed. With Lantus you could have one hour with less coverage and this will force you to change the insulin factors to compensate this gap. Thus you are bound to an expected behaviour. So you can not afford to skip a meal or you will experience high values later.
-Levemir is binding to hemoglobin first and after a period of time it will leave the hemoglobin to become effective. This way it will always behave equally wheter you hit a blood vessel or not. With Lantus in contrast you could experience a low if you hit the blood stream with your injection.
-you can apply different doses for day and night. This also means you can compensate physical activity by lowering the nighttime dosage etc.
Of course it depends on individual factors if Levemir is the right insulin for you. But at least you should try two Levemir injections with a gap of 12 hours. You should talk to your doc how you can switch from your current regime to two shots. I expect that in your NPH times you have injected your background insulin twice. If this is the case the correct dosage could be derived from your past experiences with NPH.
When I’m not on a pump, I’ve used Levemir for about 5 years, every since it was released. My father is my doctor and he brought me a box of Levemir samples when it was first released. The main reason I wanted to switch was the flexpen. i was already using Novolog in the flexpen. At the time lantus wasn’t available in a pen so I was eager to change.
We soon found out that the Levemir didn’t last 24 hours, at least in me. I switched to a twice a day schedule, one shot at bedtime and a second shot 12 hours later. I didn’t mind this because I’ve always been very proactive about my treatment. We also found that I required about 20% more Levemir than I did lantus. This is of course, a YMMV type of thing.
i love those needles. i’m 27. they are the best i’ve found lately on the hurt scale. i haven’t had this problem.
http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2007/07/17/5316/lantus-and-levemir–whats-the-difference/
This article gives the best explanation of the differences between Lantus and Levemir that I have seen.
Some information in the article might explain why the Philadelphia childrens hospital would prefer Levemir over Lantus.
I’ve been using Levemir sincd 2005 and I’ve never noticed any odd trends. I test often, sometimes 15 or more times a day.
I was on NPH/UL for a long time, I don’t miss the hypos they caused and I don’t miss having to agitate them especially the UL. It would settle in the syringe if I wasn’t quick about injecting it. I would often shake the syringe again just before injection to prevent needle clogging. It’s funny to be thinking about the “not so good old days” when I’m only 19.