Just curious how long everyone has set their "Insulin Action" (also known as Duration of Insulin Action). (Ours is 4.0 hours.) In his book Pumping Insulin, Walsh recommends a Duration of Insulin Action of 4.5 to 5.5 hours for a pump (like the OmniPod) that measures the decrease in bolus insulin activity linearly.
I set mine to 4.0 hours at the recommendation of my Endo Doc. Reading many posts here and elsewhere I tried a shorter time period, but that turned out to be only good when I was out of control (i.e. diet not good, exercise not good, etc etc.) While in control the 4.0 window for me is perfect. I'm a 40+ year type 1 though, so YMMV.
I have mine set to 3.0 hours and I think it is still too conservative.
I definitely don't see any more decrease in BG 4.5-5.5 hours after a bolus.
My Omnipod is set to 3 hours. However if my Dexcom is reflecting an upward trend after 2 hours, that last hour probably will not make a major difference in BGC, especially if it shows there’s less than a unit of active insulin.
Mine set to 4h seems to work for me
hi there, with the way that the omnipod accounts for insulin on board, we set Jacobs to 2.5 hours any longer and he wasn't getting enough of a bolus with what it subtracted for IOB, we still round up at times, he eats frequently so this was an issue, his doc would prefer a longer time but this works for him.
I have mine set at 3.5 hours using Apidra insulin. I have not read Pumping Insulin. Does Walsh touch on possible variations between insulin types?
mine is set to 3 hours. The insulin action is probably longer but I need an aggressive correction regimen. So if my BG is still high after 2 hours I find the bolus recommended is too low.
3 for me. If I have multiple boluses stacking up though - I don't follow it.
I use 2.
The package insert supplied with Humalog suggests [Figure 2] that the answer is somewhere around 3.5 hours.
Unfortunately the PDM assumes it starts working as soon as it is injected and that effects decrease linearly then stop after the insulin action time has elapsed. The package insert says, on the other hand, that it doesn't start working for about 30 minutes and that it doesn't start decreasing in action until after 2 hours, so there is no right answer; every answer is wrong some of the time.
After experiment I ended up with 2 hours. That's not because of any science or logic, but because if I set it any longer I inevitably do another test+bolus within the action period and I inevitably get under-bloused as a result.
When it's set to 2 hours I tend to remember *not* to do another blood test if I eat more within an hour and, even though I will probably test before a bolus after an hour, I end up *over* correcting and *under* blousing so the errors cancel each other. The errors after 2 hours are small, given the 30 minute delay in onset of the new bolus.
John Bowler
I have mine set at 4 hours using Apidra and it seems to work well.