You only use short-acting insulins with pumps. Your Endocrinologist should prescribe it.
I suggest you talk with your endo...but as far as I know everyone on the pod uses fast acting insulins such as Novolog or Apidra (my choice). Good luck and PEACE
Received my starter pac yesterday, but can't be trained until April 12th so now I have time to question all sorts of things. I am using Humulin r-500 on MDI as I had such severe site reactions to the Levemir or Lantus injections twice daily of 125 units and meal doses of Humalog of at least 60. My then Endo deduced that it was the Volume that was irritating me and switched me to Humulin R-500 at 25/15/10: this worked OK (A1c 8.1)but the cost was too much when the price went from $400 for 20ml to $700 for 20ml and ate up my Medicare D allowance of $2,800-900). With the pump I guess I use Novalog, Humalog, Apidra or as stated in the info pac, Humulin 100. Since my Advantage program is sticking to the 80-20 costing any thoughts re pros or cons on types to use?
Please note that I now use 12/10/2 as a dose now.
We started out with Novolog, switched to Humalog and now we use Apidra. Only short acting insulin is used in a pump/pod. Lantus, Humilin, and Levimir are long acting insulin which are kind of like a "background" insulin. You typical do away with those when you start a pump/pod. The pump/pod will give you basal insulin through out the day which acts as a "background" insulin and then you bolus to get insulin to cover the meals. My daughter's endo stated that all the short acting insulin works about the same but Apidra seems to work faster in some people. The endo we work with does not have a preference so our decision was based on cost. Talk to your endo to see what they suggest and check with your insurance company to see what would best for your budget. I do beleive that Apidra still offers a monthly coupon you have to sign up for which allows 100.00 off and might possibly be free. I do not beleive this is income based. But I don't think you can have medicare or medicaid to get the discount.
Apidra® No Co-Pay* Savings Card
The Apidra® No Co-Pay* Savings Program helps people with diabetes with their Apidra® prescription payments. Activate your card by checking this box and you can get No Co-Pay* on Apidra®. Certain exclusions and restrictions apply. If you're registering someone under the age of 18, please call 855-242-6938.
https://www.apidra.com/register/default.aspx
The biggest problem you will face with the total daily dose you describe is reservoir capacity.... the Pod only holds 200 units and is intended to last for 3 days. If you are running 250 units/day basal (2 x 125) and 60 units at meal time, the pod will not even last a day.
I do not know if it has been tested with U-500 Regular insulin. If it has, you will face the problem that its dosing is set up for U-100 insulin, so you will have to change all the factors (ISF, I:C, basal rates, etc) keeping the 5:1 ratio in mind.
Correction on my previous post.... there are other threads on this subject (U-500 in pod) ... see here:
http://www.tudiabetes.org/group/omnipodusers/forum/topics/u-500-insulin
I use Novolog…works fine for me…
Most people’s insulin requirements fall by between a third and a half when they stop MDI & start using an insulin pump. On that basis, it becomes more viable.