I wrote earlier this month about my son Fionn who was having a tough time with his BS levels. He was diagnosed in May (six years old) and we have been grappling with getting things under control a bit. Thanks for all the suggestions. We are working through them at the moment ( have not tried switching lantus to two injections yet). Anyway in the mean time our diabetic team under a new doctor has recommended that we move to Insultard insted of lantus. They feel it will help reduce the BS levels in the first part of the night when Fionn has been suffering the most with high BS. Has anyone made the same switch as they are suggesting ? . Please see my earlier discussion in this forum if you want to look at Fionns data
i have daughter 7, diagnosed last thanksgiving when she was 6. Our daughter is also quite active, swim team practice 3-5 hours a week, dance 2-3 hours a week, you get the picture. We were in a little bit different boat since when she was diagnosed she had no functioning islet cells left (= no natural insulin). That being said we battled with lantus for 9 months. We could NEVER get stable blood sugars. we were told to decrease her dosage because she was having too many lows, but when we did we could never get her below 220. we were reluctant to try to change medications, because everytime we adjusted her lantus, if it was wrong then it took a month to get her numbers leveled out again. We were either dropping 100 points at nght, or climbing over 200, and there was NO predictability! we were also having issues with her bg bottoming out during workouts, when it shouldn’t have been, and she had no humalog in her system. we got really good at mapping her numbers, and the drs were stumped too because there was no pattern. they switched us to 2 lantus injections and it got worse. so finally after she had an insulin seizure we switched to levemir. Best descision ever! I did a lot of research and found out a few interesting things, most of this was in regards to athletes, but it applied to us. 1. lantus does not last for 24 hours if they are getting less that 20 units in adults (we were on 10), a lot of times it is not a concern with kids, because for some kids lantus actually lasts longer than 24 hours, so smaller doses work for them, we weren’t one of those cases. 2. lantus burns because it is slightly acidic and crystallizes in the ph neutral fat. When our daughter had a hard workout and lactic acid was released in the muscle tissue it would re-liquify the still chrytalized lantus in the nearby fat deposit (that is why the lantus manufacturers suggest injecting into a fat group that is not near muscle being used in a workout), causing a huge dump into her system. 3. our daughter simply did not have enough body fat for the lantus to actually work right. that being said, i would recommend trying anything, even if it isn’t levemir. Lantus was a really bad fit for our daughter, she doesn’t even mind the extra injection because it no longer stings. the worst mistake we made was being hesitant to try anything else. We have been on levemir for 2 months, and it has taken a little time to titrate to the correct dose, darn kid keeps growing! =) Things are so much more predictable now. it has taken away a lot of the guess work and we can relax a bit now. i hope this helps, even if it is simply to know there are others who have been in the same boat. best of luck
