I had one, but so far I’ve been lucky to pull myself out of deep lows. I don’t have them a lot… mostly small stuff that I combat with crackers, juice and a little slow-down with a dab of peanut butter. So my emergency kit expired.
However, my friends and family are horrified to use it and want no part of it. So if I ever go unconscious, I’ll be waiting on the paramedics… I don’t know… if it ever really happened, you never know how people will respond, but training them on it only freak everyone out.
I have done this same thing mixing my night and morning injections back when I was on shots. It has even happened while pumping instead of specify 10 units over 2 hours is an instant 10 units. So how I changed the bolus selection type and did not realize it till all 10 units clicked off is beyond me. Probably distracted or accidentally click through it and set a 2 hour BG reminder on the pump instead of square bolus. The good thing I like about the pump is that if you shut the pump off you are guaranteed to come back in 3 to 4 hours. Instead of wrecking the entire day or evening. I remember the days of U when I could be low for a continuous 12 hours taking my specified doses.
I’m right there with you… I went from being a healthcare snob… to having no coverage or access at all because of the timing of my diagnosis and my job situation.
So now because I had a bad boss… my life is in danger and the quality is most certainly jeopardized.
I spoke in front of all of our elected officials covering our area… city, county, state, and federal reps and made this same point. It wasn’t until I drew the correlation that I used to live the jet set life they lived and one simple job change and one simple diagnosis changed my life… forever… until our healthcare changes.
In today’s day… we all are one diagnosis away from disaster and one hospital stay away from bankruptcy… sometimes even if you do have coverage…
Hi. I’m brand new to this site…and all this rings true…
Last week on lunch break from my clinical shift (I’m a nursing student), I was sitting with friends (and fellow soon-to-be nurses who look to me when they have questions about diabetes), and Nicole asks me as I’m taking a shot: “what’s that one for?”. I reply “to cover what I’ve eaten for lunch” and she replies “but you just took one a few minutes ago”!!! What!!1?>???
I stopped and thought it through and had only a smiggen of recollection of possibly having taken a shot…hmmmm…auto pilot.
I saw my endo yesterday, and mentioned to him that I’d been reading stories about people mixing Novolog and Lantus (or the equivalent short & long-acting insulins).
He says it happens “all the time” and his office (which now has 5 endocrinologists) gets calls “constantly”.
So if you feel bad about making that mistake, you’re really not alone. Don’t feel so bad.
I still suggest using a pen for the short-acting though, it makes it practically impossible to mix the two up.
Ppl will surprise you. After my family seen the parametics here more than once b/c they “didn’t want to help” suddenly found that they wanted too! I pump too and have to go along with the other pumpers here. Just because you have a pump doesn’t mean that you count your carbs right and tend to over bolus sometimes more than you ever want to admit! HA!!
I have two pens, a Silver one for my NovoRapid penfills, and a Blue one for my Levemir. Doesn’t mean that I haven’t mixed the two up when I’ve been bleary eyed/not paying attention. Luckily I’ve only ever mis-dosed myself with my bolus dosage in Levemir, rather than the other way around, which would get messy, fast.
Add to that, that my doctor doesn’t think I need any Glucagon at home, and the chances of a horrible accident keep climbing.
Evidently, Lantus can lose its potency. Maybe it’s not as stable as other forms? Keeping it refrigerated helps–something else I’ve learned from Tu Diabetes. I’ve noticed that my Lantus doesn’t seem to work as well when it approaches the 28 day expiration date. I was having unexplained highs & realized my Lantus had expired. Thought the the expiration date was just a marketing ploy to get us to throw it out & buy another. I seem to experience the same with Apidra, but other people here said they have their Apridra for months without a problem.
Now that I keep Lantus refigerated, I haven’t made the mistake of confusing the insulins (& the red nail polish on the Apidra bottle).
The refigerated Lantus stings a bit when you inject, but you can hold the filled syringe in your hands for a minute to warm it up.
