I was just wondering .. is it better to split my units of lantus over the day and night .. or just take it all at night ??
Has anyone tried both ?? which seemed to work better ??
I think for many if not most people, Shahenda, splitting the dose works best as the long acting insulins don't generally last the 24 hours they are supposed to.
So can I just try it starting from today ?? each dose is taken 12 hrs after the other one right ?? or could it have much effect on my BG and i would have to ask my endocrinologist first ??
I have tried taking all my lantus at 9 pm at night. And then I tried splitting the dose because my numbers before dinner were not very good. I find I get much better numbers throughout the day by splitting my dose.
I did not check with my endo before doing this I just tried it and it turned out much better. So now instead of 30 units of lantus at 9 pm, I take 12 units of lantus at 6:30 in the morning and 12 or 13 units of lantus after dinner. Not only am I taking less lantus over all, my control has improved significantly.
There are a few threads about this topic that have been started already.
I tried both ways with Lantus which is supposed to have an action time of 24 hours, but it definitely worked better for me to split the dose and take it twice a day.
I now take Levemir twice a day; I haven't tried one dose a day with Levemir since it is definitely not supposed to work well (the action time of Levemir is only about 12 hours).
I would talk it over with your doctor. You may find that 12 hours apart may not work the best - I take my evening dose at 10pm though I take my morning dose at about 8am. For many people like me, taking the evening dose later can prevent an apparent "dawn phenomenon" from occurring.
You have to kind of play around with it and see what works best. When I was on MDI I took my night dose around 10 or 11 and my morning before breakfast around 9, but 12 hours is a fine place to start. Split it evenly and then if you are seeing highs or lows, you can play with that too.
We're all different about how much we use our doctors and many of us tweak our own doses but if you have a good relationship with your endo you could let him know you want to do that.
I switched from Levemir to Lantus some time ago. In my experience splitting works better for me. I take 7 in the morning and 5 at night.
I split my Lantus dose too, before switching to a pump. I just could NOT take all of it at night, without it causeing a low overnight. I took mine between 10-12 hours apart. Took around 20 units in the AM and 16 at night. You just have to play with it, but most people it seems on Lantus/Levemir get much better results splitting the dose.
Seems like most people split it with good results. When I was on Lantus I found it difficult to do because for me it lasted way longer than 24 hours. A single injection at midnight seemed to overlap at the perfect time to help with dp. I played around a little with 2 injections and remember the evening dose needed to be a little higher ultimately juggling the on board overlaps was too tricky. Trial and error I guess.
good luck.
i split my levemir somewhat wonkily-2 units in the morning(930) and 6 in the evening(7pm). taking it later at night would not do anything for my dawn phenom. i dont discuss changes very much with my endo because shes not with me 24-7, she has no idea whats going on in my particular body.
I would never recommend to use Levemir in one shot. Yes, it acts for 24 hours. But it degrades in potency quickly after the 14 hour mark. This is questionable advertising and only possible to claim because the higher the dosage the longer it stays potent. I think without the competition with Lantus (which also has problems to reach 24 hours) they would not claim that Levemir can be used in one shot. The coming Degludec seems to be the first basal insulin with more than 24 hours of evenly distributed activity.
which is pretty much what any of us on MDI want in the first place, I know it is in use in Europe, but knowing the FDA we'll still have to wait a while here in the States.
Ok .. Thanks for the help :)