I often hear people talking about the the tail for insulin. Is this referring towards the end of the insulin activity (generally 4-5 hours) where you see a decrease potency effect on your BG?
I’m on novolog right now and my observation when giving correction boluses is that usually around the 20 minute mark, I should expect my BG to start coming down or turn the arrows from rising to steady. My feeling is and I can’t quite put my finger on it, is that by the end of the first hour, the correction bolus has done all it can and doesn’t have any effectiveness like its done it’s job and out of my system already. I can’t seeing it last for 4-5 hours. If my correction bolus doesn’t do a thing within the first 30 minutes, I basically write it off and do another stronger correction. While it seems I’m stacking insulin because my IOB increases, that insulin dose is not effective.
I’m not sure whether its insulin brand related, but this is what I’ve noticed on novolog.
So this brings me to think when people talk about the insulin tail, they seem to be referring the IOB at the end that still has some impact on the BG. For large boluses, I see this, but for smaller correction boluses under 2 units, I think the tail doesn’t exist. Do you have the same observation?