V-Go and R

Has anyone tried V-Go with regular ® insulin?

I absolutely totally adore the concept of the V-Go. A no-electronics all-Steampunk insulin pump.

While they recommend the fast-acting analogs (and maybe all the tests have been with fast-acting analogs), I see no reason it wouldn’t work with plain old Regular.

Ages ago back when animal-source insulins were the norm there may have been some compatibility issues with pump mechanics but I don’t see why modern rDNA-based Regular would have any of those issues.

You can use R in a pump—the original ones all used it. There are no issues other than that you need to adjust your settings to account for the slower onset and longer tail. I imagine that takes some experimentation and basal testing, so be conservative to start with.

Thanks. I don’t plan to do this myself, but I thought it might be good for other type 2s on LC diets where R matches meals better than Humalog etc.

How does V-go work? I am not sure I know what this is. Nancy50

I’ve never used it, but it’s a little patch thing you fill with insulin and it slowly releases 20, 30, or 40 units a day, plus boluses for meal when you press a button. This will tell you more than you want to know about it.

I went looking for more information when I first saw this post, because I had never heard of it either. It’s a very, very, very simple pump. In comes in a handful of basal doses, and it delivers that specific amount every single hour of the day. You can’t vary it at all. There’s also a button that delivers a 2 unit bolus. Again, you can’t vary that at all, it’s preset at 2 units

It’s also only approved for type 2, so I guess they can get away with less flexibility if they’re counting on the patient’s own insulin capabilities to make up the difference.

Its hard to make general assumptions about insulin use in type 2. I’m told that V-go works well when there is still lots of native insulin being produced and external insulin demands are low.

In some type 2 even the largest V-Go would be a waste of time because due to insulin resistance daily insulin needs can be 2 or 3 and maybe even 4 times the daily capacity of a V-Go pump.

I’ve uploaded a blog about this:

Thanks all for the input.

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