You know what would be cool -- if implementing changes in our care could be truly scientific. I'm trying Novolog for the first time today and it would be so great if I could immediately know that a higher post-prandial BG for the exact same meal I ate yesterday with Apidra could be attributed to the new insulin. But no, as you all know, it's not that simple. It could also be due to anything from the weather to my hormones to the fact that the date is an even number! It will take days or weeks to know how the Novolog is affecting me. I know this is the case, but sometimes knowing doesn't make the acceptance part any easier. Guess I'm just griping here because I know you all understand.
It could but you'd need more data points, like a month of each insulin, with all other factors (except the alignment of the planets, of course...) equivalent? There's a video either BSC or BadmoonT2 posted, with Christopher Gardner talking about the challenges of doing studies with food which, unfortunately, we do a dozen times/ day, at least?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVo It's a bit lengthy but I found the video pretty interesting, along with his California accent!
Please keep me posted on your observations with novolog vs apidra. Novolog is all I've so far (4 months) and I have been considering switching to apidra.... very interested to hear about your trends with the two. Sam
Apidra and Lantus penfills are alike, I suppose: they fit in the same pen.
We used for lantus a humalog pen, Luxura HD, which doses half units.
You could try that to dose half units with apidra.
I have to have half units with my Levemir pen, so I use BD 1/2 unit syringes instead of pen needles. It works. I prefer the pen to the vial to help avoid a mistake with my Apidra vial.
About the differences between Apidra and Novalog: it was apparent to me very quickly that Apidra is the faster of the two with a shorter tail. However Novalog is less temperature sensitive, so you get to choose.
I break the prefilled levemir pen, extract the cartridge and use it in the novopen junior to dose half units.
To do so, you need the orange cap which is over the novorapid cartridges, take it off and put it on the levemir one. That's it.
For apidra you need a Luxura HD pen as I said before, the cartridge is larger and the same size of a humalog cartridge.