Tuesday 5 July 2016

Bedtime and That Horror Moment of Injecting NovoRapid instead of Lantus



Bedtime and That Horror Moment of Injecting NovoRapid instead of Lantus

Picture this. I'm in the dressing gown having a neighbour hood watch conversation with my daughter after a meeting we attended. Winding down and heading for the duvet, just had to take my 22 units of Lantus.

Dialled up the 22 units and injected, that's when I realised I'd just injected 22 units of Novo Rapid at 11.30 at night. Il Never forget the initial panic, even with my biggest meal followed by desert Iv never needed 22 units. 
Holy shit is what I said, my daughter on the other hand had more choice language. On top of this it's the night before a big food shop so the house wasn't exactly loaded up with goodies.

A bottle 1/2 full of flat coke was plonked in front of me. Drink it she ordered as she got into the car fully dressed for bed and headed to the nearest shop, she ran around grabbing bread rolls, jelly sweets, cake, and basically full sugar anything like a mad woman hell bent on a midnight feast with a deadline. 

No ! 110 gms of carbs as pure glucose wasn't an option, the last thing needed here was a huge big fast high, I needed stability, some fast acting along with some slow release carbs. "Steady as she goes"

Once the horror of what I'd just done subsided, I started to calculate just how much I'd have to eat to cover it. My insulin to carb ratio was 5/1 that's 1 unit of rapid to every 5 gms of carbs eaten.
Now in reverse 22 units of novo rapid using a 5/1 ratio, that's 22 ✖️ 5 = a massive 110gms of carbs for supper right before bedtime. ( chocolate is not advised for treating low blood sugar because it's got a high fat content. The fat content slows down the release of glucose into the blood stream, but hours after eating it you have a delayed blood sugar spike with no insulin on board to deal with it ) and so it becomes correction time.

With paper and pen at the ready and trying to keep the sheer panic at bay, I wrote down all the carbs I was now eating and drinking until it added up to that magic number (110) by the time I'd finished eating i had a tummy pain and just wanted to be sick.

That's not where it ends though, the novo rapid would be active in my system for about 2 and 1/2 hours that's 2am. So going to bed even after scoffing all that still wouldn't be safe even if I could lie down with all that just sitting in there.

At 2am that morning my Blood Glucose was 4.5 I had to eat even more. 2 rice cakes and a coffee. I was in bed just before 3am and I did not feel at all well. 

Note to self, concentrate when I'm about to inject at any time. This is one of those mistakes I will only make once ...........




Davina 

Co-Founder of Diabetes T One

Not a professional just a person with Type 1 Diabetes sharing experience.

1 comment:

  1. Oh my god.... I mixed it up one night. I didn't tell anyone...I was ate like a pig before I got in bed... never slept at all... back & forth checking my sugars. ... hope it never happens again!

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