• Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
  • We seem to be having technical difficulties with new user accounts. If you are trying to register please check your Spam or Junk folder for your confirmation email. If you still haven't received a confirmation email, please reach out to our support inbox: support.forum@diabetes.org.uk

Wait 15 mins before eating humalog

Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
J

James B

Active Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hi how imperative is it you wait 15 mins before eating after using humalog? I’m currently working from home and I am times for a 30 mins lunch and find myself having to scran the food as fast as possible to finish lunch on time
 
Waiting 15 minutes is what is known as a pre bolus, this gives the insulin time to work before the carbs in the food hits your system, if you don't pre bolus then your BG may spike greatly and over time these spikes can do damage so we try to limit how high we spike by pre blousing, it is also a completely individual thing and has so many variables too - time of day, where you've used to inject (thigh, stomach etc) for me personally for instance using Novorapid I need 20 minutes for breakfast using a thigh, 10 minutes for dinner using the other thigh and I need to eat immediately after injecting for my tea in my stomach, so it can be very important to learn your own personal needs and it can vary on what your eating and won't necessarily be the same all the time either xx
 
James B said:
Hi how imperative is it you wait 15 mins before eating after using humalog? I’m currently working from home and I am times for a 30 mins lunch and find myself having to scran the food as fast as possible to finish lunch on time
Click to expand...
Diabetes is classed as a disability, and an employer has to make 'reasonable adjustments' to allow you to do your job and manage your condition, even if you’re working from home. I'd have thought that breaking off briefly fifteen minutes before lunch to test and inject, then working another fifteen minutes before you actually eat, ought to be a 'reasonable adjustment.'
 
Have your Humalog pen at the side of your keyboard (presumably working using a puter) or phone, whatever - and just do it 15 mins before you eat - but OTOH have you tested on yourself to see if you even need to pre bolus or whether the 15 minutes makes a noticeable difference to what post meal rise you see?

I'm a fairly slow eater these days, so even though it's approx. 10 mins before my Novorapid ramps up, if I pre bloused at all I'd be hypo before I'd got enough food inside me for it to work on and I've done that far too many times - still happens if I'm under c.4.6 pre meal.

You can only test it on non work days, obviously.

And we are all different so you have to find out what's right for you, plus it's no good testing brekkie or dinner instead cos it can just as easily be different depending on time of day and what you happened to do that day or even the day before …...

Nobody on here thinks treating diabetes is easy, flower and if ANYONE whatever qualifications they have says it is - then they don't know what they are talking about!
 
Hi @James B and welcome to the forum.

It took me a bit of time work out how much time before a meal I need to give the Bolus insulin. This also varies during the day. For your lunch, can you test and deliver your insulin whilst at your desk, and then you could do this 15 minutes before you eat, and get the full lunch break.
 
Hi I could do this at my desk but right now I’m still coming to terms with things and would rather do it all in private
 
??? - you said you were working from home!
 
I am working from home but I’m thinking for the future as this will impact me when I am back working from the office
 
James B said:
I am working from home but I’m thinking for the future as this will impact me when I am back working from the office
Click to expand...
I don't think that will be anytime soon to be fair so you might feel completely different by that time and if not you could ask your employer to let you off a bit earlier to inject as I see that as a reasonable adjustment xx
 
Do your lunch bolus in your midriff - easily accessible between the button on a shirt or by raising the bottom edge of a T-shirt. That's what 99.99% of T1 desk jockeys have done for decades! And you know what? - nobody else even notices us doing it. Quick 2u priming shot under the edge of the desk, then just jab. Don't have to swab skin before or after unless your job is down sewers or mud wrestling, as long as you're what's termed 'socially clean' ie wash your body and clothes as often as necessary and they and you don't stink awful.

The absolutely WORST place you could ever do a jab, is in a toilet esp one at work where lots of sundry other folk have been! Insanitary places! Better off walking out into the street and doing it standing on the pavement.

Of course you're nervous right now - it's new! Additionally, your employer will have to make allowances, because it's new for both of you. Why aren't you still off sick anyway?
 
trophywench said:
Do your lunch bolus in your midriff - easily accessible between the button on a shirt or by raising the bottom edge of a T-shirt. That's what 99.99% of T1 desk jockeys have done for decades! And you know what? - nobody else even notices us doing it.
Click to expand...

And if they do notice they won't care. This is Britain, after all: our social contract is very much not to comment on such obviously private things.

So do whatever you need to do confidently and nobody will notice or care much. And explain (again, with confidence) on the rare occasions anyone does comment.
 
The number of times I've openly jabbed in restaurants with strangers everywhere except sitting on my seat, all over a lot of the world on occasions, over the last let's say 30 years, as to begin with we didn't have pens cos they weren't invented yet - and no-one has noticed or if they have, haven't commented, I wouldn't have the slightest idea cos it's A Lot.

I only recall ONE occasion where I thought someone was going to kick off - stopped at a seaside resort on the way back to Calais to get the ferry returning home from holidays once, and grabbed chips from the van on t' front, sat on the low wall along the edge of the prom to eat them, Pete holding both trays whilst I jabbed. As I looked up and removed the needle cover (the thin one, the final 'sharps guard' cos its 100 normal to remove them with your teeth of course) from between my teeth cos I stick it back on before unscrewing a needle and chucking that in the sharps bin) and noticed a young couple facing me about 4 yards away across the other side of the Prom, whereupon once they saw me looking at them, he grabbed firmly onto her arm, and marched her promptly away. I said quietly, 'Please go and report me to a gendarme, Oh please, please do that!' We like to spend a lot of time in France hence I can pronounce such words as diabete (no S in French) and insulin correctly*. Buggers didn't though.

* dee-a- bett, an-soo-lan
 
At first it is scary to you and that can make you feel that everyone will notice. Our first time out after diagnosis I was trying to do my jab at the table and managed to drop the pen as I was about to jab (hand shaking too much), so new needle and second attempt. Done. No one had noticed apart from me and OH.

You will have quite a bit of time to get more used to all this. It is good to plan ahead, and you will need to have a conversation about hypos with certainly your line manager and colleagues where necessary. However at present take things one step at a time.

When I first went back (one week into it all) I used to go to one of the SLT’s office to test and jab. After a week I was doing it in the staff room. After about a month I did it in the dinning room, along with a student who had been diagnosed soon after me. We sat together for a while and helped each other carb count.

Take things steady. Learning all that you have to do is like learning to drive a car. Initially it seems very complex, but it will become part of your routine, and you will just be watching out for obstacles along the way.

Keep firing questions at us and we will help in anyway that we can.
 
Dosing your insulin a few minutes early is ‘best practice’ @James B (and I know this all seems weird, anxiety-inducing and private right now, but soon enough you won’t think twice about it). In a way the more you can try to make yourself do these things openly, the easier it will be long term. Some habits are easier to break when they are only just starting out. 🙂

So a wait if 15 mins might greatly reduce your BG rise after lunch, or you might need 30 or 45 mins (or 15 mins might be too long at lunch, but not enough at breakfast...) So it will take a bit of experimentaction to find what works well for you.

I spent well over 15 years in a more or less jab-and-eat-immediately zone, but when I started checking after meals and seeing what happened at 1 and 2 hours after eating, I soon started pre-bolusing 🙂
 
Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Back
Top