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Actrapid insulin

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Harlequin

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Parent of person with diabetes
I was wondering if there was anyone who injects actrapid insulin? To cut a long story short, my 15 year old son is Type 1 and has developed insulin resistance to a number of other insulins. After almost a month in hospital he is now injecting actrapid (short acting)and insulatard (long acting) insulins. This is an old style insulin regime so we are told - used back in the 1980s. His consultant is not aware of any other diabetics that use actrapid as it is used mainly in hospitals through an IV to treat DKA.

Does anyone else use actrapid? Does anyone have experience of injecting it?
 
When I was first diagnosed (1977) I was on Actrapid and monotard. I moved onto using insulatard later - in the early 80s, I guess, along with Actrapid, which I continued with until Novorapid came along.
It is a much slower insulin than the modern fast acting versions, so injecting 30 minutes before eating is vital.
I'm surprised its still around, to be honest!
 
Harlequin said:
I was wondering if there was anyone who injects actrapid insulin? To cut a long story short, my 15 year old son is Type 1 and has developed insulin resistance to a number of other insulins. After almost a month in hospital he is now injecting actrapid (short acting)and insulatard (long acting) insulins. This is an old style insulin regime so we are told - used back in the 1980s. His consultant is not aware of any other diabetics that use actrapid as it is used mainly in hospitals through an IV to treat DKA.

Does anyone else use actrapid? Does anyone have experience of injecting it?
Click to expand...

There's loads of people using it as well as animal insulin. I'm one of those using animal insulin.
 
I've used Actrapid and Insulatard as a combo. Seemed to work pretty well from what I can remember.

Actrapid, despite its name, is not very rapid at all, and tends to last longer than the more modern analogs so he'll probably need to inject some time before eating and watch for insulin stacking (where some of the previous dose is still active at the next meal). Start with waiting 15-20 minutes to eat and ramp it up in 5 minute increments until you can see that post-meal numbers are behaving. 30 or 40 minutes between injecting and eating would not be uncommon, but it's a very individual thing. Actrapid just takes a little while to get going!

Insulatard doesn't last the full 24 hours, so it's likely that he will need to split basal into two injections which might (or might not) be around 12 hours apart. There's a good write-up of how to test to see if basal insulin injection(s) are working well here: http://www.diabetes-support.org.uk/info/?page_id=120

Hope he gets on OK with them.
 
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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
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