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animal insulin?

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Natalie123

Natalie123

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Hi everyone, I just wondered if anyone could give me any info on animal insulins?

I went to see my GP yesterday and was trying to explain that I have been feeling ill ever since I was diagnosed when I was 16. I have posted this before I think, but my symptoms are lack of energy, achy when walking up stairs / short distances, hot flushes, sweating, breathlessness and feeling confused and disorientated.

My GP said it is either due to poor control - I might try to get a pump soon, or I am sensitive to human insulin and would be best on animal insulin. But he said that animal insulin doesn't allow as much flexibility as I have at the moment on MDI so I am going to try the pump/ improving my control first. Does anyone know if this is true and what regimes are offered with animal insulin?
 
The best person to answer your query is Pumper-Sue as I know she uses Animal insulin in her pump and before that used to do the basal/bolus regime (carb counting)

But the biggest difference control wise is that you using a slightly different profile which basically means that instead of injecting 10 minutes before you eat with humalog/Novorapid, you have to inject about 30 minutes before hand, and if I remember rightly if you do a correction then due to the time lag you've got to give it a bit longer to work to see if it's worked or not..

But I'm sure that Sue will be along soon and give you the low down of using animal insulin within a basal/bolus regime and within a pump.

But it's nice to hear a doc not dispelling animal insulin as a bygone medication.. As not everybody gets on with the human insulin
 
Natalie123 said:
Hi everyone, I just wondered if anyone could give me any info on animal insulins?

I went to see my GP yesterday and was trying to explain that I have been feeling ill ever since I was diagnosed when I was 16. I have posted this before I think, but my symptoms are lack of energy, achy when walking up stairs / short distances, hot flushes, sweating, breathlessness and feeling confused and disorientated.

My GP said it is either due to poor control - I might try to get a pump soon, or I am sensitive to human insulin and would be best on animal insulin. But he said that animal insulin doesn't allow as much flexibility as I have at the moment on MDI so I am going to try the pump/ improving my control first. Does anyone know if this is true and what regimes are offered with animal insulin?
Click to expand...

Hi Natalie,
You can use MDI using animal insulin. But you do need to keep to roughly the same meal times. (Give or take an hour) You also need to bolus 30 mins before you eat.
You have a choice of bovine or pork.
Animal insulin can also be used in a pump. I have used animal insulin for 46 years going from 2 injections a day then MDI and now a pump.
Here's a link to the insulin manufactures http://www.wockhardt.co.uk/animal-insulin/index.asp

Also a link to the IDDT http://www.iddt.org/ there's lots of info there.
 
Hi,

Some of your symtoms potentially sound like late/non recognition of a hypo. This is why I was switched back onto porcine insulin after a nightmare few months. What is your HbA1c? This is the main indicator of control although it would need interpreting with your BG results. Nowadays every GP practice and pharmacy only have a few diabetics on insulin. I am on MDI and would think it is worth a try as your GP has suggested it and there seems nothing to lose and, potentially, quite a lot to gain.

StephenM
 
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Hi Ellie, Sue and Stephen, Thanks for the info. Its good to hear that animal insulin can be used with a pump, I don't mind sticking to regular meals, to be honest I do this anyway, I was just worried that I would be stuck with fixed doses or something. Stephen - my last HbA1c was 6.9 but I am due another one next week which I am expecting to be higher. I always check my blood sugar when I am feeling particularly unwell but have not spotted any correlation :( I can be anything from 4 - something a bit too high 😱, I don't have many hypos these days because I am running a bit too high, although my nurse thinks I might be having night time ones 😱
 
Some indicators on symptoms that could suggest night time hypo's..

Your morning BG is dispropotionate to your bed time ones, if you sleeping through hypo's at night the body can dump some glucose in your system..

The difference between a liver dump and the Dawn P, is with Dawn P its a daily event with a liver dump there won't be a def pattern to it, some days it happens other days it doesn't.

You wake with a groggy hang over feeling

You wake with disrupted vision blurry etc..

You might not get all of these, you may just have one or a combination of a couple..

When I slepted through night time hypo's, I used to wake up feeling like I had an hang over disrupted vision, it was as though I was looking a very thick dirty net curtain effect!

I have Dawn P, so this disguised any liver dump I may have suffered..


But the only way of finding out if you are sleeping through hypo's is do some overnight testing, test about 3am in the morning as this is normally the lowest level of your BG over night for the adverage person, or test several times overnight to see what's happen, better still ask your clinic if they've got a loan CGM you could borrow, as then you can sleep through the night and then see what CGM says in the morning!
 
Ellie - I get all of those symptoms and have had them for years 😱 no one seems to know why. I got a cgm a few days ago and am waiting to hear back from the nurse about the results. I am always high in the morning but have the odd day when I am perfectly ok without any obvious reason. The nurse needs to find out if it is Dawn Phenomenon or night time hypos.
 
Natalie123 said:
Hi everyone, I just wondered if anyone could give me any info on animal insulins?

I went to see my GP yesterday and was trying to explain that I have been feeling ill ever since I was diagnosed when I was 16. I have posted this before I think, but my symptoms are lack of energy, achy when walking up stairs / short distances, hot flushes, sweating, breathlessness and feeling confused and disorientated.

My GP said it is either due to poor control - I might try to get a pump soon, or I am sensitive to human insulin and would be best on animal insulin. But he said that animal insulin doesn't allow as much flexibility as I have at the moment on MDI so I am going to try the pump/ improving my control first. Does anyone know if this is true and what regimes are offered with animal insulin?
Click to expand...

Hi Natalie the only thing I know about animal insulin is that I was on Pork Insulin when I was diagnosed in 1989, it's a lot different nowadays, but i'm sure someone will be along to help/advice you. I hope you do get the proper Insulin that works for you soon. Sheena x
 
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