Anyone in Fiasp?

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MichelleF78

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1.5 LADA
Hi all, novo rapid or novo slow is not working out for me and hospital have suggested trying Fiasp. I’m looking to hear if people think it’s better please?

Thank you x
 
I have been using Fiasp for a couple of years.
I prefer it to NovoSluggish but it took some time to get used to.
There are a couple of quirks
For me, the speed of activation for Fiasp is very dependent upon my BG.
- if my levels are in 4s or low 5s, Fiasp will start working immediately. I need to bolus after eating
- if my levels are over 10, Fiasp will feel like water and then, after an hour, start working so I have to take care not to rage bolus.
- if my levels are between 5 and about 8, I can bolus just before eating
- if my levels are between 8 and 10, I need to bolus 15 minutes before eating.

The other thing I find is that Fiasp does not last as long out of the fridge.
After about 2 weeks out of the fridge, Fiasp starts to lose its potency.

Until I realised this, I found Fiasp really frustrating but I persisted and started to see patterns I described above.
 
I too have been using Fiasp for a couple of years due to Novo(not so)Rapid.

Like @helli I had a period of frustration (3 months) before I found out how to make it work for me.
It is faster than NR but still not as fast as I would like and I usually need 45 mins prebolus time at breakfast and 20 mins at other times of day as oppose to 75mins and 30mins with NR.
Like helli I find that its speed of activity depends on my BG but even if my levels are in the 4s and 5s I need about 30mins prebolus time at breakfast. Again, like helli, when levels are above 10 it acts like water but I find that I actually need to "rage bolus" or more often stack smaller corrections to shift it and it can take several hours to bring me down into range.
It is very responsive to exercise and I have to be quite careful about exercising whilst a bolus is still active.
One of the good things I find is that it's activity is quite short, so I don't generally get any nasty surprises 4 or 5 hours after a bolus. It is usually done by 3 hours for me.

I personally haven't noticed it lose it's potency but I currently go through a cartridge every 10 days, so it probably doesn't get a chance. I definitely need to use more Fiasp than I did NR and I think that was one of the problems I had with adjusting to it. Once I became a bit more "gung ho" with it, I managed better, but without Libre I don't think I would have been comfortable having that heavy handed approach and in fact, it was the sheer frustration that lead me to become more heavy handed ad make the breakthrough.... I had 2 trials of Fiasp and gave up 3 months into the first one but promised myself I would stick at it for a full year the second time....Had another 3 months of frustration and then cracked it.... Clearly I am a slow learner 🙄 Being proactive and keeping levels below 10 as much as possible helps enormously because once I go above 10 I have to really get heavy handed to get levels down again.

Do I think Fiasp is better than NR?... Probably, slightly..... and I would almost certainly find it very frustrating to go back to NR, but I don't love Fiasp like I love my Levemir. I have considered trying other faster insulins like Lyumjev but I have a sneaky feeling that it is my body which is sluggish in absorbing and responding to bolus insulin rather than the insulin itself and having talked it over with my consultant he is of the same opinion that I would not gain from trying another one, so I am now settled on Fiasp and I make it work well for me now, partly by being a bit heavy handed with it, but I didn't find it easy or a straightforward swap. I do however now have a workable routine with it and my stats are really good with a TIR of 95% for the last 14 days, although that is certainly aided by now having Libre 2 with alarms.

Sorry if that doesn't paint a very positive picture of Fiasp. Hopefully you can learn from my own and helli's difficulties to establish a working relationship with it more quickly.
 
I have used Fiasp since it first came out and yes it has it's quirks as @helli says but works very well for me. I am using a pump though.
 
I got the lowdown from @rebrascora a day before starting on it and have gotten on with it just fine.
@helli has put down the ranges / bolus times pretty perfectly (time will vary from person to person).

I do get frustrated when high and it can be a long affair to get a correction going but I do get there in the end. Of course I would never rage bolus or anything 🙄 😉
 
How quicker do you think Fiasp works compared to novo? Thank you
I bolus no more than 4 mins before I eat, obviously if above 8 on the odd occasion then I wait a bit longer.
 
Hi people keep saying bolus. Is this something I have missed? ‍♀️
 
Bolus is your insulin dose for a meal and your quick acting insulin is referred to as bolus insulin whereas your slow acting insulin (Levemir) is referred to as basal.
 
About 3 years since changing to Fiasp, switch was simple enough.

Find it does work quicker than Novo, find spikes ain't as high if you forget to allow enough time to prebolus, another difference is duration of insulin, find its tail isn't as long as Novo but that's not a bad thing IMHO.

Use Fiasp in pump just to be clear.
 
Bolus is just ‘lump’ (it’s also used for the rounded mouthfuls of food we swallow).

So it’s the lump of insulin you take with a meal as opposed to the trickle of long-acting insulin that releases gradually (the background or ‘basal’). So multiple daily injections or ‘basal bolus’.

I tried Fiasp for 3 months, but its fast action wore off after the first few weeks, I had a stinging sensation / site reaction, and it didn’t work predictably for me (I needed ever increasing doses) so I switched back to Novo notvery Rapid.
 
Thank you guys. Starting Fiasp next Friday. I had a Chinese meal tonight, nothing outrageous and these split doses are driving me nuts. Feel the novo gets lost somewhere. Would prefer to take it all in one go but advised not to.
 
Thank you guys. Starting Fiasp next Friday. I had a Chinese meal tonight, nothing outrageous and these split doses are driving me nuts. Feel the novo gets lost somewhere. Would prefer to take it all in one go but advised not to.

Practice is key, it's something you can't teach as it's different for everyone how to bolus for certain meals.
 
I tried Fiasp for 3 months, but its fast action wore off after the first few weeks, I had a stinging sensation / site reaction, and it didn’t work predictably for me (I needed ever increasing doses) so I switched back to Novo notvery Rapid.
I had the stinging sensation until I set the pump to deliver the insulin at a slower rate. Problem solved 🙂
 
I had the stinging sensation until I set the pump to deliver the insulin at a slower rate. Problem solved 🙂

Unfortunately, by that stage for me it wasn’t acting reliably and my time in range was shot, plus it wasn’t any more rapid than NR any longer (and earlier timing adjustments had been reversed).

I gave it a go for 3 months, but it wasn’t for me. I’m glad it works well, and keeps acting rapidly, for other people though 🙂

A couple of us on the forum tried it and had to switch back.
 
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