Basal Insulin

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Tom1982

Tom1982

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Hello everyone and I hope you’re all having a decent Christmas? Cheers for all the help and advice in the last year. Feel like I’ve aged 20 years but it’s definitely got easier! Josie (our 5 year old, type one diabetic daughter) is doing great. We’ve recently upped the Tresiba dose to 7.5 and it seems to of stabilised her levels really nicely. We’ve been upping it by 0.5 a week at a time and it’s definitely been getting better. My question is more from curiosity than anything else. What kind of Basal doses are adults on? Does it go up into the 10s and so on???

Cheers
Tom
 
Tom1982 said:
Hello everyone and I hope you’re all having a decent Christmas? Cheers for all the help and advice in the last year. Feel like I’ve aged 20 years but it’s definitely got easier! Josie (our 5 year old, type one diabetic daughter) is doing great. We’ve recently upped the Tresiba dose to 7.5 and it seems to of stabilised her levels really nicely. We’ve been upping it by 0.5 a week at a time and it’s definitely been getting better. My question is more from curiosity than anything else. What kind of Basal doses are adults on? Does it go up into the 10s and so on???

Cheers
Tom
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I am on 2 units abasaglar but i think that is unusual, i am probably still in honeymoon phase
 
So pleased to hear you are finding things a little less frustrating. getting basal dose(s) as close to right as possible makes such a difference to how smoothly or frustrating your diabetes management is.

As an adult using a different basal insulin (Levemir twice daily) my daily dose is currently 24.5 (22u in the morning and 2.5u at bedtime) but can vary and gets adjusted on a weekly/sometimes daily basis to account for activity/stress etc. I think 24+7 ie. 31 is the max. basal daily dose I have ever used. I believe this may be quite a high basal dose for a woman of my size/weight with Type 1, but my low carb diet may mean that my basal insulin is covering some of the protein release from my food, but there really is a huge variation in insulin needs between individuals and the saying is that "you need what you need" so it can be unhelpful to compare yourself to others as there is then a tendency to worry if you are taking too much and resist increasing it when you need to.
I think with adults it is helpful to keep an eye on your weight to guide you. If your weight is stable and you are a healthy BMI then you are managing things well, even if you still have quite a high basal dose. If I start gaining weight then increasing exercise and lowering basal doses in line with that would be the step I would take, but others might reduce their food and bolus insulin.... I don't eat a lot, so for me exercise and reducing basal insulin works.
 
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Everyone is different but mine is 22u of Tresiba and I’m a teenager so that’s always changing
 
As they all say, we are all different.
My basal dose is 15 but I have read some adults on 50 units or more.
The usual comment is that the right amount of basal insulin is the amount that keeps your levels stable.
 
Abasaglar 8u/day (5u morning, 3u evening) works for me.

Basal needs are like shoe sizes. There's no point in trying to wear shoes that are a size too big or too small for you - you need the size that fits you.
 
My daughter is on a pump but the dose of basal she would need if the pump failed would be 38 units. But everyone is different, you need what you need. Like our DSN said, if you’re having trouble with high numbers just keep gradually increasing your doses until the numbers come down!
 
Sally71 said:
My daughter is on a pump but the dose of basal she would need if the pump failed would be 38 units. But everyone is different, you need what you need. Like our DSN said, if you’re having trouble with high numbers just keep gradually increasing your doses until the numbers come down!
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We’ve found that out too. Through absolutely no help from the DSN! I really do think we’ve been let down by ours but I suppose I best have that conversation with them. What did your daughter start on!?
 
Tom1982 said:
We’ve found that out too. Through absolutely no help from the DSN! I really do think we’ve been let down by ours but I suppose I best have that conversation with them. What did your daughter start on!?
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She was 6 years old at diagnosis and went onto the pump within days, her total daily dose (basal and all meal boluses) was only about 20 units I think! Probably only about half of it was basal
 
I'm on Tresiba and have 18.5u at night. Sometimes i have to increase/decrease this depending on being at work or illness. As has been said before, we are all different and have different basal needs.
 
No pancreas. On 9.5 units Tresiba daily (temporarily upped to 10.5, I seem to have constantly high BG this last week). Don't forget that with Tresiba and its long lasting profile (c. 40 hrs) today's dose is topping up yesterday's dose.
I like the shoe size analogy; one needs what one needs - not too big or too small.
 
It's different for different people I split dose livemir and equals to 12.5 overall
 
We are all different and our doses will change with: illness, the weather, activity levels, …

On a pump and my total daily dose is about 30, with basal being about 50% of that. A lot more basal over the past few days, as that mince pies, Christmas cake are definitely being left out by me. When on MDI at the start I began with 12 units per day and then as the ‘honeymoon’ ended the doses went up.
Nothing stays the same.
 
15 units look levemir for me at the moment. 8 am, 7pm but it has varied from 0 to 25 per day.
 
Tresiba 26 units per day for me. I do a bit of distance running and reduce my Tresiba by up to half before long runs (20 miles plus).
 
My son (age 14) started on tresiba 15 and that has bumped around since and has been 7.5 lately and his novorapid is increasing instead.
 
I’m on a pump. My basal changes through the year by small amounts but is around 7 units basal per day.
 
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