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can you inject into a vein?

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chezpez

chezpez

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hi all, I hope you guys can give me some advice.. I was wondering if its possible to inject Lantus ( which I normally split) into a vein. I injected before bed on my leg hip and it did bleed, ( my bolus had finished) checked BS it was 6..then 20mins later i was 2.2! ...I had a orange carton still 2, had glucose tabs, still 2.. it was horrible had white toast with jam it took and hour and half to get 8.. then obviously it went into the teens after that! it really scared me coz never had a hypo with lantus like that - can anyone give me an answer??
Thanks
 
Hi, I've hit a capillary before now, and it's bled, but I would have thought that even if you'd accidentally hit a vein, because of the way Lantus works, it wouldn't have caused a major hypo. Lantus crystallises out under the skin once injected, because of its slightly different Ph balance to the human body, and this is how it slowly releases. Can you think of any other reason for a hypo at that time? Loads of us have been having trouble with levels in the hot weather, so it could be a coincidence.
 
It must of been a coincidence then, wil hot weather and active through the day! thanks xx
 
chezpez said:
Hi all, I hope you guys can give me some advice.. I was wondering if its possible to inject Lantus ( which I normally split) into a vein. I injected before bed on my leg hip and it did bleed, ( my bolus had finished) checked BS it was 6..then 20mins later i was 2.2! ...I had a orange carton still 2, had glucose tabs, still 2.. it was horrible had white toast with jam it took and hour and half to get 8.. then obviously it went into the teens after that! it really scared me coz never had a hypo with lantus like that - can anyone give me an answer??
Thanks
Click to expand...
I think it may have just been coincidence (stranger things have happened to me in the past!). As Robin explained, lantus works because it is slightly acidic (that's why it often stings), but the body fluids are slightly alkaline - this causes it to crystalise under the skin and the crystals gradually dissolve over the next 16-24 hours. It's likely that you nicked a tiny capillary with the needle on the way in to cause the bleeding - is there a bruise now?

I've had night hypos not due to my lantus, which I no longer use, but because on rare occasions my evening meal insulin has suddenly decided to rapidly lower my levels hours after I injected it. It was a real puzzle for a while because it only happened once in a blue moon, but I eventually worked out it was because I was injecting in my bottom/hips for my meal - changing the injection for my evening meal to my abdomen appears to have solved the problem in my case.

What you have described is very similar to what I experienced, so it may be the same cause - some insulin 'pooling' under your skin from an injection hours before, that suddenly gets released. Hopefully, it was a one-off for you! 🙂
 
Thanks Northerner, that does sounds like what happened, Im gonna make sure from now on to only inject into my fatty belly ( on a rotation), Im not going around the sides again (hips)..I dont know why I did really, coz the nurse told me my belly, I suppose coz Ive been jabbing myself there for 12 years thought I would give that area a rest!
 
I hesitate to disagree with such knowledgeable people as Northerner or Robin 😳 but on this occasion, just wanted to point out that
a) the instructions for Lantus specifically say it's for subcutaneous use only (whereas the instructions for Novorapid, for instance, say it's for subcutaneous or intravenous use), and
b) I have also had sudden and scary hypos after accidentally injecting Lantus into a vein, with no other possible cause. I've also found, now I've changed to Tresiba, that if I accidentally inject that into a vein I will invariably hypo within a few minutes, if not seconds. This has happened too often to be co-incidence, even with my rate of hypos. So I think that if you are sensitive to insulin and inject basal insulin which isn't designed to go into a vein, into a vein, then it is possible that it may cause a hypo.
 
Realised after I posted the above that I phrased it rather badly - I'm not saying Northerner or Robin might not be right - pooling and weather are both likely explanations - just that I think it is also possible for intravenous basal to cause sudden hypos because I know it does for me!
 
The other thing is - have you ever in your life had an occasion when the fast-acting you injected for a meal didn't seem to lower it very much, so you've had to correct the resultant high thereafter with more fast acting?

I ask because if there are any bits of you that don't seem to absorb insulin very well - a pocket of unabsorbed insulin can sit there unseen and unknown and suddenly decide to release itself UP TO 12 YEARS LATER.

Doesn't happen very often but boy oh boy - do you know about it when/if they do! Mego hypo for the full 5 hours and half a gallon of Lucozade after! (and then of course the mega high but there again, nobody ever said diabetes was easy LOL)
 
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