It depends a lot on what insulin regimen you are taking, and what the alternative is. I had the opposite experience of Lucyr, but that is due to our diabetes being different. And my type is now under reinvestigation anyway.
Presumably if you are going on to insulin you will have tried various medications, including Gliclazide, or on with a similar -azide name? If so you will already have experience of hypos, which is the main side effect of insulin. Though depending on your situation you may find with insulin you have more control to avoid them than you did with medication.
When I could no longer respond to Gliclazide I was put on a once-a-day long-acting insulin regimen, and I hated the inflexibility of it. But that could be just because of my particular needs, as it seems as though my problem is my pancreas not being able to produce enough insulin rather than resistance. So just adding a big lump of insulin to sit working away all day meant having to work around it.
But it works fine for other people, so no reason to think it could not work for you if that is what is recommended. You doctors and nurses will know you and your individual needs better than any of us can.
Shortly I will be moving to a multiple daily injection (M.D.I. or basal-bolus) regimen, which is what Lucyr is on. There you take some long-acting insulin to cover your resting needs, then some short-acting insulin with meals, so you only take as much as you need. So you have complete flexibility, but you have to put in the effort of working out and managing those needs. At least for me that makes it still less flexible than tablets, as I could just take them and never have to worry abut what I ate. But I have been told my diabetes is not typical (why it is being reinvestigated) and that is no longer an option anyway.
The insulin I am currently taking — insulin glargine, which is mainly prescribed under the names Lantus, Abasaglar, and Semglee — supposedly causes weight gain. And I am sure in four months of taking it I have been gaining weight, however when weighed at the diabetic review I was told I had only gained 2 lbs. And that could be normal variance, so maybe not?
As well as daily and M.D.I. regimens, there is a third insulin option which is a mixed insulin. This is normally taken twice a day with breakfast and tea, and contains enough long-acting insulin to keep you covered during the day and night, but also some short-acting insulin to cover those meals. It means you need to eat your meals about the same time every day, and them being roughly balanced in terms of carbs for your insulin need. But it also means you do not need to have to work out insulin doses or test and inject so much. For me it would be completely inflexible, but the lower requirements on time and effort can make it more flexible to other people where it suits their lifestyle.
But the most important thing to consider is, for all the issues of hypos and weight gain, what are the alternatives? The side-effects of untreated diabetes include blindness, amputations, cardiovascular disease, and premature death. Doing nothing is far more scary than insulin! But if medication is not helping those are your two options to choose between.
And injecting is pretty trivial, it hurts less than doing a glucose test and is nothing like a blood test where the needle is thicker and has to go deeper. I find you just need to rest it on the skin and the needle is fine enough that it will simply "drop" through, then it is just a little pressure to go underneath it without you feeling anything.
The only real downside of insulin to me is having to test levels every two-hours when driving, but that is because I like going on all-day motorcycle rides which means a lot of testing. I would probably find it a bit less onerous in a car, and for normal commuter type journeys it only means a test before setting off.
You will need to talk to the nurse about what sort of insulin regimen they recommend, but given the alternatives of not being able to control your levels, I would recommend any of them as being better.
And specifically of my experience of a once-daily regimen, it is not really any different to taking tablets. It only differed from taking Gliclazide in that you took an injection at around 10pm every day (or whatever time better suits you) rather than a tablet in the morning and evening, and in the extra testing required when on my bike. Which arguably should be required with Gliclazide too as the risks are the same. I was not required to test any more than I did before and I should not have had to think any differently about what and when I ate.
