Lantus/timing

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CosmicHedgehog

CosmicHedgehog

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hi all, I am taking a pump break/holiday to help calm my mind and my poor bruised battered infusion set sites. A break has been on the cards for a while. I have them occasionally to save my sanity and to let my sites rest.

What i wanted to ask was... I know Lantus makes me go hypo at night and it has a mini peak with me 4-6 hours after taking it hence the night time hypos (Lantus is a beast i know well lol ) I also know that it actually only lasts about 20 ish hours with me. How Do people split doses?? I heard it can help with people when the dose doesn't cover the full 24 hours. If it lasts 20 hours surley what i inject will still be buzzing about for the 20 hours regardless if i take half a dose in the morning and half a dose at night? I'm really confused by the split dose thing. My bg naturally drops significantly in the early hours of the morning. so was thinking of taking the lantus at breakfast, then technically as its running out overnight thats when i need less insulin anyway and hopefully avoid the early morning hypo? Can someone explain how the split doses work. Or who takes it in the morning? I'm curious really. It's all part of the i need a pump break game because 100% the pump is better for me i just need to have a break every so often. I read an article once that said having no insulin production is a permanent thing, the way you administer its replacement is never permanent. the choice is always yours. 🙂 thought that was a nice quote 🙂

For the record i have tried tresiba last pump break and it burned so badly i got to the point i couldn't inject it ( I don't get burning with lanus) So doc changed my back up back to lantus.
 
I tried splitting Lantus, and it didn't work well for me, so in the end I opted for taking it at breakfast which suited me very well.

If you are splitting, then I think part of the logic is that smaller doses tend to have a shorter duration in any case. Plus you will only have (perhaps) half of the dose which will be on it's way out by the time you dose the other half (which would then take a while to build up to full strength as the earlier dose fades).

Good luck with your experiments!
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
I tried splitting Lantus, and it didn't work well for me, so in the end I opted for taking it at breakfast which suited me very well.

If you are splitting, then I think part of the logic is that smaller doses tend to have a shorter duration in any case. Plus you will only have (perhaps) half of the dose which will be on it's way out by the time you dose the other half (which would then take a while to build up to full strength as the earlier dose fades).

Good luck with your experiments!
Click to expand...
Thanks 🙂 I plan on starting my break tomorrow, i just need to get over the mental inject it at bedtime thing! Haha not so much experiments, just understanding this thing upside down back to front and sideways.
 
Yeah - what Mike said.

... or change to a basal which was always designed from the outset to be taken in twice daily but smaller doses - ie Levemir? If you do OK on Novorapid you should do OK with Levemir, I should imagine.
 
I wouldn't recommend splitting Lantus either, especially if you're on a smallish dose to start with - it didn't work out at all for me either (to put it mildly).
I think taking it at breakfast sounds a better bet for you, if you know it's going to peak a few hours after taking it and that your blood sugar drops in the night anyway. That way you are awake when the peak happens and can eat something or reduce a bolus dose to compensate.
I'd agree with Jenny that if you want a splittable basal, I'd ask for Levemir.
 
I split my dosage from 17 at night to 9 in the morning and 8 at night following a period of extreme nocturnal hypo's and with the advice of my doctor. It worked very well indeed for me. Unfortunately Lantus is no longer available here and I was prescribed Toujeo instead, which cannot be split, it has to be taken before bed. I was concerned about the change and it was the subject of posts on this forum. I now take 18 units of Toujeo at 8 pm and have done for a few months now. There have been no repercussions thank goodness. I suppose that I must be grateful for that even though it rankles that for the same price as 5 Lantus pens I only get three Toujeo pens. Well, it's only money!
 
Michael - is Lantus no longer available anywhere in Spain, or just in your part of Spain? (this is possible in France where different departements can have different rules even though a drug is sposed to be available 'in France', as each region decides for itself what it will fund and what it won't)

So many folk use Lantus, wouldn't want anyone to get stuck whilst on holiday!
 
Spain is divided into Provinces and numbers of Provinces join together to form Juntas. I live in Jaen Province which is part of the Junta of Andalucia. It is the responsibility of the health service of the Junta to decide what can be made available. Andalucia has decided that Lantus will no longer be made available - hence my enforced switch to Toujeo. Having said that Sanofi who make and provide Lantus have decided that as their 'patent' on Lantus is about to expire they are themselves withdrawing the product and replacing it with Toujeo. This is from Sanofi themselves when I spoke to them by 'phone in Barcelona. Different Junta's may still be providing Lantus - as long as there are stocks available one supposes.
 
What's the other one that's a copycat (biosimilar) version of Lantus? Abasaglar or Basaglar or something???
 
I also switched to Levemir in order to be able to spilt the dose, and so avoid hypos overnight. It worked well as I was able to reduce the night time dose without changing the day time dose.
 
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