timing?

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D_G

D_G

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
People using Novarapid insulin - when do you inject?

20 mins before meal?
10 mins before meal?
During meal?
After meal?

and does it matter depending on what you eat?

Just curious as i often miss the spike

Thanks
 
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Well, I've pertty much always injected immediately prior to eating. I once thought I'd inject after eating then forgot and my levels went sky high! It's such a tricky business as there are so many factors. With the recent fish and chips experiment I went rather high afterwards, which suggested I should have injected maybe 30 minutes before eating to try and match the peaks and spikes. Pumps probably make the whole thing a lot easier once you have worked out the timings and doses, but with injections I've always felt it is rather crude and prone to error.
 
whenever I remember to! Generally after, as before I wouldn't know what to inject, in terms of amount I will eat carbs in it ratio and what I'm going to be doind later, so I mull all this over whilst munching. As Alan said some foods if you analyse it have different profiles and you may need to inject prior to match said profile, however I'm currently of the opinion that I'm not going to be able to do that so long as it comes down by next meal I'm as content as I can be at the moment, I would love to be a "good" as some others with all of this. I think the main thing is to do what is best for YOU, we all approach things differently from testing injecting eating activities and mindset! (You don't miss the spike if you don't test for it😉 maybe:confused:)

Sorry for ramble!

In short I inject after food!

Rossi 🙂
 
Most often I inject immediatly afterwards, I will inject before if i am high before the meal. It's a habit I have got into and have tried on occasion to break as I am sure my post meal levels would be better if i could inject before.
 
Hi Nikki

I have a lot of problems with spikes (I can go from 6 up to 17 and back down again without correcting), so I try and inject about 20mins before eating, more if I am a bit high to begin with. This is very restrictive though, I can not really eat anything from the staff canteen anymore as I would not know what I was getting, and it means meal times at hope require quite a lot of planning.

Rachel
 
Like rachel, I have big spike issues. I always inject before, unless I split doses in which case I do half before and half afterwards. Usually I do it right before 🙂
 
Hi,

I usually inject after especially if I'm not sure how much of the meal I eat because sometimes I leave a lot or I end up eating more than I should so I just find it easier to inject afterwards although usually for breakfast and lunch I inject before because I know that I'll only have what's on my plate. But like rossi said everyone is different and I've never tested straight after a meal I always test a couple of hours later if I'm not sure on the carb content of the meal to make sure my levels are good. x
 
Hi

Just before I eat the meal, allows me to assess the content especially if it's prepared by somebody else
 
i either do it right before i eat, or during the meal. sometimes my appetite surprises me, so i'm wary of injecting a while before unless i'm absolutely certain of how much i'm going to eat.
 
Depends on my b/s really, but normally just before i eat.
If my b/s where a lil low then just after or even during and if a lil high then before i serve up.
Eating out i always do it when the food comes you can never trust these places, once we had starters so about 10 mins after i injected and the mains didnt arrive for ages , i told them that i need to eat because i was a diabetic ,didnt make her hurry it up. Didnt go back again.
xx
 
C injects between her main course and dessert in the evening. She's usually finished long before the rest of us. So I calculate what she's eaten (while i'm still eating) and add on her dessert carbs.

The other times she just injects straight after eating.
 
i am going to attempt to start doing my injections 20 mins before eating. when i get home (this weekend, yay!) i think i will find carb counting a lot easier as i will be able to focus on me and my needs, not me + my needs + needs of 3 people with learning difficulties.
 
I used to inject just before I ate, on one of my visits with my DSN she said it might be better if I injected after I ate as I may not eat all of my dinner and then I would have given myself too much insulin if I had already injected..
 
I inject just before a meal
 
Wow! I just assumed everyone injected just before a meal..........

🙄 Off to experiment go I........
 
Timimg

I inject just after my meal, I keep the insulin next to me so I don't forget
 
Insulin takes 10 minutes to start working once injected, so we were always advised to inject BEFORE eating a meal because by the time you have finished eating there is a half an hour so gap between injecting and finishing eating - this is when the insulin needs to start doing its work and coming to the 2 hour peak. If you dont inject until after the meal then your running the risk of a 'high' as you need to give the insulin time to work before the food starts to be absorbed. If you do this 3 times a day your adding up your spikes!😱🙂Bev
 
Agree with Bev on the timing, although with something fatty when on MDI I would probably inject some 'upfront' and a bit more an hour later... trial and error though.
In restaurants, I'd never dose before I saw the meal. If it was a 3 course meal I used to dose before the main course, assuming the starter wan't too high carb and then again if and when I had a dessert. Once when first diagnosed I dosed at the start of a 2 course meal and then had to take glucose tablets as I had a horrible hypo whilst waiting for dessert to come.
 
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