Long Acting Insulin

Lets talk about it for a moment, shall we? Lantus and I have never gotten along. From the first injection at the hospital, to last nights affair. Lets start with the hospital story first.

Well, actually, let me describe long acting insulin's purpose to those of you reading who don't know what it does. Long acting insulin does just as the name implies- it acts over long periods of time to maintain your blood sugar. It absorbs slowly as apposed to fast acting insulin (ex. Humalog or Novalog) which works quickly with your body's digestive system to process your food. Fast acting insulin is takin 4-6 times a day (any time you eat or need and extra insulin boost to bring down a high).You take long acting insulin at the same time every evening and it works throughout the next 24 hours to maintain your BG.

Back to the hospital: Very first injection of Lantus happens the night I am diagnosed. The nurse injects it into the back of my arm and it stings going in (which it is apparently not supposed to do, but all insulin stings going in this gal). 5 minutes later the injection site was still burning, along with welting, and itching. My first thought- Great, I'm allergic to insulin. We call the nurse in there to take a look at my lovely little welt, and she states she's never seen it do that before. She will call the doctor and let us know what to do. She comes back with an icepack and says that the doctor said its just skin sensitivity. So we hold ice on it until it feels better. It did this for days after. I finally bought an icepack and just always had it ready when I took Lantus. Eventually it stopped welting, so that was good.

That was my first experience with LAI (long acting insulin. Your welcome for my made up, unofficial abbreviation :b). I set an alarm on my phone that goes off every night at 10 pm, because I've found I'm not very good at remembering to take Lantus. It frequently gets forgotten, especially when my phone is dead or I go to bed early. Which is a story coming up here in a sec. Before we talk about early bedtimes though, I want to tell another story.

One night, about a month ago, ten o'clock came around and I COULD NOT find my Lantus pen. Like, freak out mode, OH MY WORD what did I do with it. The night before I had taken it at work. I often work a closing shift which puts me getting off around 10:30, if not later, so I take my insulin at work. Another privilege of the pump my friends: No more having to stop in the middle of stuff for Lantus. If only my pump would get here.. another story for another time.

So I cant find my Lantus. I'm freaking out. Of course that was my last pen I had in reserve, and we have no 24 hour pharmacies around us. We called my emergency endo number and the sweet endocrinologist on call at the hospital told me to check my BG every 3-4 hours and inject fast acting insulin according to my sliding scale: "And hopefully you won't get ketones" she adds. Lovely. It was going to be a looong night. Before I went into panic mode, I called work to see if anyone was still there and if they could look to see if my pen was anywhere around. Long story short, my Mom and I made an 11pm trip to CFA to grab my Lantus pen that a coworker had found under one of our coolers. Dumb Kelby. Apparently it fell out of my pocket. BUT, I took Lantus that night and the inevitable all-nighter stabbing catastrophe was avoided.

Now we are to the whole point of this post, with a surprisingly shorter story than those above. I had a headache last night, went to bed at 9pm and accidentally turned of my Lantus alarm in my sleep instead of hitting snooze. Woke up at 7am, realized I HAD NOT taken and Lantus, told my Mom who preceded to say my FULL name in exclamation followed by a, "Check your sugar now!". It was 99. Wow! Gods good, right? I took Lantus right after I checked my sugar, then made it through the day without any major highs or lows. Thank God.

Moral of the story: Lantus hates me. The End.