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Humulin or Lantus, Which Insulin For Your Child?
Humulin or Lantus? When my daughter, who was 8, was first
diagnosed the Children's Hospital that was treating her put her
on an insulin program of short acting Humalog NPH and long acting
Humalin N. You should have seen me that first day of training
after a long night in the emergency room where she was diagnosed.
I was a raving lunatic to begin with so my brain was mostly mush
at that point. Add to that everything began with "H". Mix this
"H" with that "H" but first charge this "H" with air, then draw
this "H" first followed by that "H" but make sure you roll this
"H" between your palms and for crying-out-loud don't shake that
"H". Anyway I guess osmosis worked and all of that information
finally seeped in. We were officially diabetic now.
For those of you who may not be familiar with it, Humalog and
Humalin (short and long acting insulins) are mixed in the same
syringe and injected 3 times a day usually before meals. Your
child is allowed a certain amount of carbohydrates for each meal
that the doctor figures out based on age, weight, etc., and
that's your number. My daughter's was 65 carbs max per meal and
35 max per snack. However your child hits their magic number
that's it. Whether it's 65 slices of ham or half a pop-tart. Plus
she had to eat 6 times a day at certain times everyday.
Well the time came when she decided she wanted a little more
freedom of choice and asked me about trying Lantus. My first
thought was if it's not broke don't fix it. But I can have a
cupcake whenever I want so I decided my opinion was secondary. So
we looked into it. Lantus is a long lasting insulin. One shot at
night and she had a 24 hour basal dose of insulin. "One shot" I'm
thinking to myself "that's great". But wait, you also have to
take a shot of short acting insulin (a bolus) everytime you eat.
10 meals 10 shots, 3 meals, 3 shots. Even I could figure that
out. You base the amount of short acting insulin on the number of
carbs you are about to eat. Talk about freedom! Compared to what
she had been doing it was like being re-born. she didn't care
that it would mean more shots. All she heard was she could eat
what she wanted when she wanted. Birthday cake, pizza parties,
popcorn at the movies, boy she was ready to go. The first thing
she wanted to have was a Blizzard from Dairy Queen. I looked at
the chart on the wall and it read 125 carbohydrates. That was
half a days carbs in a paper cup! After a couple of days of
gluttony things got back to normal pretty quickly.
Remember that freedom I mentioned, it came at a price. This
insulin regime is a lot of shots. Add those to the required blood
tests and your talking about a lot of holes per day in a little
girl. One more thing, her nighttime Lantus shot was 19 units.
that's a lot of insulin all at once. In her case it went in like
battery acid. These shots are no fun. However, after several
months on the Lantus regime her life and the rest of my family's
lives are pretty close to pre-diagnosis normal. All in all it was
the right thing to do. If your doctor is suggesting Lantus or
your child is asking about it, consider all of the above. We're
glad we did it.
Russell Turner is the father of a 10 year old diabetic
daughter. He realized early on that he could find all the medical
information about diabetes he could ever need on the internet.
What he couldn't find was information that told him how to keep
his family's life normal after the diagnosis. He started his own
website dedicated to just that. Visit http://www.mychildhasdiabetes.com Prepare you child
for life with diabetes!
MORE RESOURCES:
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