Posted by Ellen on October 30, 2002 at 05:42:13:
In Reply to: bsl readings - what on earth should they be posted by Ed Timings on October 27, 2002 at 14:24:04:
What are your son's 2 hour post prandial bg levels?
If Actrapid is the same as what we call "R" or "Regular", you may need a sliding scale for the amount of time to wait before eating. When my son was on a combination of R and NPH, he generally needed to wait 30 minutes after taking the injection before eating , in order to control the post prandial blood glucose (bg) levels. And if his bg was higher than target premeal, he waited even longer. We had a sliding scale of time to wait. Waiting 35 minutes when his premeal bg was high made a big difference compared to only waiting 30 minutes. Each person is unique in this. (Be very careful when bg is low, ... need to treat the low first and then inject and then wait much less or not wait at all. Discuss this with your ped endo of course.)
Humalog and Novolog are fast acting insulins that don't require any waiting post injection. In fact many parents of very small children and picky eaters, inject after eating based on how much the child actually ate. You may want to discuss this option as well with the endocrinologist.
Also see the book Sweet Kids by Brackenridge and Rubin, where they drive home how important it is to let the child decide how much (s)he wants to eat, and give insulin accordingly.