Just so I am square on the numbers - no bolus for at least 8 hours (7pm to 3am) and no basal for at least 6 hours (9pm to 3am), and then 24 grams were needed?
And just to put it in perspective for everyone reading the thread, 24 grams for a 4 year old is a bunch!!! Based guesstimates of his height and weight, and using that to calculate his blood volume, that amount of carbs would raise Liam’s BG about 3x more than it would me.
That’s pretty significant.
They have c-peptide tests that can be done with urine samples. I am not sure how accurate they are in comparison, but it would be less invasive.
Speaking about BAD…I was speaking to a diabetic colleague recently and explained that I do occasionally experiment with IM corrections, or the whole Gary Scheiner recommendations of speeding up insulin actions and using supplies off label. My endo actually suggested carrying the small cartridge and using syringe for micro dosing. Of course, I cannot seem to dose any smaller quantities than 1/2 unit even with a syringe. He is a doctor, therefore likely more experienced than I am. My colleague was absolutely floored by all the experimentation that I discussed. She was bowled over by laughter (we did have a few drinks prior to the discussion) And oh… never mind, Afreeza. (BTW - my unopened trial package still sits in the refrigerator. I haven’t yet tried it.)
I just wish they made smaller, more precise syringes…the syringes out (that we keep with us at all times) are really hard to finely measure how much you’re giving…and for someone small, it just takes a bit too much to send them crashing. We still have used them on occasion, though, when we were certain a pump wasn’t working - between pump change-outs…but only when we’ve known he need something like 1/2 or a full unit.
Yes, this is extremely annoying as well. But it sort of fits into my category of diabetes interrupting my sleep. I’ve had more than one night where I spend anywhere from three to five hours low non-stop. Granted, I don’t typically suspend my pump for long because almost always that just results in a massive high that is hard to get down. Next time I hav this type of low I intend to experiment with mini glucagon if I can actually remember to do so in the moment.
I think the issue isn’t syringes but rather that the volume of insulin is so small that something like 1/4 or 1/8 or a unit is just not a lot of liquid. But you can get dilutants for insulin (I think @Eric has posted about this), which might be useful. I’m not sure how long insulin lasts once it’s diluted.
Unless you’re 4! lol. Yes, we’ve looking into diluting and may go down that road eventually, but as he gets bigger, fortunately (dual edged sword, I guess) his dosing will go up instead of down.
Yeah, we definitely rely on the .05 dosing of the Omnipod and that’s all we use…but in the event that the pump errors out and we’re out of the house w/o a POD (which isn’t likely since we also always carry an extra POD with us), having smaller dosing syringes would be nice. Just like the Novolog/Lantus pens, only very tiny doses.
I think I have posted about this before, if you want to try. You can dilute the insulin in the pen. Or buy some sterile empty vials and get a vial of diluent, and mix your own vial. I have one of my home-mades in the fridge right now. It says 15% on it.
I will also say: they taste best really cold and shake the heck out of them first. I find chocolate better than vanilla, although I know a young kid who loves the vanilla and drinks one a day. He went from some seriously low height and weight percentile (he’s got epidermolysis bullosa, many kids with that are seriously picky eaters and also underweight) to 95th, and shot up like 12 inches. It is pretty amazing stuff if you can learn to enjoy it. Tell yourself it’s a milkshake.
