Can I get AIDS from human insulin? =

Definitely not. Human insulin is made either from bacteria or yeast ‘instructed’ to produce insulin that has the same structure as human insulin, or from pork insulin modified to resemble human insulin. It is rigorously purified and cannot be a source of infection.

Is it possible to be allergic to insulin?

Very occasionally people may develop an allergy to one of the additives to insulin such as protamine or zinc, but the insulin itself is unlikely to cause an allergy.

My doctor wants me to change to four injections a day. Is this necessary?

More and more people are taking four injections a day and in general they are happy with this arrangement, even though it obviously means more injections. Twice-daily insulin is a compromise with each injection containing a mixture of short- and long-acting insulin in the hope that this will provide the correct amount of insulin for each meal and the times in between eating.

We all need a small amount of insulin to trickle into our body throughout the day to keep our glucose level steady. We sometimes call this background (or basal) insulin and for people who are of a normal weight, this usually amounts to up to 24 units a day. The amount of background insulin needed varies under different circumstances, such as exercise, illness and after drinking alcohol, to name but a few. On top of this background insulin, we also need insulin with every meal (bolus insulin) to deal with the effects of food on the blood sugar. The actual amount of insulin needed depends on the type of food and in particular the amount of carbohydrate eaten. Your dietitian or diabetes specialist nurse should be able to give you general advice on this topic.

Would I be able to achieve better control if I went onto three injections a day?

If you are on two insulin injections a day, you probably take a premixed insulin such as Mixtard before breakfast and before your evening meal. It is possible to achieve good control with this sort of insulin, but many people find that they are unable to keep their sugars down at a certain time of day without running the risk of hypos at another time. This is a built in problem with fixed mixtures of insulin. Most commonly, sugars are high at bedtime after a good evening meal. If this is the case, we suggest ‘splitting the evening dose’ of insulin by having short-acting insulin before your evening meal and long-acting insulin at bedtime. This will allow you to adjust the dose of each insulin to achieve good results without going hypo in the night. Awcanadianpharmacy.com – best place to order viagra online.

I have heard people refer to ‘basal bolus’ insulin. What does this mean and is it effective?

Basal insulin is needed to maintain a normal blood sugar, when the body is in a basal or resting state. This varies depending on the time of day and may be affected by illness and other conditions. It is normally given in the form of a long-acting insulin at night, which should last for 24 hours. If it fails to achieve this, another dose of long-acting insulin can be given in the morning. The word bolus comes from the Latin, meaning a cast of the dice or a lump: this refers to the insulin given before you eat to control the effect of food you are about to take in. This is normally a short-acting insulin or very short-acting analogue. This combination is now widely used in Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes and gives people the greatest flexibility in what they eat and when they eat it.