BS 94, Lantus 20 units, give HS snack?

[knotizer12]

So I work in a LTC facility on the weekends. One of my residents had a blood sugar of 94 at around 1930. She gets scheduled Lantus 20 units at 2000. Would you guys give her a snack at HS?

The nurse coming on to night shift was kinda passive aggressive and implied that I should have given her something. But 94 is a pretty awesome blood sugar and as far as I remember Lantus doesn't dramatically lower blood sugar.

[goodgirl319]

I have always worked night shift since I became a nurse. I have always tried to give my patients an HS snack at bedtime if it was that level. I like to give them "milk and

graham crackers" a protein and a carb at bedtime depending on the glucose number. I would especially give them this if they were to have sliding scale insulin. Is the Lantus a new medication for the patient? What is the patient's glucose trends for your shift? Are they on steroids? My patients normally do not have low blood sugars or too high. On occasion, poor appetite or blood sugars dropping need to be reported to the Dr. so he can adjust the Lantus dose. To me the body, diabetes and effects of illness and medications on the blood sugar are very fascinating.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

This situation is akin to Melania Trump's shirt message about "I really don't care". For days, there was speculation on national news as to what she didn't care about. It would have been just too darned simple to ask the woman what she meant.

Same here with the other nurse. Just ask her what the snack issue was all about.

Lantus supposedly has no peak or valley. Some posters here say they have seen people respond to Lantus as if it did. Who knows how a given individual might react? Always better safe than sorry.

As a former night nurse, I can tell you that more often than not, there was not snack food available on Nights. Not a PB&J or crackers or anything edible by humans readily available. More than once, despite many talks with our Manager and with Dietary and with Evening Shift, we Night folks found the cupboard bare, so we had to dig into our own personal lunches and came up with something for a low sugar pt to eat quickly. So your night nurse might have had the fear that nothing would be readily available for a snack if it had been needed.

I would have offered a snack to the patient.

[goodgirl319]

Wow, what facility does not have snacks or juice on ANY shift in case of hypoglycemic episodes or late admissions? That facility needs to put a crow bar in their budget and find the money "somewhere" for this.