Lantus Insulin ????

Nurses General Nursing

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Has anyone found any good use for this stuff? In my experience so far, it just doesn't seem to do what it's suppose to. The idea of course is a 24 hour control so that the peaks and valleys of coverage aren't as big but so far I just don't see this happening. On a semi-regular basis lately, I'm giving anywhere from 80 to 110 units of this stuff and still the patients go into the three and four hundreds with their blood tests. Maybe I've just run into a batch of particularly insulin resistant folks but in my experience this "new" insulin just isn't what it's cracked up to be. I guess we'll just keep pushing it though until the drug companies stop wining and dining the docs with it.:rolleyes:

What's been your experience?

I know my brother in law takes lantus insulin 30 u at bedtime along with Avandia, his sugars run between 160-200 in the morning

I have found it to be wonderful...

Specializes in Geriatrics, LTC.

I have found it works well, with those that I have given it to.

Specializes in Everything but psych!.

Lantus is especially great for people with Type 1 diabetes. Lantus and humalog/novolog are great for giving some flexibility back to life. I've found some varying experiences with Type 2 diabetics. For some, adding lantus to their OHA's is just the extra boost they need. But for especially insulin-resistant folks, I've found the same thing. Some of them I have on 100 units/day, plus a short acting insulin tid. Whew!

BTW...a seminar I attended lately advocated that for some Type 2's, they have found improved glycemic control when giving lantus in the a.m. I am trying it with a couple of my people who are having a rough time. The only thing I have found is that most older folks don't want to check their blood sugars 4x/day.

Question...when you have a person inject >100 units of lantus, do you have them give 2 injections, or do you use a different syringe? I haven't gotten >100 thus far.

I've been using two syringes. I was thinking about calling supply though to find out if there was a different syringe.

This is another reason I hate giving Lantus. This is one of the first instances where a med error on my part could KILL someone in real short order. If you had just a 5 second brain fart, (and we all know they do happen), and happened to pull up 110 units from the wrong bottle, (as in Regular or Humulog), that person could die before anyone even knew what the hell was going on. Scary !

This is what I've taken up the habit of doing. I put the needle into the bottle of Lantus, draw up the 100 units and with the needle still stuck in the bottle I go to a fellow employee and ask them to read the bottle out loud to me. I think people may find this a little overboard but I'm not taking any chances on this one !

I've found that Lantus works very well for the patients who've used it. We did find that if it wasn't refrigerated it seemed to lose effectiveness, though. On some of my patients, it also seemed more than usually sensitive to injection sites. We had better results when injecting it into the same area, but rotating sites in that same area. Like one nurse would give in the arm, another in the abdomen, etc. When we all used the abdomen, went ring-around-the-belly-button, it was more consistent. The doctors who prescribed it around here also ordered post-prandial blood sugars (instead of AC) with sliding scale regular insulin.

Ah Ha ! Maybe that's it. We're not refridgerating ours. On the other hand, our patients rarely stay more than 2 weeks so I'm not sure but it's worth a try I guess.

i hate it...have yet to see it work on any of our home care clients....

they still need coverage so end up no better of as far as # of injections in a day.....

You know...I think it doesn't work as effectively on obese-morbidly obese clients. Metabolism? (Always the issue, I know). Resistant? Cannot load enough on board = BSA? I dunno. But it doesn't work as well, I've found.

I don't think it's going overboard to have another nurse check your insulin, and you should leave it in the bottle while it's checked. I am surprised to hear you are so worried about drawing the wrong type/amount and killing someone!!!! It's no different than any other med that is drawn up....

I love it I have given it to many of my pt's already and have found it to be affective.....the only bummer is that it cannot be mixed with any other insulin.....so if one needs to give additional coverage....the pt has to get two shots instead of just the one......:o

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