I went to an insulin pump session a few days ago, and the nurse mentioned that an insulin pump is pretty much like giving minimal doses of insulin throughout the day with a syringe, but that no one is willing to actually do that. That got me thinking, could someone actually give small doses (like, 4 units) every couple of hours, and have the same results (or close to) as you would with the pump?
I've always struggled with getting my full dose of insulin, but feel like in small incriments, it's not problem at all (weird, I know), so that's why I was wondering if this was possible.
It would kind of work, but your numbers would swing up and down too much. I wear a Mini Med pump and my numbers will go up about 35 points per hour of disconnection, roughly.
I went on the pump for many reasons, but one of them was b/c my body would 'pool' my insulin shots- resulting in weird highs, and then unexpected lows. My blood sugars are much more regulated now.
That got me thinking, could someone actually give small doses (like, 4 units) every couple of hours, and have the same results (or close to) as you would with the pump?
[/quote]
I guess "no you can't do it with a syringe" but it's not for the reason your nurse said.
A minimed pump breaks up your injection into many shots... but they're very small!!!!! if you had a basal rate of 0.75 units per hour, the minimed pump would give you small infusions of 0.05 units of insulin every 4 minutes. you couldn't find a syringe small enough to give you a 0.05 unit shot... and if you could it would be one shot every four minutes.
To guess at your current basal rate, you would add up all of the long acting insulin you took in a 24 hour time period and devide by 24. Example: If you took 1 shot of lantus in the morning and it was 30 units, your "sorta average" basal rate would be 30/24 or 1.25 units per hour - in that case a minimed pump would give you a 0.05 unit shot every 144 seconds... even worse if you were trying to do it with a syringe!