What should I do if I take too much insulin by accident?
admin | May 26, 2011 | Comments 0
It depends on how much extra insulin you gave and what type of insulin it was. I had a patient who was supposed to take 4 units of fast-acting Novolog insulin before her breakfast and 36 units of Novolin NPH insulin. She got them mixed up and gave herself 36 units of the fast-acting Novolog by mistake. Because Novolog is a very fast-acting insulin that has its peak effect about an hour after you inject it and lasts about three hours altogether, I told her to stay home, eat lots of extra carbohydrate, and test her blood glucose every fifteen minutes for the next four hours. If you inject too much of a long-acting insulin, then you will need to keep testing your blood glucose for much longer and be prepared to take extra carbohydrate food for several hours until the extra insulin has worn off.
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