Humulin vs. Novolin N causing lows - anyone else?

[eileen]

I absolutely agree, Carol. With careful record keeping and with knowing what one is seeing it may be determined whether it could be the insulin or not.

Lately tho, on other groups, I've seen where one member might mention the possibility and it seems that quite a few will jump in with saying the same, these that I know are doing so many different things that have their dogs going in all directions that it is very unlikely it is because of the insulin...but yet the blame is put on the insulin being Humulin N.

[Pennelope]

Changing from Novolin N to Humalin N was a real challenge
for my Miniature Schnauzer Mosby. He was pretty well regulated
on Novolin N, but when we switched to Humalin N we tried for 3
months and could never get him regulated. We kept his food,
feeding schedule and exercise all the same... So we were not
making changes all over the place. We tried giving less insulin
and tested daily and did many curves but just could not get him
out of the 300s and sometimes 400s. We finally switched back to
Novolin N and he was back in the 100s after one day.

I know some people had no problems switching but some do so
Each of us has to do what works for us. I'm sure Humalin is a very fine
Insulin but it did not work for us.

[Taylor]

I'm still having big problems with the switch, but I'm using 70 units a day and cannot afford $70 a vial for the novolin N. It's been a year and a half and I feel like I'm back at square one. Pat

[k9diabetes]

Pat,

Do you have a curve you could post? We might be able to help you improve the situation if we can see what the blood sugar is doing.

The insulins are the same in terms of chemical composition so if your dog responded to human insulin in Novolin, he will respond to human insulin in Humulin. The levels might be different or you might need more or less units... the shape of the curve could change. Those are things that can often be worked with by way of other kinds of adjustments like diet and timing.

So please post your most recent curves (as many as you can since multiple curves give us trends).

Natalie

[k9diabetes]

Pennelope,

I'd really appreciate it if you could post curves for your dog also. In order to understand what might be going on between Humulin and Novolin N, we could use all of the data we can get.

I wondered whether, for example, the curves for Mosby were flat 300s and 400s so perhaps more of the Humulin was needed or whether the curves got "deeper" swinging from 400 down to 100 and back up again.

Natalie

[Bichonluver3]

Interestingly, a few weeks ago, when I had Sparky's numbers taking a nose dive, I spoke to the vet and he said that other "patients" were having similar problems with Humulin N. Hmmmm.......
Carrol

[Taylor]

I am having good results with a return to novolin-n. See Taylor's thread for curve data. Pat

[k9diabetes]

This thread has a few accounts of problems people had making the switch. Not common but there were some reports.

Natalie

[k9diabetes]

Bumping this up also.

[yauwish16]

Hi there.

Is Novolin N still available at Walmart?

I am on my last one and am afraid to change to Humulin N when reading people having problems with changing.

I have it on hand humulin N, how did everyone change?

Dose to dose with q 2 hour sugar checks? For how many days? I know it takes 5 days to see a difference correct?

Please help! Thanks!