What to Do if the Wrong Insulin is Injected

Before bedtime | During the day


Perhaps every diabetic is faced with a similar oversight. What to do in such a situation? What can happen? We discuss this in the article.

If the wrong insulin is entered before bedtime

The first place in the list of error rates is the administration of short-acting insulin instead of long-acting bedtime. Most often, errors occur if the syringe pens with different types of hormone are similar, or if you are injecting with regular syringes. What to do in this situation?

Do not panic!

A similar mistake threatens a sharp drop in glucose over the next few hours. But complications can be avoided. How do we fight low sugar? That’s right, we use special means for stopping hypoglycemia – these are monosaccharide variants made in the form of tablets, tubes with jelly-like contents, diabetic bars, low-calorie syrups, as well as sugar substitutes, and we also do regular analyzes using a glucometer and test strips. You will have to control glucose every hour until the condition stabilizes, which means that there is a sleepless night or part of it ahead.

If possible, do not stay alone at night. Third-party help will be very helpful, for example, to help do a test or wake up.

Have a small supply of food near you. It should contain a lot of carbohydrates and a minimum of fats (increase glucose uptake time). Have snacks and tests every hour. If the glucose level drops significantly below 6 mmol / l – after 30-40 minutes.

Be careful!

A situation is dangerous if you did not notice an error. When the body gets used to the periodic appearance of hypoglycemia, it does not let you know about the excessive drop in sugar, which means that the risk of worsening during sleep increases.

Remember, ultrashort insulin lasts 4-5 hours, while short insulin lasts up to six hours.

Before going to bed, you can still do an injection of long-acting insulin or NPH – half the dose that you usually do before going to bed. In the morning before a meal, you can inject a bolus, as usual, calculating the dose for the correction of HA and XE.

If you inject basal insulin twice a day, administer the morning dose unchanged. Short-acting insulin adjust high sugar.


If the wrong insulin is injected during the day

If in the afternoon they introduced basal instead of short-acting or ultra-short-acting insulin, he will not be able to compensate for glucose from food, since he will begin to act only after one and a half to two hours. This situation is less dangerous. To cover carbohydrates, enter half of the estimated bolus dose. Before the next snack, measure the sugar level with a glucometer. If the glucose concentration is 10 mmol / L or more, enter another half of the calculated dose.