Patient was educated on long-acting insulins as follows:
- Long-acting insulins are insulins that have the slowest onset of action and the longest duration of action than insulins belonging to any other groups.
- These insulins generally reach the bloodstream in about 4 hours after the shot was administered and tends to lower glucose levels fair and even, with no defined peak, for a duration of over 24-hour period.
- Examples of long acting insulins include, Insulin Detemir (Levemir) and Insulin Glargine (Lantus).
- All these products differ in chemical compositions and so, they differ with the duration of their actions. Longest acting is, Insulin Degludec, acting for a duration of about 48 hours.
- Long-acting insulins are also called basal or background insulins. They keep working in the background to keep your blood sugar under controlfor an entire day.
- Currently, the popular practice is to give the patient a long acting basal insulin that will control the blood sugars steadily over a period of 24 hours. Along with this, giving rapid-acting mealtime insulin along with a correction dose to regulate blood sugar levels after meals will be more effective.
- This is like the action of insulin normally produced by your pancreas to help control blood sugar levels between meals.
