World 12-1
Need for Speed
Fast or slow, it’s good to know
There’s S… L… O… W…,
There’s M E D I U M,
And there’s FAST!
in the tricky world of insulin.
A speedometer would sure be handy…
How Fast is Insulin?
Not fast in the sense of going places – it just sits there of course.
I wondered how fast insulin works at doing its stuff. I knew it was more than 5 minutes, and less than 1 week – a good start.
Luckily, the pamphlets that come with the insulin tell us quite useful info, including:
A Rough Start Time
A (Very) Rough End Time
Trying it out For Myself
I’ve tested on myself (usually on a lazy Saturday morning) to see what happened with fast-acting insulin.
I have high BGL when I wake up, then inject, then observe what happens (using many finger pricks):
- 0-30 minutes. No change.
- 30-60 minutes. BGL started falling quickly (2 x).
- 1 hr-4 hrs. During this middle time, BGL fell at a steady rate (let’s call it ‘x’).
- 4-5 hrs. BGL fell at about half the normal rate (1/2 x).
- 5 hrs+. No change (insulin looked finished).
It could look different for someone else.
I’ll include a bit more about this on my Resources page at some point (including how I made a useful graph/table).
Think like a Pancreas talks a bit more about how bolus insulin might work.
