Insulin: Do’s and Don’ts

Are you giving yourself insulin based on your meal or your blood sugar? If you have been taught how to carbohydrate count and feel pretty good about it, then you probably should be taking both mealtime insulin and some correction dose insulin too.

If you are currently taking insulin based on your blood sugar reading, then the insulin you are giving yourself is solely to bring down your blood sugar and nothing else. If you find that you are still high at the next mealtime, then you need mealtime insulin. Mealtime insulin can be calculated using an insulin to carb ratio.

Your physician or diabetes educator can help you determine what your insulin to carb ratio should be. Having an insulin to carb ratio of 1 unit per every 10 carbs means that if you have a peanut butter sandwich and a cup of milk (30 carbs) for lunch, you should take 3 units of insulin for that meal in addition to an insulin needed to lower your blood sugar.

If you and your physician decide an insulin to carb ratio would help improve your blood sugars, he or she would probably decrease your correction dose insulin coverage. You may even find that you need very little correction dose insulin coverage.