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March 7, 2010

Daily Care, Hypoglycemia

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Question from Vicksburg, Michigan, USA:

My 10-year-old son loves to eat. He is right where he should be in height and weight. He is still taking Humulin as his long lasting insulin and Humalog for his short acting insulin and has been doing so for eight years. However, over the past week, he has been running extremely low numbers no matter what he eats. Activity levels are the same as well. We have reduced his insulin but he still has low numbers. Could it be bad insulin or is there a chance his pancreas could be working after all this time?

Answer:

From: DTeam Staff

We do see this from time to time. I used to try to come up with some scientific reason. It is NOT that his pancreas has started to function again. That’s for sure. It is easy to check out by measuring the C-Pepdtide (insulin is an a and b chain after the connecting peptide “c” is taken out.) You can measure it. Why? We used to think it might be antibodies. We used to think it might be insulin stored in the tissue. I really don’t know why, but it will go away as strangely as it started. That’s why you have to always check those blood sugars and be on top of diabetes.

LD

[Editor’s comment:

For future reference, most people who encounter “bad” insulin, see high blood sugars, not low ones.
BH]