I am 44 years old and have been taking Mixtard with an insulin pen twice a day for the last 15 years. I have recently read an article about sniffing insulin through an inhaler. Can I change over to this type of insulin?

Inhaled insulin whether it is through nasal application or through a more standard inhaler through the lungs, has been seriously evaluated because of the perception that the therapy is less invasive. However, I am not aware of the availability of any of these products outside of clinical trials. If you are interested in these therapies, you might want to see if your local medical school is participating in any of these trials. So far, nasal insulin suffers from the fact that a large amount of insulin cannot be given this route, only small doses can be used. Inhaled insulin suffers from variability of dose with each application. In addition, more information is needed about safety and efficacy of this product over time.

JTL