Question from Ulverston Cumbria, England:

My five and one-year old son has had type 1 since age two. I am told by his consultant that he cannot be producing any of his own insulin, and that also the long acting insulin in the Penmix cannot be affecting him longer than 12 hours. My experience says the opposite. He has been on 7.5 units of 60/40 for a while. Suddenly, we are getting loads of hypos at 10 pm and 3 pm. Nothing has changed in his life, i.e., food, activity, routines. Over the course of a week, we have stopped the hypos by gradually reducing the dose to 4.5 units. He is now stabilising.

This is not new. For months, he was on just Actrapid at tea-time, and then, over the course of a month, he went to being on virtually all long-acting. Also, having reduced the long acting by only 1 unit, his lunch time readings have steadily increased to the level that we will have to increase his morning dose slightly to compensate. Again, not new. We usually find that any alteration in the amount of long-acting then results in a knock on some 18 hours later.