lantus insulin

[jcswife]

My husband was put on lantus about 4 years ago.  Immediately he had a hypogylcemic episode involving loss of control of his right side.  He went to the hospital, was admitted and thouroughly checked out.  Finally he insisted they give him some orange juice which restored his glucose level.  He checked out normal neurologically.  Lately he has had 3 hypoglycemic episodes in the past 2 weeks all involving paralysis to his right side.  He is needing a lot more juice to revieve him.  He also has mood swings and irrational anger.  Is there a connection to the lantus?  Should he go back to his previous insulins?  I am talking to his doctor but getting no real answers.  His doctor has also been trying pill type therapy like with type 1's along with the lantus

[Jodi1968]

Hello,

I have been on Lantus for over two years having switched from Humulin N at bedtime.  Not only have I gained 30 pounds, I started having mood swings and irritability since starting Lantus and lately now in the past month I had two severe lows right after taking the Lantus (within 30 minutes of taking my shot).  Each time I did draw blood as I removed the needle but the doctor and diabetic educator insist that I cannot hit a vein and even if I went into a vessel it would not cause the insulin to react so quickly.

Meantime, for each of these episodes I had to drink a minimun of 4-8 juice boxes and granola bars just to stabilize my sugar which took a few hours.

I am not a fan of the Lantus and not all individuals react the same to medications.  

While doctors are encouraging the Lantus, they need to listen to their patients as well.

Good luck,

Jodi

[jcswife]

Thanks for your comment, although I disagree with your answer as I have read plenty of responses on this forum dealing with lows fron lantus.  He does test frequently

[JDRF Volunteer SG]

Lantus is very slow-acting and really rarely causes severe hypoglycemia, in my experience, for warning symptoms occur long before it gets severe. However, if the warning symptoms are not listened to, I have personally noticed that the hypoglycemia that eventually happens makes me feel worse than some of the quick-acting insulins do. I believe this is because it happens so slowly that the body is without necessary sugar for a long time, and lengthy periods of hypoglycemia are harder on the body than when it is caught quickly and fixed.

All that being said, I suggest that you encourage him to start testing every 2-3 hours. I find that it is pretty much impossible to drop severely low in that period of time with Lantus, if the dosage is correct and the last blood test was normal. It could be that the oral meds plus the Lantus are too much for him and his dosage needs to be adjusted. If it is happening often, have him test frequently for awhile and write down the results to he has a record of the patterns. Then he needs to work with his doctor to perhaps lower the dosage of one of the medicines.

My experience has been that Lantus is rarely a problem as far as hypoglycemia is concerned, so I doubt that it alone is the problem.