A Great (Insulin) Math Book!

This book was recommended on a number of d-websites and d-blogs, so I made the purchase at my local bookstore:

Using Insulin: Everything You Need for Success with Insulin
by Walsh, John
Paperback - $23.95

It is great. It has a tremendous amount of detailed information about how various insulin (and insulin regimens) work. Most importantly, it has the math!

When I was first (incorrectly) diagnosed as Type 2, I skipped (or at best, skimmed) all the "insulin" chapters in all the books I purchased. But even just in skimming and seeing insulin mentioned on the web, it was clear that insulin treatment is a tricky thing. Lots of calculations including your weight, your A1C, your BG reading at the moment, your anticipated carb intake, your target BG level, and so on.

When I was re-diagnosed as Type 1, along with that came basal insulin and the instruction to "start at 10 units, and titrate every couple of days with a goal of getting your FBS between 90-100."

Easy enough. That accomplished, I was still having big spikes with meals, and reported that via email to my d-Doc. Here was his reply:

"You probably should stop the Amaryl, and start meal insulin. You can begin with 4 units each meal and titrate to a 2 hour post meal target of 140 mg/dl. As your bedtime readings should come down, you may need to reduce the Levemir, as it will most likely over correct you and cause you to go low. I can e script the prescription for Novolog pen for meals. Take it 0-15 minutes prior to the meal. Let me know how it goes in a few days."

Easy enough again. But what about all that math??? I go back to all my books. No specifics about how to fine tune a dosage.

Hence, the "Using Insulin" purchase.

It is great. Very detailed information about how all of the various factors fit into calculating a correct dosage of the various types of insulin. It will take several readings to really digest it all, but I'm looking forward to doing math for the first time in my life.

Luckily, my husband is a math wizard. He's offered to learn the formulas and be my human calculator!