Precautions to be Exercised While Taking Long Acting Insulins

Health Teaching: Precautions to be Exercised While Taking Long Acting Insulins

Currently, the popular practice is to give the patient a long acting basal insulin that will control the blood sugars steadily over a period of 24 hours. Along with this, giving rapid-acting mealtime insulin along with a correction dose to regulate blood sugar levels after meals will be more effective. This is like the action of insulin normally produced by your pancreas to help control blood sugar levels between meals. In this post, we discuss medication safety precautions for long acting insulins. Nurses can use this teaching as an example of patient and caregiver education to add to nursing notes or educate patient and caregiver. Medication safety precautions to be observed while using long acting insulin include:

1. Take the insulin shot at the same time every day, to avoid forgetting the shot. This also helps to avoid lags in insulin coverage or stacking up the doses of insulin too close. Noncompliance with taking the insulin shot can precipitate an episode of elevated blood sugar and hyperglycemic symptoms.
2. These long-acting insulins have longer durations for onset and total duration of actions. They act and reduce the blood sugars even and fair and they do not have any peak. These insulins do not have to be taken along with meal. But, taking the shot of long-acting insulin along with the food is easier and avoids noncompliance with medication.
3. Maintain good regular eating habits. Do not skip your meals.
4. Be aware of signs and symptoms of hypoglycemia, such as, dizziness, lightheadedness, sweating, and hunger, to avoid any episodes of altered levels of consciousness and accidental falls. One should stay away from activities, such as, driving and operating heavy machinery, until they are used to the side effects caused by long-acting insulins.
5. Observe for any signs and symptoms of lipodystrophy, such as, thinning of subcutaneous fat in some areas of the skin along with deposition of extra fat in some other areas. Patients also present with poor blood sugar management and symptoms of hyperglycemia, secondary to impaired insulin absorption. Observe compliance with rotation of insulin administration sites to avoid this complication from developing.
6. Closely observe for any signs and symptoms of inflammation at the site of insulin administration, such as, pain, redness, or swelling of the skin at the injection site.
7. Closely observe for any signs and symptoms of hypokalemia developing, such as, fatigue, muscle weakness, tingling and numbness in the extremities, chest discomfort, and palpitations. Report them immediately to your physician.
8. Take weight reading at least twice a week and maintain a log of every reading for comparative feedback. Maintain an ideal weight for your height.
9. Maintain compliance with your dietary calorie recommendations, as ordered. Ingestion of excess calories can lead to poor blood sugar management and potentially can lead to increase in the insulin dose. Excess of dietary calories can result in weight gain and complicate the management of diabetes.
10. Physical exercise, as ordered by the physician, will help improve the efficiency of insulin administered. Maintain compliance with any exercise schedule prescribed by your doctor. Try not to overdo on your exercise, as this might lower your blood sugars and precipitate an episode of hypoglycemia.
11. Maintain strict compliance with administration of insulin shot as ordered, with regards to dosage and frequency, to derive the benefit of the medication.
12. Do not change the dose on the insulin without consulting your doctor.
13. Take a blood sugar reading always before you take the insulin shot. Maintain a log of every day blood sugar readings for comparative feedback, to know how well the medication is helping to control the blood sugars.
14. If the blood sugar is too low, despite eating regularly and without skipping a meal, you can defer taking the shot for that dose and notify your doctor regarding the same.
15. Keeping a track of frequency of such episodes of low blood sugars, despite eating regularly, can help your physician change the plan regarding managing your blood sugars.
16. Also, notify your doctor, if the blood sugar continues to be high, despite taking the insulin as recommended, so that, your insulin dose could be revised.