Lantus

My husband's basal insulin is Lantus. That means that he takes a Lantus shot every night to control his blood sugars throughout the day. Theoretically, if someone's taking the right amount of basal insulin, then that person's blood sugar would be in the normal range constantly if he or she didn't eat anything.

The interesting thing about Lantus is that the amount Brian takes changes from time to time. He started out on 18 units per night and he’s up to about 25 now. Still he goes through times when he's not taking as much at night.

The most important thing about Lantus as we've learned is to take it at roughly the same time every night. Because it's affecting the base blood sugar level, it's important not to overlap the times. So if you took it at 10 p.m. one night and 8 p.m. the next night, you would get twice the dose for 2 hours, which could cause a low. That's because the body absorbs the basal insulin throughout the day, so you're getting a dose of it constantly.