Insulin shots are less expensive than having an insulin pump.  Even taking multiple insulin shots per day is less costly than being on an insulin pump.  But is being on insulin shots working for you?  How are your A1C readings doing?  If you are able to maintain consistent good blood sugar control on Editthistext even if it is with multiple insulin shots a day and not endanger yourself or others, then that is great.  However insulin pumps are usually a lot cheaper and a lot more life-style friendly than living with and paying for the treatment of serious diabetic complications related to poor diabetic control.

For me, pills worked fine for a while, then after a couple of years, they no longer enabled me to have good blood sugar control .  Then a daily insulin shot worked fine for a few months, but eventually that became four shots per day mixing two to three different kinds of insulin per day and that stopped being effective too.  What does that mean that it stopped being ineffective?  It means that my A1C readings moved into the poor control region, plus having a lot of low and high blood sugar readings.  Further, this kind of insulin shot therapy interferred with my need to travel and work in different time zones or on different shifts that came with my job.  A discription of these type 1 diabetes therapies is presented here.

When you are on insulin shots , typically most of the insulin you take is time released similar to taking a time released pain pill.  But when you have to go to more than one insulin shots per day , especially more than two shots per day, those time periods begin to overlap and blood sugar control can become hard to deal with .

So when you get to the point that insulin shot therapy is not working for you and you have poor blood sugar control, your options become more limited and the need to do something else becomes aparrent.  Most of the complexity of taking a several insulin shots every day comes from mixing long time frame release insulin interfering.  On the other hand, fast acting or regular insulins, are much more predictable.  In three of four hours, regular insulin injections complete their job and are gone from your system.  So an alternative to traditional insulin shot therapy is intensive insulin shot therapy.  The good news is that it is simpler and more effective, but the bad news is that it takes more insulin shots every day.  Intensive insulin shot therapy involves checking your blood sugar level at every meal and taking an insulin shot with every meal of primarily regular fast acting insulin plus a smaller amout of long term delayed insulin in one or more of those shots.  The amount of regular insulin you take with a meal is adjusted based on your blood sugar level at that meal.  The higher the blood sugar level, the more regular insulin you take with the meal.  The lower the blood sugar level, the less regular insulin you take with the meal.  You can also use this therapy to adjust to earlier or later meals.

The other alternative is the insulin pump.  Insulin pumps use only fast acting regular insulins.  Insulin pumps do cost more than shots.  If you do not have medical insurance, then this may not be an option.  But if your shot therapy regimine is not working, then unwanted serious complications may be on the horizon as proved by the DCCT Trial.  The insulin pump will very likely be a lot cheaper than trying to deal with diabetes serious complications.  The main reason that medical insurance companies pay for insulin pumps is that the cost of insulin pump therapy is normally a lot cheaper than having to pay for managing the serious complications that poor insulin control can bring on.  More information is available in the insulin pump book.

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