Using Humalog
ENGLISH
Understanding Humalog
HUMALOG is a short-acting insulin that you take 15 minutes before eating a meal. It works in your body for 4 - 6 hours. Humalog helps to control the natural rise in your blood sugar that happens after you eat.
There are three easy steps that you can use to adjust your Humalog to the right dose for you.
Inject your HUMALOG 15 minutes before eating your biggest meal of the day.
Two hours after you eat this meal, check your blood sugar.
If your blood sugar, two hours after eating this meal is higher than 180, then you are not taking enough HUMALOG before this meal. You need to increase your HUMALOG dose by 1 unit the next day at that same meal.
Let’s do an example:
Many people start by using 5 units of HUMALOG insulin before their largest meal of the day. So for this example let's say that your largest meal of the day is lunch. and you eat lunch at 1 pm. So at 12:45, 15 minutes before you eat lunch, you inject 5 units of HUMALOG. Then, two hours after eating lunch, at 3 pm, you check your blood sugar.
For this example, let’s say that when you check your blood sugar it is 250. This is higher than 180 so it is too high. This means you aren’t on the right dose of HUMALOG yet. You started on 5 units, so tomorrow you will need to add 1 more unit and you will take 6 units of Humalog 15 minutes before your lunch.
You will continue these steps every day at lunch, slowly increasing your Humalog by 1 unit each day, until your blood sugar, two hours after eating lunch, is under 180. This means you are on the right dose of Humalog.
It is important to remember that HUMALOG is only to be given 15 minutes before eating. If you do not eat a meal for any reason, DO NOT INJECT HUMALOG. If you inject HUMALOG and do not eat, your blood sugar may go dangerously low.
If you have any questions about how to take or adjust your HUMALOG make sure to call your doctor right away.