Novalog to Humalog. Oh joy...

Back in January I went online to order insulin for Sarah, and the website told me that we were no longer eligible to purchase Novalog, and would instead receive Humalog. Okay, good to know. A little warning from Kaiser might have been nice. So I asked people who have previously made the switch if I was likely to see any difference. The responses were basically:

"No, they're identical"

"There's a slight difference"

"There's a huge difference"

"Humalog is like water, doesn't do a thing"

I had a stash of Novalog in the fridge, so we started with the Humalog on 3/13/2013. And here's our experience, based on the first week of the month and the last week of the month, so a week before we started Humalog, and our full second week on Humalog.

Glucose in range

• Pre-Humalog: 76% in range with 15 over and 9% under
• Humalog: 68% in range with 38% over

Average Glucose

• Pre-Humalog: 142 average
• Humalog: 177 average (and keep in mind that this required a LOT of extra insulin)

Average Insulin

• Pre-Humalog: 29.1
• Humalog: 35.5

And in case you're a visual person...

Pre Humalog (on Novalog) - 3/1 to 3/8/2013

 Change to Humalog - 3/25 - 3/31/2013

So our conclusion? Humalog definitely isn't working as well. We have been CONSTANTLY increasing both basal rates and IC ratios, and I've reduced insulin sensitivity twice. I reduced duration from 3 hours to 2.5. We're still dealing with highs, no matter what we do. 

Clearly, there's really no difference...