Strange things happening to fingers…

[lizz]

I stopped human and analog insulin years ago as I had ;

[Anonymous]

I’m afraid the short answer is “No”, @lizz, but as someone who doesn’t get on with “human” and analogue insulins I can sympathise with the conflict between “better” control and side-effects that make the value of that improved control questionable!
I know sympathy is not what you wanted, but I go through the internal debate about whether to try analogues again about once a year. Every time, so far, the benefits have fallen far short of the dis-benefits (or whatever the appropriate word is).
The only way of avoiding analogue-related side effects that I have heard of is avoiding analogues, but I would be pleased to hear of any other (successful) approaches.
I would be very interested to hear of any progress you make. Best of luck, @lizz, sorry I can’t be more helpful.

[Alison]

What a pain @Lizz. Sorry I don’t have any helpful suggestions, but I hope you manage to find some sort of compromise that’ll work for you.

[lizz]

Hmm, compromises on the pump are hard to come by!

[Alison]

Does the animal insulin not work well in the pump?

[lizz]

It works fine, in fact one good thing with it is the pump cannula never blocks. But it has a slower action than all artificial insulin and human insulin as it hasn’t been changed in any way.

[Anonymous]

@lizz – so how are your fingers now? Have you made any progress in finding a cause of the problem (or, better still, a cure), or have you had to go back to animal insulin?

[lizz]

Hi Nig – getting worse I’m afraid. I now have pain in my joints – they sort of go red on little bumps on some of them. I was feeling as if I didn’t want to clap something the other day and remembered that was one of the things last time – my hands just hurt too much to clap anything at all.

[Alison]

Do you have the same problems with more modern human insulin eg Humalog/Novorapid/Apidra @lizz , or are they just as problematic as the Actrapid?

Do you think you’ll ultimately swap back to the animal insulin? Or is the slower action just too much of a problem?

[lizz]

Analogues (on principal I won’t call them insulin, since they aren’t!) are MUCH worse. I don’t know if it’s the little proteins that haven’t all folded causing an immune response or possibly the larger amounts of excipients, particularly the phenols. Human insulin goes off more quickly than natural insulin and analogues need even more preservation.

[Anonymous]

I have the same symptoms since last September, mainly in the little and ring finger, but I have tingling in the other fingers when bending my wrist, too. So the GP diagnosed me with Carpal Tunnel. Started to wear wrist support overnight, helped the tingling but made the bending worse. I never had any problem with human or analog insulin before (I am on Novorapid and Lantus just now.) Perhaps the GP has rushed my diagnosis a little bit. I gonna ask my diabetologist about it. Do you know if it’s a common side effect of human insulin?

[Anonymous]

Hi @fruzsina, I’ve been reading about this recently as my (also diabetic) dad has Dupuytren’s contracture. Lots of things I read suggested that this and carpal tunnel are more common in diabetics generally, either because of the same sort of nerve damage from high BG levels that causes neuropathy or because of our usual higher susceptibility to multiple autoimmune conditions. So although it’s worth exploring whether the type of insulin you take is a factor like @lizz‘s, it might be a complication of the diabetes rather than the insulin.

[Author]

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