INSULIN FAST OR SLOW Part 2

By Trevor Shewfelt, Pharmacist at the Dauphin Clinic Pharmacy

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The information in this article is intended as a helpful guide only. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional advice. If you have any questions about your medications and what is right for you see your doctor, pharmacist or other health care professional.


There are 4 different speeds of insulin available. I am going to call them really fast, fast, slow and really slow.

There are currently two really fast insulins. They are called Humalog and NovoRapid and are classified as Human insulin analogues. They can be given right with the meal because they go into the body so fast, they cause the sugar from the meal to get out of the blood and into the tissues right away. They start working in 15 to 30 minutes after injection. The peak effect is in about an hour and they are out of the body in 3 to 5 hours. The really fast insulins work so fast that the diabetic must eat during or right after injection or their blood sugar might go too low. The really fast insulins are often given 3 times a day with meals.

The fast insulin is just plain insulin. It goes by the name Humulin R or Novolin Toronto.


There are also insulin pumps. These are expensive (in the thousands of dollars), they require a lot of training at first to learn how to use properly, but they are very interesting. Your pancreas releases a small amount of insulin into your body all the time (called basal insulin), and a pulse when you eat sugar (an insulin peak). Let’s say Jane is using an insulin pen and she uses short acting insulin at meal times (insulin peaks when they eat) and a long acting insulin at bedtime (this mimics the basal insulin). ( There are other ways of giving insulin. This was just an example. Don’t panic if you doctor has you doing something different.) So Jane’s injections are close to how a pancreas works but not exactly. With an insulin pump, the pump would release a small amount of short acting insulin all the time (basal insulin) and Jane could program the pump to release a pulse of insulin based on what she eats (an insulin peak). So insulin pumps more closely mimic what a pancreas does. They aren’t perfect, though. Jane would still have to poke her finger many times a day to check her sugar, and would have to become quite knowledgeable about how to use her pump in case of problems, clogs, etc.

As always if you have any questions or concerns about these or other products, ask your pharmacist.