# Animal Insulin...yes or no??



## pain-itdemandstobefelt (Nov 19, 2018)

Hello, 

I have been researching about Hypurin Porcine and would like to change to it...if possible....I have an appointment with my consultant Tuesday night and want to ask but I am so nervous to ask in fear of being shut down and dismissed (I have General Anxiety Disorder and Depression) Is it possible to change from NovoRapid to Hypurin?? I have read all of the info on IDDT and honestly didn't know about animal insulin and analogue insulin. 
Reasons being.....
Curiosity, I think....but since being diabetic, I have had chronic vulva itching and pain for about 11 years now, and it has only just been diagnosed as lichen sclerosus, and upon reading the information on IDDT and some of the posts on the other diabetes forum, a lot of people have felt better on animal insulin...i understand that that may not be the case for everyone, but there's no harm in trying right?? 

This is from IDDT

Question: _Although you were quite young when you first changed to GM ‘human’ insulin, were you aware of any changes in your diabetes?_

Bev: No

Question: _So what made you change back to animal insulin?_

Bev: I didn’t feel at all well and it was really a last resort. I seemed to be always visiting my GP and had lots of tests but he couldn’t find anything wrong with me.

Question: _What do you mean when you say that you weren’t very well?_

Bev: I felt constantly tired and depressed. I felt as though I had high blood sugars but they weren’t. I had problems remembering things from one minute to the next and felt unable to hold a conversation. I felt inadequate and a sort of numbness and separate from what was going on around me. On top of this I put on a lot of weight very quickly.

Question: _So what happened then?_

Bev: Because I had heard rumours about ‘human’ insulin affecting people differently, as a last resort I changed back to animal insulin and at this point if it hadn’t worked I don’t know what I would have done. My GP was happy to change me back to pork insulin but I know that this is not always the case for everyone who wants to change.

This sounds like me too..constantly tired, depressed, and just all round sh*t!!

Oh and I am on the omnipod! 
Thank you x


----------



## Pumper_Sue (Nov 19, 2018)

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Firstly so called human insulin is stuff like Humulin and nothing to do with the analogue insulin's.

But to answer your question yes you can use animal insulin in pumps, I did so for about 10 years and used animal insulin for about 52 years.

When pumping with it you have to bolus 30 mins before you eat and set a much longer duration of insulin 6 1/2 - 7 hours.
If your consultant says no it' will be because he has no idea about it and doesn't want to admit it.
You will be told that it doesn't work in pumps ……………… so look all sweet and innocent and say oh what did they use in pumps then as pumps were invented before synthetic insulin 

Just give a shout if you want any questions answered.


----------



## pain-itdemandstobefelt (Nov 19, 2018)

Thank hou


Pumper_Sue said:


> Hello and welcome to the forum.
> 
> Firstly so called human insulin is stuff like Humulin and nothing to do with the analogue insulin's.
> 
> ...



Thank you for your reply, yes I know Humulin is human insulin, hypurin is apparently the only animal one...that I can find anyway...when researching! 
Do you still use animal insulin???


----------



## pain-itdemandstobefelt (Nov 19, 2018)

Apologies I just realised you meant humilin as thats what "Bev" was probably on!


----------



## Pumper_Sue (Nov 20, 2018)

pain-itdemandstobefelt said:


> Apologies I just realised you meant humilin as thats what "Bev" was probably on!


Humulin insulin is genetically modified E.coli it has nothing human about it at all 
I just checked the spelling and it is Humulin ) so we are talking the same stuff.

There is only pork insulin now as there is no more crystals to make the bovine insulin which I used.  I'm allergic to pork insulin so can not use it, so moved to using Fiasp.


----------



## pain-itdemandstobefelt (Nov 20, 2018)

Pumper_Sue said:


> Humulin insulin is genetically modified E.coli it has nothing human about it at all
> I just checked the spelling and it is Humulin ) so we are talking the same stuff.
> 
> There is only pork insulin now as there is no more crystals to make the bovine insulin which I used.  I'm allergic to pork insulin so can not use it, so moved to using Fiasp.



Yeah I read about that too...wonder if my consultant will let me try it out...do you prefer the Fiasp to what you used to be on?


----------



## trophywench (Apr 13, 2021)

I was on porcine insulin from diagnosis for 12-ish years until it literally almost stopped working - it was said way back then that some folk became immune to it, who knows in my case except this kind of butted up to my needing a major operation and as I'd had average BGs of literally 5.0 whilst on a sliding scale then as soon as I came off the scale back to my porcine it all went up the swanee again - so they swapped me to Humulin I (as basal) and S (as bolus).

However - after a couple of years OK -  vast swings in BG with no prior warning at all - first name terms with night staff at local A&E - nightmare which ended pdq when they swapped me onto Lantus basal and Novorapid bolus insulins.  That was in 1998.

Since then I've used Levemir instead of Lantus (Lev is much more easily adjusted than Lan despite needing 2 jabs a day of Lev instead of 1 Lan) before in 2011 swapping to my first pump - now on my third pump.

I'm still in love with Novorapid. 

Unlike the Queen - you sometimes need to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your Prince!

You will find your medical team know one HELLUVA lot more about all the modern insulins than they do animal insulin - unless they were in their jobs and already very experienced 40 years ago.  The 'NICE' standard advice for newly diagnosed Type 1s is Levemir and Novorapid/Humalog.


----------



## Inka (Apr 13, 2021)

Sidiusss said:


> Never tried animal insulin but a friend of mine says that you should talk about it with your doctor, first.



And yet you dug up this old thread @Sidiusss .....

Would you like to tell us about your ‘risk of diabetes’ ? What was your HbA1C?


----------



## rebrascora (Apr 13, 2021)

Wow @Inka! You are very alert today!


----------

