What The Fiasp?

About a year and a half ago, I was hearing whisperings of this brand-new wonder-insulin... Fiasp.  It was faster, smaller post-meal spikes, and it could leap tall buildings in a single bound!

Maybe not on that last thing, but everything I had heard was great.  Mind you, the sample size was rather small, due to it not being available in the U.S. Determined to try it for myself (or, my daughter), I may or may not have enlisted the help of a person related or non-related to me to bring some in from another country.  It might have happened.  Or it might have all been a dream.  Who knows?

Anyway, I received (or didn't) the insulin last September, but the timing was never really right to start it.  I didn't want to put a brand new (to us) insulin in my daughter's pump and send her off to school not having tested it at home and not knowing what would happen. I love our nurse too much for that.

So I kept waiting for a nice, long school holiday.  And then I would forget.  All freaking year long.  Until we hit summer break.  And then it was like, "hey good-lookin'!  Where have you been all my life?"

The graphs!  Oh my... the graphs!  And all their flat-liney goodness.  And hardly any post-breakfast spike.  And next to no post-every-other-meal spike.  Gone were the double up arrows.  Instead, they were replaced by their lazy cousin, slightly up.

I will point out that we have always pre-bolused.   E's BG determines how much in advance we do this.  On Humalog, a BG of 110 would usually need at least a 20 minute head start for a breakfast of banana, steel cut oats (with cinnamon and brown sugar), and a peanut butter protein ball (homemade).  And we would still get double arrows up into the low 200s.

These days, we see the arrow headed down about 5 minutes post-bolus.  Yes, for us, it's THAT fast. We top out around 160-180, and then float back into range.

I have found Fiasp to be much more predictable than Humalog ever was for us. E is spending much more time in range, and we rarely see highs above 240, unless something went wrong.  I find this insulin so much easier to "Sugar Surf" with, due to how quickly it starts working.  And the highs come down so much more quickly.  Gone are the "sticky highs", that require rage boluses to get them down.

And for Omnipod users, we now get the full 88 hours with this insulin; from pod change right up to the "screech of death".  We NEVER got that on Humalog.  Certain sites (legs, tummy), we would be lucky to get two days before her numbers would start creeping up on us.

One thing I did notice is that E has been using more insulin.  Her total daily dose has gone up by 1-2 units, but that might just be a coincidence, since we started the insulin at the start of summer break, and she grew about an inch and a half in the last few months.

For us, Fiasp works.  I know not everyone has had the same experience.  Also?  I'm totally NOT a doctor.  And this is SO NOT medical advice.  If you want to read a real review, by someone way smarter than me, check out what Gary Scheiner has to say.

I was also not asked to write about this by anyone.  It's just my two cents.  And it's not even worth that.