When do you start a patient on insulin? | drbeen

About This Video

This short video identifies the patients that must receive insulin.
All type 1 diabetes mellitus patients.
Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients that fit the criteria shared in the video.
 

Notes

For the type 2 diabetes mellitus patients, here is the criteria.

a) If the first line therapy fails, then consider the second line of oral drugs. However, in case HbA1c is greater than 8.5% then consider insulin instead of another oral agent.

b) type 2 diabetes mellitus patients that fit the following criteria:

  • HbA1c levels equal or greater than 9.5%.
  • Fasting blood glucose levels equal or greater than 250 mg/dL.
  • Random blood glucose levels greater than 300 mg/dL.
  • Ketosis.
  • Unexplained weight loss associated with hyperglycemia.
  • A hyperglycemic patient whose status (type 1 diabetes mellitus vs. type 2 diabetes mellitus) is not known.

Further considerations:

  • first line therapy is metformin.
  • Assure the patient that it is not a personal failure to start on insulin. Instead, it is important to manage hyperglycemia reliably.
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Instructor

Dr. Mobeen Syed

Dr. Mobeen Syed

Mobeen Syed is the CEO of DrBeen Corp, a modern online medical education marketplace. Mobeen is a medical doctor and a software engineer. He graduated from the prestigious King Edward Medical University Lahore. He has been teaching medicine since 1994. Mobeen is also a software engineer and engineering leader. In this role, Mobeen has run teams consisting of hundreds of engineers and millions of dollars of budgets. Mobeen loves music, teaching, and doing business. He lives in Cupertino CA.