Adults Living with Type 1

[Pam01]

a friend was casually mentioning a child in her daughter's class who has "really bad diabetes" and "she even has a shunt" ( i assume she meant a pump). i kind of jumped on her that all diabetes is bad, its just how you manage it, but she said the child is allergic to insulin. I had never heard of this, but found some mentions after googling. How common? What does a diabetic do? Can anyone shed any light ..and do I owe myfriend an apology LOL?

[trisha01 Diabetes Brain Trust]

Pam,

On the old *original* boards, one of the members developed an allergy to insulin - or that is what was thought by her doctors, at the time. For the life of me, I can't remember her name - and it's right on the tip of my tongue, but she was a regular. She did post a couple of times, though, on the most recent old boards.

You may remember her...she had just moved into a new apartment, found there was mold in the bedroom, was having all kinds of allergy problems, that - if I recall, she had not been having prior to the move. Then at some point shortly thereafter, it was thought that her insulin was also causing her some allergic issues. And...if my memory still serves me well, she had discovered - I think prior to her move, that she had learned that she had a very fast digestion, which was causing her a lot of hypos - similar to one of our other members.

If I were to see her name, I would recognize it. She posted when Mirsan (Mirta - the one that loved shoes!) and a lot of the others were still around. Also, all of ?'s allergic problems came about, just before they hit us with that gawd-awful former format, this was before we learned what they were going to do about her insulin.

Other than ? (her), I have heard of some with insulin allergies, through reading other forums.

I don't think you owe your friend an apology. You did the same thing all of us do -and that was/is to educate. You could let her know, however, that you have since learned, that a few folks have what could be insulin allergies. And ask her if she meant a pump. There are shunts used for different other issues, and she may have been referring to a different type of problem. NO apologies!

One more thing, it may not be an actual allergy (for any of them) to insulin, but to one of the ingredients that is added to the insulin. p.s.....Silly me! I had forgotten to put that this is an issue with my T2 sis - with Levemir; although Lantus doesn't affect her.

Trisha

[deafmack]

Years ago I a little girl I took care of actually was allergic to insulin. (This was before the days of Lantus, Levemir, and the fast acting insulins we know of  today.) She would come over and play with the little girl I took care of all the time. We did fine with testing and insulin injections, etc. She was one of the first people to receive a pump as they thought that receiving smaller more fequent doses of insulin would be better for her.

In reality she is the only person I knew personally that was actually allergic to insulin. I do think it is a rare occurence though.

[__bsc_]

In the days of animal insulins, it was not uncommon for people to develop allergies to the foreign insulin.  This was characterized by anti-insulin antibodies.  A good discussion of insulin allergies dates from 2004.  The human recombinant insulin (R and NPH) is an identical molecule to what the body produces.  It is possible to generate an allergic reaction to your own insulin, the is characterized by auto anti-insulin antibodies.  Modern insulin analogs are a slightly modified insulin molecule and cause much fewer allergic reactions.  It is uncommon for people to develop insulin allergies these days, but it does happen.  Sometimes, the allergic reaction is to the additives to insulin and not even to insulin.

If you suspect you are having an allergic reaction, you typically will develop classic allergic reaction symptoms (hives, etc) and you will often grow insulin resistant (the antibodies inactive the insulin).