Diabetes is a disease that affects how your body uses sugar, or glucose, which is taken from the bloodstream by insulin. When your body does not produce enough insulin or cannot accept insulin from the bloodstream, your blood glucose levels become imbalanced. If you do not produce enough insulin, your doctor may recommend insulin injections to compensate. Injection therapy requires you to monitor your blood sugar and understand the amount of carbohydrates you consume.
Insulin Therapy
The ultimate goal of insulin therapy, according to the University of California at San Francisco, is to mimic normal insulin levels. As of 2010, insulin therapy is not exact; you can only approximate how much insulin you need. Injections can range from one per day to a continuous injection in the form of an insulin pump. More frequent injections result in a better approximation of natural insulin levels.
Glucose
Your body converts foods, most notably carbohydrates, into glucose. With insulin therapy, understanding how much glucose your meal is going to put into your blood is crucial. You also need to know how your body reacts to times of fast, such as when you are sleeping. Approximately 40 to 50 percent of your daily insulin injections are compensating for your fasting times, known as basal insulin replacement. The other percentage is calculated based on the amount of food you eat and blood sugar correction, and is called the bolus insulin replacement.
Calculations
You will need to know how many carbohydrates you consume in a meal to properly calculate the amount of insulin for a bolus insulin replacement injection. One unit of rapid-acting insulin will compensate for 12 to 15g of carbohydrate, and one unit can drop your blood glucose 50mg/dl According to UCSF, in order to calculate the total mealtime dose of insulin, you must add together the carbohydrate coverage and the high blood sugar correction dose.
Carbohydrate Coverage
Your carbohydrate coverage is calculated by taking the total grams of carbohydrate in the meal divided by the grams of carbohydrate disposed of by one unit of insulin. For example, if you are eating a meal with 70g of carbohydrates and your insulin to carbohydrate ratio is 1:10, where one unit of insulin takes care of 10g carbohydrates, you need seven units of rapid-acting insulin to make up your carbohydrate coverage.
High Blood Sugar Correction
In order to calculate the amount of insulin you need to correct any blood sugar spikes, you will need to measure your blood sugar. Calculate the difference between your actual blood sugar and your target blood sugar and divide by 50 -- the blood sugar correction factor. Thus, if your actual blood sugar is 200 mg/dl and your target is 150, the difference divided by the correction factor equals one. You will need an additional unit of insulin to counteract your blood sugar elevation.
Considerations
Insulin therapy is subjective; as an individual, you have a degree of sensitivity to insulin that varies from everyone else. These calculations may not be 100 percent accurate for you. Work with your doctor to better understand insulin calculations and how insulin affects your body.
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