Is my correction dose correct?

Correction doses vary from person to person and can change throughout the day. If you’ve got your correction dose right then your blood glucose level should reduce to the target range. When calculating a correction dose, use 8 mmol/L initially as your target number.

Whilst this is higher than the normally recommended fasting target of 4 – 7 mmol/L, 8 mmol/L is used to reduce the risk of hypoglycaemia, particularly when you are still working out how your own body responds.

Some meters, insulin pumps and apps can calculate the insulin dose for you – you enter your blood glucose and amount of carb you want to eat and it tells you the insulin dose required.

These options will need to be programmed so your diabetes team can advise you on how to do this. Some apps allow you to download your data to a PDF that you could email to your health professional for advice or before a virtual consultation.

Have a look at some of the examples of correction doses below:

Paul takes 12 units of Lantus and an average of 12 units of Novorapid a day which makes a TDD of 24 units.

If you divide 100/24 = 4, so for Paul, 1 unit of Novorapid will reduce his blood glucose level by 4 mmol/L.

His blood glucose level is 14 mmol/L before his evening meal and his target is 8 mmol/L. He needs to reduce it by 6 mmol/L so he needs to take an extra 1.5 units of Novorapid (he could also choose to round this up to 2 units, or down to 1 unit).

Jenny takes 18 units of Lantus and 12 units of Novorapid a day which makes a TDD of 30 units.

If you divide 100/30 = 3, so for Jenny, 1 unit of Novorapid will reduce her blood glucose by 3 mmol/L.

Jenny’s blood glucose level is 11 mmol/L before lunch and her target is 8 mmol/L. She needs to reduce it by 3 mmol/L so she will need to take 1 extra unit of Novorapid.

After taking a correction dose you should always reflect later whether your glucose levels did come down as you expected. Monitor your correction doses and the results on your blood glucose levels another couple of times and discuss your results with your diabetes team if it is not working as expected.