Hey everyone, it's Sarah with RegisteredNurseAriene.com and in this video I'm going to be going over insulin mnemonics specifically to help you remember those insulin peak times and what type of insulins are in each category like the rapid, the short, the intermediate, and long. So this video is part of a series of the diabetic series I'm going over for NCLEX review so be sure to check out those videos. A link should be popping up with the playlist that you can access those videos. And also after this video, be sure to take the free quiz so you can test your knowledge on how well you know this material.
Okay, so the biggest thing that really gets students, I know it got me during nursing school, is remembering which insulins fall into certain categories and what are their onset, peak, and duration times. Well, in nursing, we have to get a little creative on how we remember things because there's so much to remember. So first, let's go over what insulins fall into each category. A good technique to help you do this is write out the word insulin.
We're going to use each letter to correlate whether it's rapid, short, intermediate, or long. Now how can you remember that? Intermediate is the fastest and long takes the longest.
So I like to remember ready, set, inject, love because with diabetics we're injecting them. So first thing we're going to do is we're going to use this word and we're going to write out rapids. So rapid is the first one. It's the fastest.
So rapid. Our next is short. Ready, set, so short. And we'll use the S over here.
And we're just going to separate these because this is going to deal with rapids and this is going to deal with shorts. And then the next is intermediates, which are your like MPHs, humulin. And the U in insulin is in the middle. Intermediate means middle.
So we're going to to write in humulin in because it's mph then we're just going to separate that from that and then the l those are our long acting so we're just going to write long to help us remember so now we have it separated into categories now let's fill in which drugs fall into each category. Okay so Humalogs, the logs like Humalog and Novalog those are our rapid so we have Humalog then we have no vlog so we have our rapids next um our short-acting all short-acting insulins are your regular insulins so if it's an insulin name and it ends in our like noval and R or human R that is regular short-acting insulin so we're just gonna write use the orange short and write regular that's how I remember that and then human in those are our intermediate acting remember you was the middle of the word insulin so we know that's intermediate and those are drugs that end in N and like NPH and then our L for the long-acting that is Levomir and Lantus so Levomir and Lantus now we have it by category that can help us understand it how I really recommend you learn this is watch this part of the over and over get out your sheet of paper and just fill it in yourself and it eventually clicks and whenever you're going to go take your exam just hurry up and write it down so you can refer back to it whenever you're answering those exam questions now the next big thing you have to remember about insulins are those onset peak and duration times the peak is the really big thing you want to pay attention to because this is when the patient is most at risk for hypoglycemia when that drug is peaking so to help us remember this we have I I I've developed these mnemonics. I tried to make the mnemonics go along with the nursing profession because if you can remember something that you can relate with, it'll help you remember it better.
So I've separated them to rapid, short, intermediate, and acting. Each mnemonic, the sentence, the phrase is going to tell you whether it's rapid, short, intermediate, or long. It's going to tell you the onset, the peak, and the duration by the numbers in the mnemonic and they're all in order. So let me show you what happens.
they say okay rapid acting rapid acting the onset is 15 minutes the peak is one hour and the duration is three hours so remember this phrase 15 minutes feels like an hour during three rapid responses this tells us we're dealing with rapid acting because rapid responses 15 is our onset an hour is our peak 3 is our duration. Okay, let's look at the next one. Short acting. Onset is 30 minutes, peak is 2 hours, duration is 8 hours.
Remember the phrase. Short staff nurses went from 30 patients to 8 patients. Short reminds you it is short acting.
30 is the onset, 2 is the peak, and 8 is the duration. Okay, next one, intermediate acting. Onset of these drugs are two hours. The peak is eight hours. The duration is eight hours.
Remember the phrase, nurses play hero to eight 16-year-olds. Okay, the N in nurses, the P in play, and the H in hero. That tells you that's NPH. Remember, NPH is your intermediate acting influence. Two represents the onset.
8 represents the peak and 16 represents the duration. And the last one, long acting, your onsets of these, this is actually the most easiest one to remember because there's no peak and there's only two numbers you have to remember. Onset is 2 hours peak, there is no peak with long acting insulin and the duration is 24 hours.
So remember the phrase? The two long nursing shifts never peaked but lasted 24 hours. So we know we're dealing with long acting because the word long too is the onset. There was no, there's no peak with long acting and 24 represents the duration.
So I hope that helps you remember the different types of insulin, your peaks, your onsets, and your duration. Be sure to check out this, the other diabetic Siri videos that I have, and don't forget to take that free quiz. And thank you so much for watching and please consider subscribing to this YouTube channel.