Do Insulin Injections Cause Upset Stomach?

Insulin itself does not cause stomach upset. If you use injectable insulin to control your blood sugar and begin feeling abnormally hungry or nauseous, your blood sugar is probably too low or too high. Learning to recognize when you need to adjust your blood sugar or take an insulin dose is essential for maintaining your health.

Know Your Insulin

• The type and amount of injectable insulin you need to control your diabetes will depend on your activity level, diet, overall health, other medications, travel and work schedule. The January 2009 issue of the American Diabetes Association patient education magazine "Diabetes Forecast" includes an excellent summary of which kinds of insulin are prescribed for which purpose. The article is linked below, but its take-home lesson is that "choosing the insulin that's most appropriate for you is a collaboration between you and your health care provider."

  Be sure you discuss with your health care provider and fully understand which insulin you should take, when you should do injections, how you need to measure doses, what the insulin should look like when you measure it out, and what to do if you miss a scheduled injection. Follow insulin use instructions exactly, and make sure you stick to any dietary or exercise recommendations.

Use Good Injection Technique

• To ensure you get the correct dose of insulin, always use the same size syringe and needle. Always using a new needle and swabbing your injection site with alcohol before administering insulin will help you avoid infections. Also, moving your injection site will keep you from experiencing unnecessary pain or damage to your skin.

Recognize Low Blood Sugar

• If you inject too much insulin, are ill, drink alcohol, get more exercise than usual or skip a meal, your blood sugar may drop too low. Called hypoglycemia, this condition can cause hunger, irritableness, shakiness, dizziness and lightheadedness, weakness, headache and clumsiness. Usually, eating a piece of hard candy or drinking some fruit juice will raise your blood sugar enough to clear up the symptoms. If you do not address hypoglycemia quickly, you can become confused, have seizures or faint. Contact your health care provider immediately if you experience any of the more severe symptoms of hypoglycemia.

Recognize High Blood Sugar

• Taking too little insulin leads to a condition called hyperglycemia, which is marked by extreme hunger, upset stomach and vomiting, extreme thirst, blurred vision, shortness of breath and decreased consciousness. Notify your health care provider if you have these symptoms. Left unaddressed, high blood sugar can result in diabetic ketoacidosis, a potentially fatal breakdown of fatty tissues in the body.

Avoid Drug Interactions

• Two dozen types of medications interact with insulin. Speak with your provider if you take any of the following because you may need to have your dosage of that medication or your insulin adjusted:

  • Alpha blockers such as doxazosin (Cardura from Pfizer) and tamsulosin (Flomax from Boehringer Ingleheim)
  • Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors such as enalapril (e.g., Vasotec from Biovail)
  • Anabolic steroids
  • Appetite suppressants
  • Asparaginase (Elspar from Merck)
  • Aspirin
  • Beta blockers such as carvedilol (Coreg from GlaxoSmithKline)
  • Corticosteroids
  • Diazoxide (e.g., Proglycem from Teva)
  • Diuretics
  • Epinephrine
  • Estrogen
  • Hormonal contraceptives
  • Isoniazid
  • MAO inhibitors such as phenelzine (Nardil from Pfizer)
  • Niacin
  • Octreotide (e.g., Sandostatin from Novartis)
  • Oral diabetes drugs
  • Phenytoin (e.g., Dilantin from Novartis)
  • Quinine
  • Quinidine
  • Sulfa antibiotics
  • Thyroid medications such as levothyroxine (e.g., Synthroid from Abbott)
  • Tranquilizers such chlorpromazine (e.g., Thorazine from GlaxoSmithKline)