Other Options for Pincushions Everywhere

The mainstays R and N are not the only injectable insulin types, only those most commonly used.
The only other I have used as an adult is "70/30." This is a cheat if claimed as a truly "other" kind, as it is a premixed formula of R and N with a balance of 30% regular and 70% N. It is a convenience product for me, as I normally inject 80-85% N. If I wake with the sugar feeling low or am resigned to taking an evening dose of insulin when the sugar is low, I will skip the R entirely so as to avoid a blood sugar lowering kick.
I took Lente insulin instead of NPH as a young child, until about the age of 12 when new doctors switched me to NPH during a total retooling of the disease management. Lenta, in comparison to NPH, kicks in slightly later and lasts longer before totally petering out. I don’t remember specific bodily effects, but a nighttime shot was considered something to be avoided. Any nighttime necessity was impressed on me as something bad. When I think of my lack of growth from First to Third grades, I have no doubt that the entire attitude about the sugar was bullshit, a holdover of antiquated times when diabetes management amounted to starving the patients.
An "Ultra-lente" insulin is also available. I never used it. Quick research reports that it doesn’t kick in for six hours or more and can last 36 hours.
The R, N, 70/30, L and are natural insulins manufactured from "recombinant" technology, based on human organic compounds. I used insulin derived from pork and beef pancreas until about 1997. With the human insulin –called Humulin– having been developed and patented in the 1980’s, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company made a concentrated effort to make pork and beef insulin obsolete with massive price gouging that made it cheaper for the self-pay patients like me to switch ro humulin. I definitely remember that a vial of animal insulin was $10.00 in 1992. The same vial approached or exceeded $20.00 by 1997, and had perhaps exceeded the price of humulin. Then Eli Lilly and its fine company just stopped making old-time insulin because it was no longer cost effective to make for "so few" patients. Lobbying of doctors helped force the migration of patients to the patented product.
The other types of insulin for Type Ones and the Twos who must or choose to inject are chemically modified formulas. All of these use the word "insulin" before the trade names: Aspart, Glargine, and Lispro. Glargine was engineered to act over a more 24-hour duration.
Aspart and Lispro were both engineered to be faster acting than Regular insulin, and to use themselves up faster. The invention of these patented formulas coincides almost perfectly with the push by doctors to manage diabetes only with fast acting insulin injected directly before meals. On the most general principles based on more-than-average but not academic knowledge, the inject-only-upon-meal theory of diabetes management benefits the pharmaceutical companies and their allies of syringe, lancet, and test strip manufacturers more than it could benefit patients.