? (R) Bolus? Basal and booster? What do these mean?

Hi - can someone please tell me what this means? I read it somewhere on the "Acrotracker" spreadsheet. "...aside from upping dose of basal and booster as needed"

My Baby had her blood drawn today to check her IGF-1 and IAA. She's up to 7.5u Lantus BID. The vet mentioned possibly adding a short-acting insulin to the mix and I think that's what this "R" is that I keep reading?

 

I'll explain it a bit but others can go further in depth.

'R' insulin - 'Regular' insulin - very fast acting and strong but short lasting

Basal insulin - your regular insulin, in your case, Lantus

'Booster' or 'Bolus' - an additional insulin given at the appropriate time in the cycle of the basal to help bring down numbers more. It should not be done unless there's a real need such as Acro or IAA. It should only be done with lots of support and knowledge of how to safely do it. We have several very experienced people here.

That's about the most I can answer...

HUGS,

 

Lantus or Levemir are more gentle inslins, and good at keeping lower numbers flat. They aren't as good at "yanking" down the numbers. R or Regular insulin typically lasts around four hours. It can help, if given at the right time of the cycle to lower the numbers enough to give the L insulins a better number to work with.

As Lyressa said, typically we would get an experienced person the work closely with you the first few times you use R. You do have to be cautious with it, and learn when not to use it in addition to when is a good time to use it. Once you have the test results back, we can set up some people and times to work with you, should you wish to do that.

It's great that your vet seems knowledgeable about using R with the Lantus.

 

Thank you, Wendy. I will post when the results are in. I'm pretty sure she has one or both of these conditions. She's hovering mostly in the 300's, sometimes in the 200's (on the Relion). Not a single blue number so far. Which R insulin do most people use for their acro/iaa kitties?

 

I used Humulin R, but I live in Canada. In the US, I seem to remember best prices are at Walmart. Humulin R = Novolin R.