04/17 Fat Albert - First full day without dry food

AMPS 304, +4 149

Made the full transition today as I'll be home a bunch over the next 5 days so I can monitor and see how he's doing. Hoping to see more blue and green soon!

 

Well, if your +4 is any indication, the switch to 100% canned food seems to be making a difference.

 

Good luck with the new food regime, I hope he keeps coming down, but slowly.

How is FA taking to the new diet? And acting in general?

 

Thanks for asking! FA seems to be doing well. He loves his wet food and he hasn't seemed to miss being able to graze today yet - but that may still come. We have the automatic wet food feeder set up so he hopefully won't think that we are starving him! Hi behavior has been good, he appears to be quite content. Usually when his BG levels are high he behaves quite badly and is super wild so we like the lower levels!

 

Love the colouring on your boy!

 

Here is the link to your previous post for connectivity http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/going-away-dosing-advice.213150/#post-2361369

Did you ever manage to get the insulin syringes? I suspect you will be needing them soon for finer dosing.

 

I am suspecting the same. I am going to stop at the pharmacy later today to see if I can pick some up, I don't think I need a prescription in IN. We still have our lantus pens, so we will be using them as the vial. Is there anything additional that we need to know about doing that?

 

Are you keeping the pens in the fridge? You aren't supposed to do that with opened pens if using the needles, but you can if all you are going to use is syringes. The Sticky Note on insulin care and syringe info has a video on getting insulin from a pen using a syringe.

 

What is the reasoning for this? I tried to do some research on it and can't find a clear explanation other than - the manufacturer doesn't recommend it. We are currently keeping them in the fridge but we actually have received conflicting information from our vet regarding this topic. Initially the vet tech told us to keep the pen that we were using out of the fridge, however after a couple months I was reading the pen and noticed that it said to discard after 28 days so I asked the vet about the insulin's effectiveness after that point and she said we should keep it in the fridge if it's going to last longer than 28 days... So again, another topic where we are likely not getting the right info

Also, I picked up insulin syringes this afternoon so we now have the capability to do partial doses. We are probably going to continue on 3 units for the next couple of days as it is. I am a bit nervous to try out the syringes for the first time but thanks for the heads up on the sticky note, I just read through it and it it will help!

 

The pen mechanism is not supposed to work as well if refrigerated. You may have been lucky.

Now that you have transitioned to low carb wet food, you can decide if you want to stick with SLGS or move to Tight Regulation for your dosing method. SLGS says to hold the dose for seven days.

 

Ah! Well we definitely noticed from the very beginning that there seems to be a delay with the pen and we do have to hold the needle in for a good 10-20 seconds so I wonder if that's due to the refrigeration.

I think we have to stick with SLGS for now. I am starting a new job in just over a week and don't know what my flexibility will be like - currently I can work from home almost whenever I want but won't be able to do that with the new job. We will hold the dose until next Thursday, which will be my last day in my current office and then I can use my extra day off on Friday + the weekend to make adjustments if necessary.

 

In that case, could you include SLGS in your signature, so people know at a glance. Know that you can change later if you decide you want to.

 

Done!

And your prediction from earlier about this evening being an active cycle is on point! Very happy to see some blue tonight!

 

Thank you Wendy for bringing that up.
The instructions that came in my Solostar box were not in English so I looked online and must have read for the vial instead of the pen.
Taking it out of the fridge now.

I would let the syringe with the insulin drawn come to room temp.

 

@Bear & Lora It's only a problem if you are using the pen with pen needles. Otherwise, store it in the fridge.