7/8 Mickey

PMPS 343 we are sticking in the 300's. How many days do we stay here? Is this normal? Thanks

edited to say: I am not tenting his skin very well. He has alot of it but it is stretched by fat and I think I am hurting him. He is flinching. Or does he know its coming.

 

It may take a few days or more for the insulin to have some effect. Tinkles was in the 500s (or higher) for a week before we got any response. I know it's hard, but try to be patient.

If you are shooting the insulin into the fat layer, it may be affecting absorption. Where are you injecting?

 

Laurie, I am shooting inbetween the shoulder blades. Just does not seem easy this time. :roll:

 

One thing I have learned in all of this is to not always look at what is going wrong, but pick out the things that are going right! For instance - you haven't seen another 400 number since starting insulin!

If there are no ketones present - when starting out I would really recommend staying at a dose for 4-5 days before you up the dose. It helps the body settle into getting insulin help. After a while, you can adjust more frequently (every 2-3 days). This helped us to some extent. We started seeing flatter curves instead of a prevalence of inverse ones.

 

I really agree with sticking to the dose for at least 5 days in the beginning. It takes time for the cat to adjust to getting insulin. I didn't change dose for the first 2 weeks and Tinkles had some very high numbers, over 600. He did begin to respond after the first week, but it takes time, patience is very important.

In our experience, ProZinc is a quirky insulin, the more you jump around with the dose, the more confused and frustrated you will get. Small, infrequent dose changes work the best, especially in the beginning. It can take several days to see the effect of the dose change, so if you change every 2-3 days, you may not be giving the dose a chance to settle. I know others may suggest different timing on dose changes, but that has been our experience with ProZinc, specifically.

As far as injection location, I'm not sure if that is a poor absorption area, I know the scruff of the neck is a bad spot. I inject along the side of the back, between the front and back legs and about an inch down from the spine. Since Mickey is a heavy cat, you may be having issues with injecting into the fat layer, which delays absorption from what I remember reading. You could try changing where you inject and see if that helps with response, but I'm not sure where to tell you to try. Maybe someone else has a suggestion?

 

Which syringes are you using? If you are using U100 syringes (with the conversion chart), they come in 5/16 and 1/2 inch needle lengths. Sounds like you need the longer ones. In our experience, injection spots closer to the belly seem to absorb best.

 

I'm using u-40 1/2 inch..Now what happens if you inject in the scruff? I do believe that is where I got him tonight. If not there almost close.