Dosing of N

Can someone tag me in the info on dosing N insulin. I'm confused in navigating this board. We were late getting Mitzie her shot this morning. Her test at 11:45 read 305. It was 12:09 by the time we got her calm (after multiple failed ear sticks for the test) and were able to get the insulin into her. We gave her the vet's RX dose of 1 unit but I don't want her dropping to 47 like she did yesterday. Help me figure out how and when to dose. We're only 2 weeks into this journey.

 

Here is the beginner's guide to NPH/N

Do you have a spreadsheet or any way for us to look at Mitzis testing info so we can help you with dosing? If you see mine below (Panic's Spreadsheet) this is the kind of info we need.

 

Hi Jill,

That Beginner's Guide to Novolin/Humulin/NPH insulin that member Panic referred you to is over in the specific Insulin Support Group that is titled Caninsulin/Vetsulin and N/NPH.

Not many people here that have a lot of experience with using the NPH type insulins.

 

So the order of Test, Feed, wait for food to take effect, then Shoot is even more important with the N type insulins. Waiting until after your cat has fed, at least 45-60 minutes can help to slow down the rapid and steep drop that occurs with the fast acting insulins (NPH and Vetsulin/Caninsulin).

 

Ooooh we tested, shot then fed. See still learning. Monday will be 2 weeks since DX.

 

No spreadsheets yet. Monday will be 2 weeks DX and the vet didn't recommend home testing. After reading in the Facebook group how important it was we just started to test yesterday.

 

I will definitely hunt that down a d read through it.

 

Here is the link to the document. Beginner's Guide to Novolin/Humulin/NPH

Click on the blue highlighted text and it will take you directly to the document.

 

Perfect. Thank you.

 

If you have any questions let us know. Like Deb said, most members here have little or no experience with Novolin due to it not being very effective in cats. I very briefly had my cat on it when we first started. It's a very harsh insulin with fast, steep drops. If you got a 47 already you need to reduce your dose, you don't want to go under 90 on that particular insulin.

 

Wink was on the N insulin first while he was still at the shelter, for about 3 weeks. But then he was switched to Lantus and the absolutely wrong high carb cat food (Hill's W/D dry - 37% carbs). That was way back at the end of 2012 that he was on the Humulin N though, so my experience is very old.

Humulin N and Novolin N are both NPH types of insulin and work pretty much the same. Can be slight differences since they are made by different companies.

The most common issues with the NPH insulins are they don't last long enough (6-8 hours is pretty common before the BG levels shoot rapidly back up) so your cat is in high numbers most of the time and the N insulins drop the BG levels very rapidly ( 300+ to 100 or less in an hour or two) so there is greater risk of symptomatic hypo.

The only hypo symptom Wink showed was dilated pupils, non-reactive to light. Fortunately, he did not have trembling, seizures or fall into a coma.

 

Without data it's impossible to be very specific about dosing however if you got a reading of 47 yesterday, then the dose DEFINITELY needs to be reduced. Since you are still learning to test I'd reduce the dose to 0.5u for now until testing is a little more consistent.

It's important to test BEFORE you give insulin every time. If BG is below 200 on a human meter or about 250 on the AT meter, stall, don't feed and retest to see if BG is rising on it's own. It's also important to get tests mid cycle to see how low a dose is dropping BG. At night make it a habit to at the bare minimum, get a test before bed every night as most kitties have a tendency to go lower at night than they do during the day.

It would be very helpful if you could set up a signature (the light grey text below our messages) with information about you and your kitty. You should include your name, your kitty's name, date of diagnosis, type of insulin, type of glucometer, any other health issues and a general location or time zone.

To set up a signature, hover your mouse over your user name in the upper right screen. This drops down a menu from which you can pick Signature in the left column. A text box will open up and you can type in your info there. When done, scroll down and click on "save changes" and you are done.

When you are ready, setting up one of our spreadsheets to track the readings you are taking will help us help you. We can help you set that up if you'd like.