Max and Mom

Good Evening all,

My cat Max was recently diagnosed with diabetes. He had pancreatitis as well. He was placed on vetsulin, and, over the course of the next 6-8 weeks, slowly increased dosage to 4 units 2 x’s/day. I have been doing research to try to better understand this disease, which lead me here. I am very thankful to find this board and group of people, who we hope can help us through this struggle.

Max is a Russian Blue, who came to us from a shelter along with his buddy, Kip. I am a working Mom with 2 college students, one at home, one away. Max and Kip have been in our lives since we lost our tuxedo cat in 2010. Mac has had other health issues during this time, but it was this past fall when he was diagnosed.

His sugar levels have remained fairly constant around 350. He is down in weight, spry due to his new found therapy of jumping on my counters, and has a current kill rate for dishes, bowls are preferred, at 10 in 4 weeks. Note: prior to beginning insulin treatment, his ratio was 1 in 8 years.

He is just starting ProZinc today, so we are hoping to see a drop in his sugar levels over the next couple of weeks. Help is welcome. I look forward to chatting with everyone soon,

Max’ Mom - Cheryl

 

Welcome to the FDMB! We are glad you and Max found us!

Increasing to 4u after only 6-8 weeks is a lot as we only increase doses, even with Vetsulin, by 0.25u to 0.5u at a time, depending on the BG level.

Are you hometesting? What has your vet recommended for the PZ starting dose?

Here (click on the dark blue for the link) is how to use the board.

The next step is to post on the Main Health board where you can learn to hometest, if you aren’t already doing so, you can do a Spreadsheet, and you can discuss foods, etc before starting to post on the PZ board.

You’ll also want to read How You Can Help Us Help You.

 

Thank you! I am reading materials on the forum first. Printed copy of hypo instructions along with hypo kit recommendations. Moving through how you can help us doc and FAQs right now.

 

Wonderful! Please let us know your questions. We have a tremendous amount of experience in treating feline diabetes successfully.

 

Hi. I'm Sylvia and my diabetic is George. He was diagnosed this past Sept. 6th, with a blood glucose of slightly over 600. They started him on 3U of Lantus, every 12 hours. He is now on 1U every 12 hours. Wow, 4U twice daily is a lot of insulin. I would not do that. You can always increase it! I have a home monitor but have not had to use it yet. I know my cat. Lol. He did have an extremely low blood glucose about 2 weeks ago. That's when he was on the 3U twice daily. He just kept looking up at the ceiling and was very disoriented. His blood glucose was 38. Scared me soooo much. I grabbed him and ran to the Vet. Gave him sugar and food. Better to have high BG than low.

 

Sylvia

Your advice could be dangerous for Max. There are some cats who do need this much insulin or more. We do not give dosing advice without seeing hometesting BGs.

We are also all about hometesting here as recommended by the American Animal Hospital Association.

Many, many cats show no signs of low numbers. If you had been testing your kitty, you would have seen the numbers dropping. You are very lucky that he was ok because we’ve had new members come here when their cat was dangerously low and the cat didn’t make it.

While your intentions might be good, giving this kind of dosing advice with very little experience of your own and no BGs for Max is potentially harmful.

 

@Sylvia Sheaffer

I couldn't agree with Marje more. Before you dispense advice, I'd encourage you to review the post pertaining to Suggestions for Advice Givers.

 

Thank you all! I am working through forums and will be setting up a SS for Max this weekend and will get it into signature line. We are on a 1unit of PZ after no changes in BG from vetsulin. His AMPS was 376 this morning. He is down to 12.5 lbs..about right weight according to the vet. I have started testing before shot and moved schedule up slightly so I am able to get a +1 after the shot. Also working to transition Max to a low carb diet as I have recently learned the raw food supplier in town has medium to high carb food rather than low carb diet.

 

It’s difficult to say if dropping the dose to 1u with PZ was a good idea or not without us seeing a SS. Typically, when we switch insulins (other than switching between Lantus and Levemir or vice-versa), we start the dose of the new insulin at the same amount as the dose of the old insulin that was working.

In other words let’s say you were testing and at 4u of Vetsulin, he was still seeing BGs (again an example) in the 200s. Then we would start him on 4u of PZ. It really boils down to whether you have any data for what his BG was on Vetsulin. I would urge you to get the SS going as soon as possible; I’d be glad to help or do it for you if you have any problems with it if you send me a private message by clicking on “Marje and Gracie” to the left and then “start a conversation”. If you are testing and entering data on a SS, and we see his BG is too high, we can fast track the PZ dose up every couple of cycles.

 

H Marje,

That’s just it, the vetsulin wasn’t working which is why the vet switched him to ProZinc. We’ve just started this and I have yet to run a curve on Max. I just bought a ReliOn prime meter today and will be able to now monitor before shots and +1. Tonight I will take a +3, as my son fed the cat and “insulated” him this evening as I was away. In process on spreadsheet atm and will attach it shortly to my signature.