New-ish with a question

Freckles, affectionately known as our "bunny cat" for his youthful leaping/jumping abilities, is now 11 years old. Last summer he began losing weight despite a very healthy appetite and our diligent efforts to provide a proper diet. He eats only canned food and most of it is grain free. He loves Max Cat. His peeing ability was epic and his more sedentary behavior all sent me to our vet, whose office specializes in treating only felines. In late August he was diagnosed diabetic with glucose over 500 and started insulin on Sept. 1.

After much trepidation, both Freckles and I have muddled through the prescribed twice daily injections of Prozinc and occasional glucose tests. The vet had us start with 1 unit which wasn't enough, moved to 2, then 3, which was too much. Got readings of 73-105, so we settled on about 2 2/3 units which gave us more reasonable mid-way readings. They have not told me to do a true curve, so I do readings prior to injections and one mid-way between them. This has worked fairly well. The mid reading is usually between 140-220.

However, recently the mid numbers have increased to the high 200s, and I am close to the bottom of the first insulin vial. I theorized that the solution might not be as potent as the vial empties. I gave the next injection using the new vial I had ready to use, and his next mid reading was 150----right where the vet wants it. Has anyone else found that a near empty vial of Prozinc leads to higher readings? I always roll the vial as directed by the instructions, but is there some other trick I should be using?

 

Are you refrigerating it?
Are there any floaters in it? If yes, pitch the old vial.

 

Yes, it has been refrigerated the entire time. And I do not see any floaters in the old vial. I simply won't use it any more, but was hoping to get some explanation.

 

Hey there, how old was the vial. I had a vial from May to mid Sept. and the potency was fine, however, when I opened the new vial, I reduced the dose a smidge because the new vial's efficacy could be more powerful as you experienced. My old vial was averaging about 1.5 units twice daily. So glad that you are testing. It is so important to keep "bunny cat" safe. If you could set up a spread sheet like we all use here and do a curve one day when you are home all day and plug the numbers into the SS, that would be very helpful and the peeps here could help you with dosing. Our spreadsheet instructions are here

The spreadsheet looks daunting but it is really not hard.

AMPS is the AM Pre-shot test (always test before shooting to make sure they're high enough to give insulin)...then the U column is for "Units" (how much you gave)

The +1, +2, +3, etc are for how many hours since shooting...so +2 is 2 hours after the AM shot, +9 is 9 hour after, etc.....Since we're all over the world here, saying "he was at 148 at 8pm" doesn't tell us anything...we need to know how long since his last shot

At the end of a 12 hour cycle, it's PMPS time! (PM Pre-shot) and the whole thing starts over.

Hope this helps you.

 

Welcome to the message board, the best place you never wanted to be.

There are 4 things you'll need to manage your kitty's diabetes:
- You - without your commitment, the following won't work.
- Home blood glucose monitoring with an inexpensive human glucometer such as the WalMart Relion Confirm or Target Up and Up (the pet ones will break your budget!). This saves you the cost of going to the vet for curves and done regularly, removes the need for a fructosamine test. All of our insulin guidelines use human glucometer numbers for reference.
- Low carb over the counter canned or raw diet, such as many Friskies pates. See Cat Info for more info. If already on insulin, you must be home testing before changing the diet. Food changes should be gradual to avoid GI upsets - 20-25% different food each day until switched. There are 2 low carb, dry, over the counter foods in the US - Evo Cat and Kitten dry found at pet specialty stores and Young Again 0 Carb found online.
- A long-lasting insulin such as ProZinc, Lantus, BCP PZI, or Levemir. No insulin lasts 24 hours in the cat, so giving it every 12 hours is optimal for control.