New member in need of advice

Hi there. I really need some help figuring out how to help Marmalade. We adopted her back from my father in-law end of June last year. He has early onset dementia and did not realize she was ill. Turns out she had gone a long time with untreated diabetes. We found this out about a week in..when we could see she was not responding to our vets recommendations and she had to be rushed to emergency at midnight on a weekend. They did a great job over the course of a week getting her stabilized. She came home and we were on .5 or half unit injections for a bit then marmalade went into remission. After a good solid 8 weeks of this we then got her the dental surgery she needed as she was in pain and had difficulty eating. Well this has pushed her right back into diabetes. We have been struggling to get her regulated since September now. At first our vet did not want to continue with Lantas that she was on from the urgent care the first time and put her on canisilin.. after about 6 to 8 weeks of this we made the decision to put her back on Lantus. Since then her numbers have some down into the teens and she has also been having large swings.. a drop of 10 in her BG between testing. Currently we have her at 2.0 units and are testing twice a day to be safe as about every 4 to 6 doses she drops to a 10 BG and then she will not receive a shot. We need advice on how to proceed from here.. as when we got her back from urgent care the instructions were simple since the dose was so small. 12 and under meant no shot...which is how we were confident to move forward with treatment. Going from 2 shots a day down to one... then none but with testing to ensure she was still stable. Now at 2 units.. and her large swings... should we be reducing her shot at this point? And wondering how we proceed when she tests at 12 or under.. giving her a smaller dose..any help is greatly appreciated as we need it! Thank you in advance!

 

Welcome Janice and dear Marmalade. You both have had quite a bumpy journey so far. You have come to the right place to learn about feline diabetes, effective treatment and taking steps to help Marmalade to better health and regulation.

First, would you please create a signature for Marmalade so that her information is available when you post.
Setting up your signature (light grey text under a post). Here's how:
click on your name in the upper right corner of this page
click on "signature" in the menu that drops down
type the following in the box that opens: kitty's name/age/date of diabetes diagnosis/insulin you're using and dosage amount /glucose meter you're using/what (s)he eats/any other meds or health issues (s)he has. You can add your name, and a geographic location (sometimes the time zone matters) Be sure to SAVE when you are finished.

Another thing that will help us help you is to set up a spreadsheet like the one we use here. You will see how the trends and patterns emerge, and members can review his/her progress before offering suggestions or advice:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/understanding-the-spreadsheet-grid.156606/

I think it would be very helpful for you to visit the Lantus forum and read the stickies at the top of the page. Please post your questions/concerns/issues there as there are very knowledgeable and experienced members monitoring the forum and they can offer input and suggestions. If you like, you can just copy your message here and paste into a new thread there. If you have your signature and spreadsheet in place (with as much insulin and testing data in place as you can manage) they will have a baseline of information to go on.

We want to help you to provide the best treatment you can for Marmalade, and help you get more balance back into your life as well.

 

Welcome!

There is a great group here and many people that have a lot of knowledge to help you get Marmalade feeling better.

There is a lot to take in, but you are in the right place!

 

Thank you! I will do that this weekend.. in the meantime I was lucky enough to connect with someone in the community who gave me some great tips that are working immediately! Changed marmalade’s food to Fancy Feast Pate and got her off the Vet DM food. Reducing her shot by half at the same time to one unit. Then she did not need a shot for 2 readings in a row. Now to be safe I only did a half unit tonight. I do have a huge spreadsheet so I will up load that. right now we are so relieved that she’s not having huge swings. I also learned some amazing tips to save some money. I had been paying $100 for 50 test strips ... and had to pay my vet for the monitor as well. Turns out Costco has much better value. I have also learned a lot from this forum before I signed up...although there is so much information and I am still learning... but feel lucky that there is a community like this to help!

 

You were able to connect with someone in this community on the board? The change to low carb food does make a difference, but be careful to keep testing her as this can have significant effects on the BG, as you have discovered. The huge swings Marmalade was having were probably bounces, and someone from the Lantus forum could tell you about that better than I can.

Please set up the spreadsheet that we use here, we are used to the format and the color coding, and the experienced members can take a fairly quick view and see what's going on. Then, they can examine the numbers in more detail.

I'm very glad you found another source for test strips, wow, $100 for 50 is prohibitive! Many of us use human meters because of the affordability of meter and strips.

Regarding dosing, again, you would do better to post in the Lantus forum. This Intro forum is only the welcome mat, and you will be better guided by the experienced Lantus users. All I know is that Lantus works better with consistent dosing in each cycle, and less well with skipping doses. It is a depot insulin, so some is used right away and some is stored for release later. It is usually recommended to increase or decrease doses in small increments, but the Lantus wise people will want to see your testing and shooting data.

So that you don't under or over dose now that Marmalade is doing better, please consult with the Lantus members.

 

thank you so much. I finally got the spreadsheet down as I could not upload my existing spreadsheet so I re-typed everything. Hopefully I did it OK. appreciate the advice. i will figure out how to properly navigate this website as it is very comprehensive and this is a new forum for me.

 

Janice, you had to type in so much, argh! Thank you!

I can read the spreadsheet, but I'm going to tag a member that is a whiz with them to help out. As you can see your BG results are in the mmol/L format, in the US tab. She can help get the "world" numbers you use into the World tab and that will translate to the numbers we use here in the US. @Marje and Gracie

Could you add to the signature or profile where you are geographically, so that we know what country you are in please?

I love looking at your avatar, Marmalade has such a winsome look on her lovely face. She is adorable.
Just take your time to learn to navigate the board. Click on the different forums and see what's going on. It's a whole new world and it's easy to get a bit overwhelmed with the amount of information here.

 

Great you got that set up. I took a peek and am a little confused. Are you in the US or another country? Reason I ask is the BG readings look like they may be outside US readings and that sheet has formulas for US numbers. You know how the Americans have to do everything different and confuse the rest of the world, blood readings are no exception.

I am copying @Marje and Gracie to help you. She is our resident expert on spreadsheets.

 

Oh my gosh I hope i have the right spreadsheet as I worked on it for so long. I am in Ontario Canada.

 

Oops, you responded with the same thing I did..I was not typing fast enough. Lol

 

thank you so much for helping with the spreadsheet! i have been at it for hours..LOL of course I messed it up! Marmalade we are absolutely in love with and she is coming more out of her shell everyday. She is a champ with testing and needles. I can't imagine what she must of thought when all of this happened. She was sick and living by herself with my father in law... then emergency...spoon fed for awhile to get her to eat.. so sequestered from our other two cats. Then starts to feel better and has to go through dental surgery. So after all that we feel lucky she still gives us a chance to cuddle her and such. She must know we are helping her.

 

We have a lot of members from Canada. I wish I was from Canada, seems like the people are nice, beautiful country, and they don’t have an idiot leading the country like we do in the US... Dont worry we will get you fixed up on the spreadsheet, hopefully it is an easy fix.

You are doing great, hang in there!

 

If she is feeling better, I think they know the people that love them have something to do with it.

 

Thank you!

 

She's a lovely little furbaby. Maybe she does know you are helping her, and is soaking up the love and attention. You are a wonderful momma bean to take her in and care for her so well.

 

Welcome to you and Miss Marmalade!

I need to fix your SS for you

Please check your inbox (Upper right corner of this page) and I’ll send you a private message.

 

You cannot be more exact than correct !!!
Welcome