New to the board looking for help

Hi everyone, my name is Mike my cat Mickey (4yo) was diagnosed 2-2-2018 bg was upper 500s. My vet put him on vetsulin and recommended I give him 2 units once a day. Mickey had been eating 2 cans of fancy feast a day plus dry food, vet suggested I take away dry food and told me to try dm wet. After a week I returned to the vet he tested him again bg was again upper 500s. He suggested 3 units once a day. At this point I started looking around for more info but still continued with the vets recommdation of 3 units once daily. I read about home testing so ordered an alpha trak which arrived on 2-15. I contacted the vet after first home test on 2-15 he said to increase dose from 3units once a day to 2 units twice a day. I began home testing as often as possible and reporting the bg#s to my vet who in turn. Are suggestions about dosing. Having found this board and reading some of the vetsulin dosing threads I quickly began to lose faith in my vets advice. It seems like he had me increasing the dose too quickly. I started a spreadsheet this morning. It began 2-15 the first day I got my alpha trak. One thing to note the increase from 3 units twice daily to 3.5 units was my decision as my vet suggested to go from 3 units twice daily to 4 units twice daily. This morning mickeys bg was only 104 so I skipped his dose. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I have no faith in my vet at this point. Thanks, mike

 

Welcome! Great job jumping in to take control of things. The once a day dosing the vet had you at on first sounds very odd, especially since Vetsulin is only 'intermediate' in it's duration. And, I would agree with you that he jumped doses too far too fast. I am not personally familiar with Vetsulin, but looking at your spreadsheet, I think the 2 unit dose should have been given more of a chance. 2/16 looked pretty good, then the very next day, the dose was raised. Then, it was raised again the next day. It looks like his nadir is happening sooner on the 3.5 dose and the PM pre-shot numbers are consistently much higher than the AM... now, the AM was even too low to give a shot. These things can sometimes mean the dose is too high.

This is really just a welcome forum, so you may want to post your questions/concerns on the main health forum. There is also a Vetsulin forum where there are 'sticky' posts that you will want to read, if you have not already.

 

Welcome to the forum. Vetsulin when used for dogs is usually once a day.in kitties is done with 2X a day because of their faster metabolism. The recommended starting dose for kitties is 1-2 units. Good for you to start home testing. You can already see that the higher dose is taking your kitty down hard and fast to lower numbers which only causes the numbers to jump up much higher.

This is a sticky on Vetsulin..also called Caninsulin in some countries. There is good information and it is well worth the read.

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/beginners-guide-to-novolin-humulin-nph.186097/

There are a number of experienced Vetsulin/Caninsulin users on this forum and you can post specific questions either on the

Health Forum:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/feline-health-the-main-forum.28/

or on the Caninsulin/Vetsulin Forum

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/caninsulin-vetsulin-and-n-nph.19/

 

Thanks for the replies and the info! I pasted the thread into te vetsulin forum.

 

I agree with furbabiesmama that the dose is too high. It's causing him to go low quickly which signals your cats body to release stored glucose to protect itself causing it to bounce back up. If it were my cat I'd go back to 2-2.5 units and hold it for a week and see what happens.

The suggestion your vet had to ditch the dry food was good. Dm food however is expensive and no better than grocery store foods. Most of us feed fancy feast classic or Friskies pate foods.

You are doing awesome by home testing right away, and I think you'll find the spreadsheet a super useful tool.

 

Mike has posted over on the Vetsulin Forum :

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/looking-for-dosing-advice.191653/

@JanetNJ maybe you can give your insight into dosing for Mickey.