Newly diagnosed kitty

Hi all -

My sweet girl, Emma, is going to be starting on insulin this week. We've known she has been diabetic for a couple of years now, but have been able to control it with diet until recently. I noticed her becoming more hungry a couple of weeks ago and checked her BG a few times (we thought we were going to start insulin 2 years ago, so I had to learn how to test her, and I'm pretty comfortable with it now). Her fasting BG was 327 over the weekend, so we went to the vet on Monday and had it confirmed that it's time to start insulin. I have an appointment with the vet nurse tomorrow afternoon to learn how to administer it, and I know that her initial dose will be 1 unit of lantus once a day. I'll be home keeping an eye on her all weekend. My vet has asked me to test pre-shot, then at 6 and 12 hours.

She also has CRF, but her kidney values are all normal right now with 50 mL of sub-Q's every other day.

I'll be doing lots of reading on here over the next few days I'm sure. Any advice anyone can offer us starting out on this journey would be greatly appreciated! :mrgreen:

 

Although it's a longer acting insulin, Lantus should be dosed twice daily, 12 hours apart, for cats. With a fasting BG of only 327 (is that an average?) please speak with your vet about a lower starting dose, such as .5U, twice daily.

We have a section of the boards called the Insulin Support Groups and the Lantus section is very prominent there with experienced members who can explain how Lantus works, why the starting dose is important and what the resulting BG numbers mean.
viewforum.php?f=9

Glad you're home testing. Welcome to FDMB!

 

Welcome to the MB. I, too, have a newly diagnosed kitty, named Blackie. She's 10, and was diagnosed in March. She was on Glipizide for a while, then was switched to Vetsulin. Later, we found out that the company wasn't going to be manufacturing Vetsulin anymore, and now we're giving her ProZinc. She was given 8 units 2x a day, until she hypo-ed this past Tuesday. Immediately dropped her dosage to 1 unit 2x a day, and immediately changed her diet from the Hill's Prescription W/D wet to Fancy Feast Classic (prior to last Saturday, she was eating the Hill's Prescription W/D dry 2x a day). She's now on the FF wet, and I'll be cooking up some dark meat chicken (that's all I have at the moment) for her as a treat. She'd love that.

I think once the ProZinc is almost at the bottom, I'll talk to the vet about putting her on Lantus instead, and see what happens with that.

This board has helped and is still helping me work with Blackie and her diabetes. I was also very fortunate enough to have met someone on here who lives about 1 hour's drive from me. She taught me how to home test Blackie so that I can figure out what's going on with her glucose levels on a daily basis.

You've come to the right place.

 

Thanks Vicky and Angela.

I will talk to the vet about adjusting the dose to 0.5U twice a day. She seems pretty amenable to my ideas in other areas, so I think she'll listen. I've tried things that initially seem a little wacky to her, but they've worked so I think she trusts me, at least a little.

The 327 is a number that's stuck in my head; it's not the average, but the 3 times I tested her BG, they were all right around there, and the vet had a number in the low 330s when we went on Monday.

 

Welcome! So glad to hear you are already hometesting!

Be sure your reading includes the Lantus Insulin Support group page - particularly all the stickies on the top: viewforum.php?f=9 You might even print some off and take to your vet.