ProZinc

Hi everyone,
I was just wondering if I could get some opinions on ProZinc. I have to start it tomorrow on Trina & I am worried about it. She has been diabetic for 4 years & started on PZI, when it was discontinued she was put on Vetsulin. She has done great on both of these insulins. But from the research I'm doing ProZinc is made of human recombinant insulin & the others she has taken were made from beef or pork. I also read that human insulin is the most NOT like a cats normal insulin. Beef is supposed to be the closet to a cats normal insulin. So I am nervous about starting Trina on ProZinc tomorrow & am praying she has a smooth transition. I would appreciate hearing anyones experience with ProZinc. (I hope I hear good results!!!!) Thank you

 

Hi,

Well I am new here but my cat Toes is on his second week of taking Prozinc. He started out at 2 1/2 units twice a day, and has already been lowered to 1 1/2 units twice a day. We have had no problems whatsoever and he is responding really well.

Good luck to you!
Erin

 

maui was on lantus, however last month I had a house guest - Alexia's Blue and it was my first exposure to prozinc - he did really well on it, go check out his SS and you will see that he is now almost OTJ as a result.

With Blue, we experimented with carb % and handled his steep drops that way.

The only thing I didn't like about prozinc was Blue had steep drops in the first three hours and then raised up.

Aside from that, it was an easy insulin and a forgiving one, in the sense of not having to shoot on time and skipping shots. With Blue, because he needed less than 1 unit, I found it easier to use the U100 syringes on him and do the conversion rather than the U40. He liked the syringe better as the needle was thinner and smaller.

Overall, I am positive about this insulin.

 

Thanks Hillary & Maui! Thank you for all the info. about Blue & ProZinc!! Do you mean during his steep drops you gave him a higher carb food to eat?
Trina has always done wonderful on one shot a day. So I"m supposed to give her 2 units tomorrow morning. I'm just worried that it won't work as good as her PZI & Vetsulin did. I'll have to say lots of prayers. Trina has also recently been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism so she takes pills for that & she also started taking an antihistamine because something out of the blue was making her scratch her face badly. My little angel Trina has quite a few issues going on! Hopefully the insulin transition goes well!

 

missy, are you able to shoot twice a day? insulin does not last that long in most cats, so with one shot a day your cat is basically going without insulin for half the time. it's not super healthy for a diabetic.

i was worried about switching to what i considered a more artificial insulin too when i went to lantus from pzi vet. but so far so good after almost 2 years. in our case her curves went a little flatter, which i think makes them feel better (no big bounces). but i did miss what i considered PZI Vet's great flexibility and ability to get her numbers down faster if she was running high. really, until you make the switch you won't really know how your cat will do but in most cases they do great.

blue was an interesting case in that he did show big drops at the beginning of the shot cycle with prozinc. his nadir was much earlier than that of most cats. so a slightly higher carb at shot time (versus later in the day) helped mellow his starting numbers a bit more and move his nadir later. he's really an example of ECID, every cat is different, so you adjust as you go along. (as his dose got lower he went back to lower carbs and is doing fantastic)

 

Hi Chris,
I"m not sure if I'm able to shoot twice a day. My vet has always had me do once a day. I give her shot at 6:00am & when we go for glucose checks at the vet at 6:00pm her number is around 100. She has not acted like she's going without insulin for half the time. I mean she hasn't acted starving or thirsty like her sugar got high after 12 hours. Understanding everything can be a bit confusing!
That is wonderful your kitty is doing so good on Lantus. Just curious, is Lantus also a human insulin?
Thanks for your info.!!

 

My cat was on PZI for almost two years when the vet said the supply in the area was gone so we moved to ProZinc. For *my* cat we've had nothing but problems. She's gained four pounds (up to 14 from 10 and 10 is her healthy weight) and her readings have been all over the place. I'm having a mental crisis right now so I don't know what to do and honestly, in my opinion, the ProZinc has something to do with it. IMPORTANT: these problems are specific to my cat so they may not apply to yours.

 

LGoddess, that is not good news to hear. I feel really bad for you & your kitty. I think I would have a mental crisis also if Trina's numbers were all over the place. I thought I read somewhere that BCP PZI is available through Canada. And I thought that was supposed to be a similar insulin to PZI. I'm not sure though. Maybe your kitty would do well on that.

 

yes, lantus is also the type of insulin meant to replicate human insulin.

i think it's become pretty well known in the vet world that cats need insulin at least every 12 hours. [example: http://www.vet.cornell.edu/fhc/brochures/diabetes.html -- ignore the part about glipizide. it's an option for feral cats that won't allow injections but may damage the possibility of remission.]
a small minority get insulin once a day, but generally it seems to happen as a cat goes into remission or whose pancreas is mostly healed.
normally if a dose has extra duration we lower it in order to shoot twice daily and keep the cat's blood glucose readings more even.

are you able to learn to home test? we have tips/tricks listed here on FDMB. it's really the safest way to know how our cats are doing before and after they get insulin, and can even let us know if other health issues emerge (say, if the readings change dramatically). it also saves thousands of dollars in vet bills. no more curves at the vet if you can home test!

i was very nervous about changing to lantus from pzi vet. it took me over 6 months to take the leap, but i'm glad i did. it'll take time to learn a new insulin, but as PZI Vet is not being made any more lots of people had to either stock up or switch. our lantus group here is pretty well organized and has a protocol to follow, but i have a good feeling about prozinc as well.

 

Chris, I really wish PZI Vet was never discontinued!!!! But sounds like lantus does very well for you. That's great! I really should learn how to hometest I just don't know if I can do it! I will look into it though!
I sure am praying Trina does well on ProZinc! Thanks for your help!

 

Home testing isn't so bad! Dollbaby has gotten used to her shots. She is sometimes passively resistant to having her ears pricked (meaning she'll flick her ear away), but she doesn't fight me as if I was putting her in the tub!

 

the trick to home testing: snacks and a LOT of praise (whether the number is high or low).
if you have multiple cats, they will ALL look forward to ear testing time because they get little treats too.
a good treat is a temptation or two or a little piece of chicken or two just boiled in plain water til the pink's out.
practice on anything, even a leaf on a plant. just learn to handle the test strip, lancet, meter, and cotton ball as quickly as possible. what bothers cats the most is if you take too long. if it's quick and followed with a snacky and praise they start looking forward to test time. in fact, most kitties around here till tell YOU when it's test time once they get used to the routine.

i remember when i started how scared i was and how i never thought i'd be able to do it. now i can do it while on the phone with a friend and she'd never even know i was doing it, it's that quick.

i also turn off the beep on the meter so it doesn't beep in my cat's ear.

 

We switched to ProZinc a few months ago when we could no longer get Vetsulin. I'm sorry to say that I'm not pleased with it.

Sebastian was doing GREAT on Vetsulin-- he would go weeks at a time without needing it, and even when he did, his preshot numbers were in the upper 100s.

Since being on Prozinc, he's been ALL over the place. We have yet to get a preshot number below 280, sometimes it's been 400! When we increase the dose, his numbers just get higher. Lower the dose too much, higher even still. Ugh.

 

Val, I"m sorry to hear ProZinc is not doing well for you. That has to be very frustrating. My mom just called & said she was talking to a customer in her store who's cat is taking Vetsulin & her vet is switching her to something that is supposed to be just like Vetsulin & you have to get it from Canada. My mom cannot remember the name of it though. If she sees her again she will ask her. Maybe that would be good for your kitty.
Chris I will think about home testing. The thought of actually doing it makes me a nervous wreck! But I am going to look into because it would be the best thing for Trina. Thanks everyone!

 

Hey! I absolutely love ProZinc. Hillary pretty much covered everything with us but I just wanted to chime in with how pleased I am with it as well. We watch our carbs very closely as well though. We were diagnosed on June 7th and are one day away from OTJ (knock on wood) with ProZinc. When I was shooting, to slow that quick drop that Hillary was telling you about, Blue was given a little high carbs. We still stayed below 10% and I noticed that it was 7% that really slowed it down and gave him a normal nadir. The times that he gave me a number that was too low to shoot, I would give him a lower carb food. You can be a little all over the place when you are first starting out but it is just your cat adjusting-IMHO. This insulin worked best for me because the nights I have to close at work I can't be there to test and shoot at 12 hours, and this insulin was much more forgiving of my schedule. Blue started at one unit twice a day and it wasn't long before that had to be reduced. Overall, I am completely pleased with this insulin and what it has done for my little man. My SS is below if you would like to take a look. Good luck to you!

 

Take deep breaths!

Lance was diagnosed on July 8th with 2u 2x a day of ProZinc and he had his last shot yesterday morning at 8am (so far so good) we haven't been able to home test but are trying (he's squirmy) but we try to keep our cat food carb in take around 7-9% and there's dry cat food he does eat a little bit of that is around 16 or 18% but he rarely eats that unless he's low. I closely monitor his behaviors and since I am also a nurse who has diabetic residents, I'm trained to recognize the signs of either not enough insulin or too much (these are pretty much the same in cats as humans) even though I hate blindly shooting him nailbite_smile for the first couple of weeks I was a wreak, always worried about him when my husband had to give a shot.

Really the only thing I didn't like was seeing him gain 4 lbs in the past week and a half...but he was pretty skinny when he was diagnosed (12.6 lbs) but he is a much happier cat now than he was a month ago!

 

Thanks for chiming in Alexia. As Chris said, ECID and Blue was certainly different from how I treated Maui.

Blue surprised me during his visit and based on what I learned when I treated Maui and discussions on this board, I experimented with carb% - as Alexia pointed out, for Blue, "high" carb was 7%. He was given food that ranged from 2 - 7%. We labeled every can with the carb % to make the process easier in determining what to feed when.

He had a very early nadir and would drop 100-200 points within the first 3 hours after giving the shot. It kept me on my toes and I wanted to figure out how to slow that drop and that's when the food experiment started.

We also home tested as that was the only way to know what was going on.


With Maui, I switched her from dry to wet (under 10% carb). I didn't need to mark the carb % on the cans as it didn't affect her like it did Blue.

The key to all of this was and is home testing. So, let us know how we can help you learn to do this. Once you do it, not only will you save yourself money from not having to go to the vet all the time, but you will have the knowledge and be more in control of how to treat.

 

Thank you SO much everyone for sharing your experiences with ProZinc & sharing alot of wonderful info. too!!! Trina was diagnosed 4 years ago & has always eaten Purina DM wet & dry. I did learn about the other options that she could eat from reading this site. But we are also battling another issue for the past 6 months of trying to figure out what she has an allergy to. Ever since she started taking thyroid medicine called Tapazole she has had some skin irritation on her ears & around her ears. A few months ago it got really bad & she itched her ears & top of head raw. I had to wear an e-collar on her for 6 weeks to heal. We stopped the Tapazole for a week & restarted it at a lower dose & slowly worked up. She still itches sometimes but she has been taking an antihistamine for the past 2 months which seems to be helping it. But she has also been twitching alot & licking her feet, tail & sometimes belly. I'm trying to figure out if she is allergic to something like a food, pollen ,dust, etc. or if the itching is due to the medication which can be a side effect of it. If it gets worse & she cannot take the medication my only choice is to do a radioactive treatment on her. Which sounds really scary & makes me very nervous. The back of her ear is a little red today so I will put some Dermacool on it. But I am going to look into home testing. But I would first like to figure out what is going on with her itching. I just hope it doesn't get worse. I would hate to keep her on an antihistaminen forever though. I also have to consider doing the radioactive treatment as well. So many things to think about & learn but I truly appreciate hearing everyones stories & am thankful that you share your knowledge with me!!!!

 

If she is a candidate for the I 131 - I highly recommend it. Maui had hyper t and we were told to use too high a dose of tap and it almost killed her. While expensive, the I131 was a life saver for her.

Maui also had major skin issues, dating back to when I got her. Turns out, once I removed all dry food (due to the diabetes), the skin issues cleared up and she never had a flare up or problem since. hopefully it's a same situation with yours.

 

Hi Everyone,

I've never joined a chat board before and apologize because I don't know the jargon. My cat Xena was on ProZinc for 45 days (newly diagnosed diabetes) and had to be taken off because she kept "bottoming out" (very scary). Her readings were all over the place (the vet called it the "somogyi effect"). She's 12 and 1/2 yrs old. I love her immenselly, and don't know where to turn. I have spent close to $1000 in vet bills and food (Purina DM). Any ideas?

 

Hi Emma,

I don't want your questions to get lost in someone elses thread. If you go back to the main Health board and click on the button New Topic (top left) and reask your question people will be able to respond to your question only. Does that make sense?

There is also an Insulin Support Group section, you can click on that and go the the PZI group and ask questions there specific to Prozinc.

Welcome to the board.

 

Missy--facial itching is a serious side effect of the methimazole (tapazole): http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&A=510

If you can afford the iodine treatment, I think you'll find a lot of support here for it over the pills. Here's more info:
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm ... 30&aid=218

 

I definitely need to research the I 131 treatment. Hilary did Maui have diabetes when you had the I 131 done? I was concerned about if they are able to give insulin after they do the radioactive treatment. How long did Maui have to stay at the treatment center? Did you have any issues afterwards?
I found a group on yahoo for hyper thyroidism. There are numerous people on there that said their vets are following OLD dosing guidelines & starting cats out on very high doses which make them vomit, facial itch & have other side effects. They have had success with stopping the tapazole for a week & restarting at a very low dose, 1.25 mg once or twice a day for a few weeks & increase as needed from blood test results. It's such a powerful drug that the body seems to need time to adjust to the medication. I'm glad Maui is doing great!!!
Terri, thank you for the links! I am going to talk to my vet about the I 131. Once I get her regulated on ProZinc maybe I can get the I 131 done. It just sounds so scary & I hate having to leave her for at least 3-7 days! But if it is what's best for her I will definitley look at the pros & cons of it!

 

Maui was diagnosed with hyper T in 2006 and diabetes in 2009, so no she didn't have diabetes at the time.

The vet, put her on 5 mg tap BID and after 3 doses her WBC dropped to almost 0. The vet took no responsibility for starting her on such a high dose of tap and was not very helpful when it came to getting her back to health. I did that on my own, stopped the tap, nursed her around the clock and after a couple weeks she started to come back to life.

I took her to Garden State Veterinary in Tinton Falls NJ - they were the only place that did the I131. She had to stay there for 72 hours and the dose was based on her body weight. She was fine, no side effects (at least none they told me about in the 72 hours) and has been fine ever since.

With diabetes being an issue as well, you need to make sure that they will give the insulin AND test every # of hours to avoid any issues.

I know they want to handle the animals as little as possible due to them being radioactive and all, but they go in gloved and covered and should be able to handle testing and shooting.

I brought food for Maui and a t-shirt - I was told that I wouldn't get anything back, so whatever is leftover gets tossed. Which was fine, I used an old tshirt and didn't care. I'm sure they shared the food with other cats in there, I didn't ask.

I know it's hard to leave them alone like that, but for Maui and me it was the best thing I could do, considering how she almost died on the tap.

 

Lucy was diagnosed with hyperT 4 years after we got the diabetes diagnosis. She had been regulated for a long time and gradually lost it. I switched insulins and did everything I knew to do to get regulation back, but it didn't work....until she was put on the tapazole. Once the hyperT was under control, the insulin starting working correctly again. So from our experience, I would encourage you to talk to the vet about the I131 now and not try for regulation first, especially since she's having such a horrible allergic reaction to the tapazole.

 

My vet can be very stubborn sometimes......I tried telling her that facial itching was a side effect & she wasn't aware of that. Uugh! And she hates when I do research online about Trina's diseases. (double uugh!) So I went to 2 other vets for opinions on the tapazole/facial itching issue that was going on. They suggested doing what the helpful people on the yahoo thyroid group suggested I do. Stop it for a week & start back LOW & SLOW. Which for the past month or so she has greatly improved & she just had her full panel blood work done a week ago & the thyroid number was fine. I'm now giving her half the dose of the antihistamine to see if I can ween her off of it & pray for not itching. My husband thinks I overreact and I"m sure I probably do but if I see her itch her ear or face I get all worried! Which she truly is not itching much at all. Another problem was my vet initially told me to give 5mg once a day. The other vets disagreed with that. Half a tablet twice a day so that is what I'm doing. The odd thing about this was a year ago when she was diagnosed with hyper t the vet started us on the transdermal ear gel. Which worked fine for about 9 months. Then she started the terrible skin reaction so my vet thought it was a carrier agent in the ear gel giving her a bad reaction & switched us to the pills. So I"m keeping a close eye on her. And today is day number 3 on ProZinc & so far so good. I just hope she stays regulated on this! I am going to look into I 131 though. And find out if they will administer insulin, etc.
Hilary, thank goodness you were able to nurse Maui back to health!!!!
Terri, so is Lucy taking Tapazole & insulin currently? I am also being told to ask my vet if it's ok to give supplements to support the liver & kidneys. There are people on the yahoo hyper t site that give their kittys supplements & I can't remember exactly what. I'd have to look back at my emails. I wanns say vitamin e, maybe a fish oil & something for the liver.

 

One does not really have to do research for the itching problem. Plumb's says it occurs in 2.3% of cases. The starting dose also varies. Plum's give three different treatment plans, one starts at 2.5 mg a day and increased as necessary. One starts at 5 mg a day (2.5 bid) if not kidney or other problems. A third says 5 mg twice or three times a day.

My Bailey was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism about three weeks ago. I am using the transdermal since he has a hard enough time eating anyway. He did not have the symptom of ravenous eating or poor coat He just was loosing weight.

 

Larry thanks for the info.!