Two weeks on from Diagnosis

Hi,

It's almost 2 weeks now since Mo started Prozinc, and he seems to be settling down really well.

He's now on just wet food - Whiskas 7+ in Jelly, either fish or poultry as he likes both. He's about to finish the antibiotics he gets once a day (Vet gave them for Pancreatitis), and he has another month of Famotidine. He's pretty ravenous and now has 2 sachets at each main feed, and I've just invested in an automatic multi feeder so I can leave him a half sachet for around his +4 time as he seems to drop lowest then and searches for food.

The vet wanted me to give 1.5u, 12h apart and said changing to wet food from dry wouldn't make a huge difference! It has! I've adjusted his dose down to 1.25u, 12h apart. I'm eyeballing that dose though using a U40 syringe, so wonder if changing syringes would help to get a more accurate finer dose?

She also didn't advocate home testing - but thanks to you guys I have done it... and I'm so pleased I have as he's gone low a few times and I'm sure would have had hypos had I not been adjusting his insulin and known to give him some extra food. He's not super happy about the ear pricks but he's a sucker for a freeze dried treat, so he does keep coming back for more and will jump up now if I shake the pot of test strips!!!

He's a much happier cat - wants to play again, chasing light beams on the floor in the sunshine today and much more interested in life in general, so I'm really happy.

I'm hoping we can lower his dose again soon - I'd really appreciate any thoughts and suggestions from looking at his spreadsheet though! I need to pop him back to the vet for a check up this week so it will be good to go with as much knowledge as possible.

Thanks for all the help and support - couldn't have done this without this forum and the endless info I read on here!

 

Sue- what a great report! I'm so glad to hear everything is going so well! For cats in the early days of diagnosis (anything less than six months), you should lower the dose anytime you have a lime green number. So yes, go ahead and go down to one unit. Then if he gets another lime green, lower to 0.75, etc.

I'm so glad you've diverged from the vet's advice a bit! As you mentioned, if you weren't home testing, those lime greens could have led to trouble.

As for syringes, there is a conversion chart, and you can use u-100 syringes to get more precision in dosing. Here is the chart: http://www.felinediabetes.com/insulin-conversions.htm

The other option is to make some colored water and pull up the dose you want - say 0.75u. Then you keep that one as your comparison syringe. So everytime you draw 0.75u of insulin, you can compare it to the water syringe and make sure it's the same amount. Being consistent is more important than being precisely accurate. So if your 0.75u is really 0.78u, it doesn't matter much as long as it's the same amount every time.

Keep us posted on how Morrissey is doing!

 

I'm so pleased to read this! I like Djamila's advice re syringes.

 

@Djamila - so if he had a lime green number between his AM and PM shots, I should lower the next dose by 0.25u? If he then has another lime green after that PM lowered dose and before his next AM shot, I should lower again? Have I got that right?! Looking at his numbers today, I should lower to 1.0u tonight, yes? If so, that's amazing news!!

Thanks for the syringe advice, I'll ask the vet if they have a U100 and I can have a play with it with water to measure more accurately.

(Don't say it too loud, but I'm hoping he'll go into remission!)

Thanks

 

In the states, U100 syringes are purchased at a pharmacy since they are the size human diabetics use. Most vets don't carry them and don't condone using the conversion since Prozinc is a U40 insulin. So be prepared for a lecture if you ask the vet

Yes, I would lower to 1u for the next dose. If they hit lime greens two cycles in a row it's a little tricky. Often the guideline is that the second one kind of doesn't count since they aren't really adjusted to the previously lowered dose yet. But with Prozinc, you kind of have to go with your gut if you think he really does need a second reduction in a row. When a kitty is really new to insulin like Mo is, I'd probably error on the side of giving the second reduction, and then you can always bump it back up a bit if you need to.

And we are very superstitious around here...we never use the R word out loud

 

You can also use calipers for accuracy with any syringe. Great to hear he is doing well. And showing vet the difference in tests from dry to wet food on your ss would be interesting.

 

Just tested PMPS and his BG is 13.3, identical to last night. I'm going with 1u tonight. Fingers crossed!

 

Oh goodness. Well, it looks like Mo says 1u is too much still! Alright then...how about 0.75U?

 

@Djamila, I'm going to brave 0.75u tonight! Again, fingers crossed!

The sun is shinning here and he's been like his old self today and even chased a bird. It's so lovely to see.

 

You might even consider going down to 0.5u. Hitting lime green day after day is a bit hard on them. I’d suggest dropping the dose down to hopefully give him a bit of a break, and then increasing later if you need to. My hunch is he’s getting close to being done with all of this nonsense.