what to do next

Hello everyone,

I want to thank everyone so much for the help with spreadsheets, advice, etc. We are now attempting to monitor Sammy with a .5 unit insulin trial once a day in the morning. In the middle of January, Sammy had a urethral blockage and was hospitalized for three days. While he was there they could not get him to eat so they gave 1 unit instead of the 2 units twice a day that we were giving him before. After he came home and was on a number of medications (prazocine, clavamox, bupeniphrine (sp?) he still was not eating very much so we conintued the 1 unit twice a day until the first day listed on my spreadsheet. We gave him one unit in the morning and noticed he was very lathargic and not acting himself so we attempted home testing and we got some low numbers for a while and were advised not to give him insulin by the vet. As time went on and his numbers started creeping up we noticed he was still testing relatively low four hours after eating. The vet said we still should not give insulin. Recently numbers have been high and the vet recommended we try .5 units of insulin just in the morning and then monitor all day and that is where we are yesterday and today. Any advice about how to proceed will be much appreciated since Sammy seems to be baffling the vet. Thanks again,

Angie

 

A dose once a day for a cat? Nope. Instead of a .5u dose once a day, you would be better to go with .25u dose twice a day. No insulin lasts for 24hrs in a cat, so your cat will have insulin half the day and the other half, none. Better to give the same daily total but split it into two shots.

What sort of BG numbers are you getting when monitoring on this .5u trial?

ETA: if you post what BG you have at the time you would normally give a pm shot, others will be able to give you some feedback. It really looks like you need to give some insulin but just not much. I think a .25u dose may be good to use for your cat.

 

I have a spreadsheet link under my signature but it's not named because I have trouble with technology. what you are saying makes total sense except that the syringes I use would be so difficult to dose.25

 

easy peasy..... here's how you can practice and get to .25u

1. you can eyeball it, because that's how lots of others do it..... look at all the people on doses that are ending with .25u or .75u

2. you can practice the drop method.... it's a bit wasteful but just a few drops!
You fill a used syringe with water to the .5u line, then with the needle end pointing upward, twist the plunger until one drop of water is at the end of the needle.... flick it off.
Repeat the twist and flicking the drop until there is no more.
I know many say they can measure a 0.1u dose, but I don't know how they do it.... I have practiced the twist/flick method and I can get 4 drops pretty consistently, so that makes a .25u dose equal to 2 drops.

Try the twist and flick with a used syringe and water, and see how you can do. If you don't want to load to .5u and lose the 2 drops each shot, then try the eyeball method.

 

It really sounds like Sammy went through a tough time. I hope he's feeling better.

It doesn't look to me like Sammy is ready to go without insulin. I don't want to contradict your vet. However, Lantus does seem to work best when you are dosing twice a day. Sammy's spreadsheet looks like the dose is running out of steam after roughly 12 hours.

What would you think about giving 0.25u every 12 hours?

 

Thank you Blue for the ideas about how to dose! And, Sienne and Gabby! I am still very much a newbie here and it was recommended by another experienced member that I post in this forum, but I think she thought we used Lantus and Sammy is actually on prozinc. It kinda seems like the suggestions would be the same though? Should I move over to the Prozinc forum... I did not even realize there was one.

 

Please do not hesitate in asking any questions.
I think the only suggestion I would have for you is to keep your questions in a single daily thread, and as you have another question, you can change the Subject in the first post of your thread ...
You can change the 'what to do next' into something else like, 'how do our numbers look on our spreadsheet' and then people will see what you are asking and can reply better.

The numbers and your sheet look great; it's going to help others to help you much better.
Who knows.... you may not need to keep your cat on insulin very long at all, but with the testing, you can know when it's no longer needed.... no guessing.

To know the road ahead, ask the man coming back.

 

To be honest, I do think you will get more dose-specific help on the PZI/Prozinc forum. The way you think about dose with Lantus is very different than with PZI. I was assuming you were using Lantus. I've not used PZI and wouldn't want to give you misinformation.

 

Thanks

Thank you both very much, the support here has been awesome and I am very grateful.

 

Sorry guys this was my bad, I thought she was using Lantus.

 

I've had Blackie on ProZinc for a short period of time, and it needs to be administered twice daily. Unfortunately, it doesn't last nearly as long as Lantus does (I think it only lasts for about 8-10 hours... I could be wrong, though). I would definitely post your concerns on the PZI/ProZinc forum for help with that specific insulin. Good luck, and welcome!