Where to now?

Tzar, my 12yo athletic furry friend has been on Caninsulin for 9 weeks now...2IU. Last Tuesday he completed a cycle at the vet's...at 8:00am before food and insulin his bg was 7.5, after food and insulin it rose to 12 but was down to 5.5 by 12:30pm and had risen to 8.6 by 5:30pm. I had queried the vet about transitioning to Glargine and the advice she has received from a specialist vet practice in Brisbane is that it will be quite difficult to achieve. That we have to start the process from scratch and require lots of monitoring and blood testing.

Tzar is not a typical diabetic cat...he is lean and very active despite being 12. He eats a raw meat diet, no dry foods (we went cold turkey on those with no problems) and Utimates tinned food. He drinks only normal amounts of water and urinates normally. He had no keyones in his urine. I have feline glucometer and prepared to test him. My vet has been told by her colleague that his bg is well managed but remission is unlikely.

Advice please on two issues ...(1) Is remission unrealistic? (2) How difgicult is it to transition from Caninsulin to Glargine?

Tzar's mother
Helen

 

We have 4 cats that are doing their OTJ trials this week....an OTJ trial lasts 14 days and hopefully during that time, the cat stays in normal, non-diebetic numbers, like between 50-120....if they make it the entire 14 days, they're in remission!!

There's no way to know for sure which cats are going to be able to make it to remission because there are too many variables that go into it....how soon were they diagnosed? How long had they been diabetic before diagnosis? How much damage has already been done to the pancreas?

It's very simple...One morning you give your regular shot of Caninsulin and 12 hours later when it's shot time again, you shoot the Lantus instead. You don't have to worry much about the Caninsulin since that's one of the "in and out" insulins (which just means when it's gone from the body it's gone) With Lantus, a little big of each shot is "carried over" into the next cycle

Regarding remission...the one BEST thing you can do is get your cat's BG into normal numbers as quickly as possible so his own pancreas has a chance to regenerate and resume producing it's own insulin.

 

OTJ?

 

Hi Helen,
Welcome to FDMB.
I agree with Chris. Changing over from one insulin to another is as simple of giving one insulin in the morning and then 12 hours later swapping over to the new insulin.
I have changed insulins twice in the last 20 months and that is how I did it with no problems at all. The only thing you need to be aware of is that the new insulin may act differently in the body to the old insulin.....so you would need to monitor the blood sugar levels closely to see how it goes.

When you say a vet practice in Brisbane...is that Brisbane in Australia or Brisbane in UK.
I am from Australia and I dont think we have feline glucometers out here so maybe you are from the UK. Also I have not heard of any cats having caninsulin here for ages but we do have Ultimates canned food so I will be interested to hear where you live.

It is great you are feeding a raw food diet.
OTJ means off the juice= off insulin.
Remission is possible.
My cat went into remission after 3 months on Glargine 4 years ago but fell out of remission almost 2 years ago when she got sick.

ETA sorry no Brisbane in UK........not sure what I was thinking when I wrote that

 

Is there a Brisbane in the UK?

 

No, I don't think there is!! That must have been one of my senior moments!! Not sure what I was thinking.
There is one in the US though I think. Thanks for correcting me Sue.

 

I agree that you need to monitor extra close when switching insulin. I went from 8 months of prozinc, to 3 months of lanus and now OTJ! Anything is possible for these sweet kitties. Sounds like you are on the right track with food and monitoring (glucose, urine, ketones, etc). Good luck

 

I wasn't actually correcting you! I live in England and was worried I was having a senior moment!! Maybe you were thinking of Perth, although that is in Scotland as well as Aus.

 

In case you want to do some more reading, here's some info on what factors influence remission: http://veterinarymedicine.dvm360.com/cvc-highlight-what-influences-diabetic-remission-cats

 

@Sue484
Definitely me having the senior moment...who knows what I was thinking. Maybe Perth.
I knew Brisbane was connected to the UK and that the man it was named after was British and an early Governor of New South Wales...where I live. Maybe I was thinking that........I don't know!!
The only reason I queried it was because Helen mentioned a feline glucometer which I didn't think we had in Aus and caninsulin which I didn't think anyone used anymore here in Aus. So I thought maybe the UK as I know caninsulin is used there.

 

Hi Folks,
Thanks for your advice and support. Good news for Tzar, he has not had any insulin for 20 days now and his blood glucose remains at 6.8 to 7.1.