Re: 4/12 punkin amps 180 +3/134
the vet didn't start him so high - he started him at 1u .
punkin was diagnosed Dec 4 and started on ProZinc insulin - i think at 1u also, maybe 2u, i don't remember now. His BG was around 400. He was really responsive to it, well it seemed that way. I was taking him in weekly for testing. on Jan 4ish his BG was about 140 and the vet took him off insulin entirely. I was giving him canned purina DM during that month.
It seemed very believable that he could've responded that quickly because we'd had a major home remodeling that started Thankgiving week. It was incredibly loud here and punkin is a scaredy cat - hid out downstairs under the furniture. the vet said it's been well-documented that stress can shut down a cat's pancreas and that with treatment and removal of the stress they can recover. so i believed that he was "over"it.
Not knowing anything, at the same time we ran out of the canned DM and i started giving him dry DM. I waited 2 weeks and took him back in, his BG was back up around 435, i think. He'd ended on 2u ProZinc and the vet started him then on on lantus 1u. a week later he increased him to 2u. i think 1 week later it went to 3u. i could be not exactly right about the details, but you get the gist of it.
I got connected here on Feb 20, then the smart people here figured out in a conversation about syringes that i was using the right syringes for a U-40 insulin (ProZinc) but not the right syringes for a U-100 insulin (Lantus). Meaning that 1 unit in a u-40 needle of Lantus was the equivalent of about 2.5 u of insulin in reality. :shock: So instead of punkin getting the 3u that we thought, he was actually getting more than 8u. At that time Libby, Sienne & Laurie and i don't know who else talked about his situation and gave me some options.
I called the vet in the morning and he was horrified at the mistake - owned it, apologized profusely, etc. he's a good vet - it was a mistake. they aren't perfect and other than this we've loved him. anyway, because punkin's numbers have been pretty good we opted to leave the dose alone and try to travel down the scale. Another option would've been starting over and moving up to a good dose. there was another case of another Pumpkin who had a similar situation and we looked at his SS. So, long story short, he's got decent numbers, we've been able to reduce his dose a few times although not all of them have held. we just move forward and see what happens.
His situation for this dose is obviously unusual and probably he'd never have ended up at this dose if we'd started here at FDMB with the right syringes. i'm still not positive we shouldn't start over, or drop way back in dose, it was just that he was so miserable before with high BG and seems so good now.
