Possible switch to this

My cat was diagnosed, in February. She is currently getting 3 units of lantus 2x a day. Her fructose testing came back as only fair control today. They are considering a switch to this insulin. How has it worked for anyone using it ? My vet does prefer the lantus. Is this the insulin that can cause quick hypo crash ?

 

You are currently using Lantus which is a good, gentle long-acting insulin that has worked well for many kitties. I am assuming that you mean your vet is considering switching to Caninsulin/Vetsulin since this is where you posted.

Caninsuin/Vetsulin is a harsh fast acting insulin and most kitties will only get from 8-10 hours of duration with it. Usually we see more people changing from Caninsulin/Vetsulin to Lantus than the other way around.

Are you home testing? Sometimes fructosamine tests do not tell the whole story of how the insulin is working. It is only an average reading over a period of 2 or 3 weeks. If your kitty is having both lows and highs with the Lantus that can give a poor fructosamine reading, but it doesn't mean the insulin is not working. Rather it may be a case of having to adjust dosing. With doing home testing...testing before each shot and at least once during the cycle (time between shots) you will get a good picture on how low the Lantus is taking her. This link has information on home testing:

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

Also what sort of food are you feeding your kitty? A wet low carb diet is best for diabetic kitties. However....if you are feeding dry food or high carb food....DO NOT CHANGE the food until you are home testing. Some kitties can drop a lot just from a diet switch.

You would get more attention posting this in the Lantus forum, since it gets much more traffic than this forum.

 

That is what I thought about that medication. It was just something we discussed. Again it's only been 3 months. We have had dos wage changes and food changes. She no longer eats the nature variety dry. She always ate merrick chicken, nature variety chicken wet food. I have added tiki wet chicken too. All good for diabetic cats. Her glucose reading today was 182 6 hours after eating and injection. She has never been higher than low 300 and those were early numbers when we started.

 

funny i'm in the same boat, on lantus and pondering vetsulin. its been 8 months of poor control on lantus, not to scare you - my cat and i seem to be an unusual case. giving lantus a little more time, tweaking of the dosing, but vetsulin is on the 'backburner' if things continue to go poorly.

 

Vetsulin is the only insulin my 13 yr old has been on. After months of increasing the dose and not getting results, I considered switching insulins. At that point, I was using the pen. My vet said i could change to a more expensive insulin or try giving the Vetsulin in the old-fashioned syringes. He seemed to think that the needle on these syringes were a little longer and perhaps with the pen, I wasn't getting the insulin deep enough. Since I am a nurse, and drawing insulin into a syringe isn't an issue for me, I went with that. But at the same time, I changed my cat's diet from whatever wet food he would eat (he's very picky) to only low carb canned food. His glucose level went from 500 to 140 immediately. He's been doing well on vetsulin and low carb food for several weeks. I just had a feline fructosamine done today and am awaiting the results.

 

What was the result of your fructsamine test?

My kitty has been on this insulin for 7 weeks but I'm not sure it's the right fit for her. I tested her levels 8 hours post shot and it was 338, so I don't think it's lasting long in her.

I'll give it a little more time and then ask if we cans with if there isn't much improvement.

 

Lek's fructosamine test was 500. The vet tech told me that was very good. And maybe it is for as high as Lek's levels were, but I'm reading that 500 is just barely above "poorly controlled." I'm going to email my vet and ask him to explain this to me again.

Lek was started on 2 units once per day. The vet increased this by one unit each week and eventually we went to twice day shots. When we got to 5 units twice/day, and Lek still had a 480 reading, I switched his diet to very low carb. That's when his level dropped to 140. I'm sure the insulin is helping, but without the low carb diet, it wasn't helping enough.

Give it time and do what is best for your cat. I've read some posts that Vesulin isn't all that good because it's a "harsh" insulin as opposed to something like Lantus which is a "gentle" insulin. However, Vesulin and the diet seem to be working for my cat right now.

 

As I was giving Lek his insulin this morning, I remembered something else about this Vetsulin. When the vet tech was showing me how to administer it, she said to shake the insulin. Being a nurse, I knew that shaking cloudy insulin for humans is a big no no. It destroys the proteins in the insulin. When I asked the tech about this, she said "shake it or roll it." When I got home and read the directions for this insulin, it said to shake it. I called the company and after speaking to someone about this, they put a vet on the phone with me. He said it definitely has to be shaken. He understood that we don't do that with human insulin, but insisted this insulin needs to be shaken. So I did that for awhile. But as I shook, and as we increased Lek's dose, his glucose wasn't coming down. I finally decided I was going to roll the vial of insulin. It seemed to help a little with his numbers. Granted, not much at that time, but I hadn't yet reached 5 units/BID nor changed his diet yet. I still continue to roll the insulin because this is what makes sense to me.

 

Interesting. We were told to roll it when we got it so that's what. We've been doing. This morning we decided to try two units because we've been doing 1.5 for the past five days and the lowest we've seen is 337. It was 485 amps. Let's see if this will help bring her down.

 

I work nights and must have been sleeping when the vet called with Lek's fructosamine level. When I emailed to recheck it, I'm told it was 242 which is very, very good.

 

How has Lek been doing the last few days? I talked to my vet's office and they were hesitent to change insulin yet. She wants me to up the dose to 3 u twice a day and in a week do a curve. If after two weeks no improvement we'll talk again. I'm a bit frustrated because I was hoping for a switch but i guess i'll have to be patient. I'm glad to hear of Lek's great improvement once you changed his diet to low carb.

 

Lek is doing great. I'm very pleased. Vetsulin may not be right for every cat, but it is working just fine for Lek. About the food, I will say that because I work 12 hour shifts (and I have another cat who is not diabetic), I leave dry food out for them while I'm gone. Neither cat will eat the dry if they don't have to, but because I'm gone for so long, I feel they have to have access to something. I feed wet low carb before i leave for work and when i come home. on my days off, i feed Lek wet as often as he wants it.