Might have double dosed my cat

[Tommy2016]

This morning as I was giving my cat his insulin while pushing down on the syringe it felt like it moved further than it usually does, but I don't know. I've been using 100 unit syringes because the store has been out of 30, but that's happened many times in the past. I'm 95% certain he only got the usual 9 units (9 units on the 100 unit scale) of Prozinc 40, but I'm not 100% certain. He might have gotten 18 units. I *always* use 100 unit syringes. But just to be safe, I'm staying home with Tom today and will check his sugar levels every hour if the numbers start dropping faster in a few hours I'll check every half hour.

Tom has had diabetes for at least 5 years and my wife and I agreed that only I would give him shots since there is no miscommunication on who gave him a shot and whatnot. That has worked good. There are times when he gets fed that I can't absolutely if I have given him a shot or not so I default to no shot since that is safer than double dosing. It rarely happens. Tom is a male ragdoll like cat, sleeps most of the day and night, 15 pounds about 10 years old.

I've given him shots so many times that I really think I didn't double dose him, but I have no way of knowing for certain.

I have honey, syrup, wet and dry food, BG test monitor and plenty of strips.

If sugars drop to low levels, how much syrup and/or honey is recommended?


6:45AM Hour 0, BG reading is 375. Tom is sleeping.
7:45AM Hour 1, BG reading is 376. Tom went back to sleep.
8:45AM Hour 2, BG reading is 281. Tom seems fine.
9:45AM Hour 3, BG reading is 245. Tom is back to sleeping.
10:45AM Hour 4, BG reading 214. Tom is getting tired of all this testing and putting up a fight. I hit a geyser and blood got everywhere. I'll do the other ear next time.
12:30PM, BG reading 161. Tom is sleeping. Judging from this it's unlikely he was double dosed, I'll test again in 90 minutes.
2:00PM, BG is 187. Tom is sleeping.
4:15PM, BG is 225. Tom is his usual self.

 

[JanetNJ]

This morning as I was giving my cat his insulin while pushing down on the syringe it felt like it moved further than it usually does, but I don't know. I've been using 100 unit syringes because the store has been out of 30, but that's happened many times in the past. I'm 95% certain he only got the usual 9 units (9 units on the 100 unit scale) of Prozinc 40, but I'm not 100% certain. He might have gotten 18 units. I use 100 unit syringes. But just to be safe, I'm staying home with Tom today and will check his sugar levels every hour if the numbers start dropping faster in a few hours I'll check every half hour.

Tom has had diabetes for at least 5 years and my wife and I agreed that only I would give him shots since there is no miscommunication on who gave him a shot and whatnot. That has worked good. There are times when he gets fed that I can't absolutely if I have given him a shot or not so I default to no shot since that is safer than double dosing. It rarely happens. Tom is a male ragdoll like cat, sleeps most of the day and night, 15 pounds about 10 years old.

I've given him shots so many times that I really think I didn't double dose him, but I have no way of knowing for certain.

I have honey, syrup, wet and dry food, BG test monitor and plenty of strips.

If sugars drop to low levels, how much syrup and/or honey is recommended?


6:45AM Hour 0, BG reading is 375. Tom is sleeping.

Yikes. I hope everything is OK.

 

[Ale & Bobo & Minnie (GA)]

Please monitor closely. A few drops of honey rubbed on the gums should bring the bg up quickly but also wears off quickly. Do you have high carb wet foods like FF gravy lovers? You’ll need to give both the honey and the high carb food if your cat falls under 50 on a human meter. What meter are you using? It would be great if you could set up your signature and eventually a spreadsheet I don’t mean to scare you, but if he did get a double dose, you may need to take him to the er if he starts to drop too much too fast. That’s a huge amount of insulin and you may not be able to manage with just food and honey.

 

[Ale & Bobo & Minnie (GA)]

9 units is a big dose. I’m curious how you got to that number. Does he eat dry food? I feel like since you’re already home testing, if you could set up a spreadsheet, we may be able to help you bring down the dose. I don’t mean today, I just mean whenever you can. If he’s eating dry food as part of his diet, that could be the reason. Can you tell us what his diet consists of?

 

[Tommy2016]

Please monitor closely. A few drops of honey rubbed on the gums should bring the bg up quickly but also wears off quickly. Do you have high carb wet foods like FF gravy lovers? You’ll need to give both the honey and the high carb food if your cat falls under 50 on a human meter. What meter are you using? It would be great if you could set up your signature and a spreadsheet.

I don't have FF gravy lovers, but the Walmart close by does. I'm using a human BG meter.

 

[Ale & Bobo & Minnie (GA)]

Any high carb wet food will do. The ones with lots of gravy are higher carb. FF tuscany also is because it has rice in it.

Anything below 50 on a human meter is a take action number meaning you’ll want to intervene with honey and high carb, but don’t wait for that. If you start to get numbers below 90, I’d start to give 1-2 teaspoons of high carb food, especially if your cat doesn’t typically go that low. You want to give just 1-2 teaspoons because you don’t want Tom to get full and not want to eat later if needed.

 

[Tommy2016]

Any high carb wet food will do. The ones with lots of gravy are higher carb. FF tuscany also is because it has rice in it.

Anything below 50 on a human meter is a take action number meaning you’ll want to intervene with honey and high carb, but don’t wait for that. If you start to get numbers below 90, I’d start to give 1-2 teaspoons of high carb food, especially if your cat doesn’t typically go that low. You want to give just 1-2 teaspoons because you don’t want Tom to get full and not want to eat later if needed.

Okay good to know. Yes, anything under a 100 and I plan on watching him like a hawk and will give him food if it drops under 90 and closely monitor. He does tend to go that low, but I'd rather be safe.

Thanks for checking up on Tom.

 

[Tommy2016]

9 units is a big dose. I’m curious how you got to that number. Does he eat dry food? I feel like since you’re already home testing, if you could set up a spreadsheet, we may be able to help you bring down the dose. I don’t mean today, I just mean whenever you can. If he’s eating dry food as part of his diet, that could be the reason. Can you tell us what his diet consists of?

9 units on the 100 unit syringe, so he gets about 3.5 units of Prozinc.
I make certain Tom only eats wet food, he gets fed separately from the other cats who get dry.

Tom is a 15 pound loveable lug, total lapcat/ragdoll like. Drapes over your arms when you pick him up. Got him from the pound, when it wasn't looking good for him, they said he had been there for a long time and time was running out. Most likely his previous owner found out he had diabetes and decided to give him to the pound. After we got him, we didn't know, until he started getting very sick.

 

[Ale & Bobo & Minnie (GA)]

Gotcha! How often do you typically test him ?

omg, what an angel! Thank you for saving him!! I’d love to see a pic

 

[Tommy2016]

Gotcha! How often do you typically test him ?

omg, what an angel! Thank you for saving him!! I’d love to see a pic

It's been a couple months since Tom has been tested. We keep a close eye on Tom and periodically test him, but he's been very stable. If there is any, sign that something is off with him, he gets tested, but so far his dosage has stayed the same for years.

Tom is outside right now, he decided to actually wake up and go out, but I'll get a recent photo of him. Tom sleeps and sleeps. Since my apnea got bad a year ago, my wife sleeps in the other room, Tom has taken over her side of the bed at night and sleeps through the entire night too.

We have trackers on all our cats, I highly recommend Jiobit. From trying many many trackers the Jiobit has been the best, hand down IMO. A couple of pitfalls, they need constant charging esp if they go out of wifi range, typically we charge them a few times a week. I have breakaway collars on them so it's easy to charge them while they eat. We bring our cats inside every night and when we're not home, so finding them is easy. The other downfall is the company itself, I had an issue with one tracker, it was less than a month old, the company wouldn't warranty it saying the small tear in the silicon cover voided it. Thankfully Amazon took it back and replaced it. I would recommend buying them from Amazon. There is also a monthly fee for the cell service, about $8 a month. The trackers cost about $130 each.

All of our kitties have been from the pound, our most recent addition is another tuxedo!

 

[Ale & Bobo & Minnie (GA)]

How is he doing? Did you get another test in?

That’s amazing and mine have also always been either from the shelter or I’ve found them in a box somewhere, like Bobo and Minnie! I have a cat fenced yard so my cats have always been outside during the day and inside at night.

I must share with you though that a once in a while spot check at the vet or even at home does not give you the full picture. Cats bgs vary a lot daily and the only way to make sure the dose is still safe is to test them daily. Just like you would if you had a diabetic child or if you were diabetic yourself. I’d encourage you to consider home testing him daily, especially if he tolerates it well.

With a diabetic cat you need:

• A low carb wet diet that is 10% carbs or under. Most of us use around 4-7% carbs
• A suitable insulin such as Lantus or Prozinc which are long acting, more gentle insulins than the old insulins - which you have
• We recommend hometesting the blood glucose with a human meter…it is not necessary to use a pet meter which is expensive to run and is no better. It will keep your kitty safe and you will know how the dose is working for your kitty. Only testing every so often will not tell you what is happening in between those times and an awful lot can happen in even a day.
• HELP US HELP YOU has information about the spreadsheet, signature and hypo box which you will need to be able to look after your beloved kitty properly

We are happy to help you with setting up the spreadsheet and much more!

 

[Ale & Bobo & Minnie (GA)]

To be safe, I’d give him a little low carb food with each test

 

[Tommy2016]

To be safe, I’d give him a little low carb food with each test

Hi and thank you for all the replies and checking in on Tom and me. I've been keeping the top page updated. Tom is now at 187. At this point I am just about certain he was not double dosed. I will test Tom again in another 90 minutes, but it's looking like the Prozinc is reaching it's low point of the day. He's been sleeping as he usually does throughout the day.

 

[Ale & Bobo & Minnie (GA)]

I see you updated your first post. That’s good news! I agree it looks like he’s just reaching his nadir, but would like for you to please take another test which should be around his +6 just to be safe. After that, I think we’re safe. If his nadir is above 90, it may be an indication he needs a dose adjustment but its hard to tell without seeing more daily tests.

I’m going to give you the link to our prozinc forum so you can read through all the great info on the yellow sticky notes: https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/prozinc-pzi.24/

 

[Tommy2016]

I see you updated your first post. That’s good news! I agree it looks like he’s just reaching his nadir, but would like for you to please take another test which should be around his +6 just to be safe. After that, I think we’re safe. If his nadir is above 90, it may be an indication he needs a dose adjustment but its hard to tell without seeing more daily tests.

I’m going to give you the link to our prozinc forum so you can read through all the great info on the yellow sticky notes: https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/prozinc-pzi.24/

I will do that and it very well could be above 90 for today.

One thing I didn't state initially because I didn't want to complicate this post was his dosing last night. I gave Tom half dosage. I rarely do this but I couldn't remember with 100% certainty if I had given him a shot when our son fed him. I was 99.9% certain I didn't because I was outside when he was fed, but before I went outside I went in the fridge to grab a water and saw his insulin vial. That stuck in my head. When I came in later my son said he fed Tom, but my brain was seeing the picture of the insulin vial. I wanted to play it safe, so he got half a dose. That's why he was at 375 this morning.

We've tried to make this easier but there is no simple answer with giving him shots and the very very last thing I want to do is to double dose him and not realize it. So anytime I think there is a hint of a double dose I have to make a judgement call on the odds being true or false. My wife suggested prefilling syringes with labels, the problem with that is labels could get mixed up. When I have to fill a syringe each time and admin it, it's more work and registers better and recalls better in the brain. Today was the first time ever that I had this much doubt and therefore stayed home to test.

I appreciate you staying on this thread and the input and checking on Tom. I'll test him a couple more times but it appears nadir has been reached and Tom is doing what he does best and that is sleeping.

Tried to upload a picture of the lug, but looks like I'm not allowed to.

 

[Ale & Bobo & Minnie (GA)]

I will do that and it very well could be above 90 for today.

One thing I didn't state initially because I didn't want to complicate this post was his dosing last night. I gave Tom half dosage. I rarely do this but I couldn't remember with 100% certainty if I had given him a shot when our son fed him. I was 99.9% certain I didn't because I was outside when he was fed, but before I went outside I went in the fridge to grab a water and saw his insulin vial. That stuck in my head. When I came in later my son said he fed Tom, but my brain was seeing the picture of the insulin vial. I wanted to play it safe, so he got half a dose. That's why he was at 375 this morning.

We've tried to make this easier but there is no simple answer with giving him shots and the very very last thing I want to do is to double dose him and not realize it. So anytime I think there is a hint of a double dose I have to make a judgement call on the odds being true or false. My wife suggested prefilling syringes with labels, the problem with that is labels could get mixed up. When I have to fill a syringe each time and admin it, it's more work and registers better and recalls better in the brain. Today was the first time ever that I had this much doubt and therefore stayed home to test.

I appreciate you staying on this thread and the input and checking on Tom. I'll test him a couple more times but it appears nadir has been reached and Tom is doing what he does best and that is sleeping.

Tried to upload a picture of the lug, but looks like I'm not allowed to.

the upload feature doesn’t work. You can either make it your avatar or you can copy the pic and paste it here.

do you think having a spreadsheet would help you keep track of when you dosed him?

 

[Tommy2016]

the upload feature doesn’t work. You can either make it your avatar or you can copy the pic and paste it here.

do you think having a spreadsheet would help you keep track of when you dosed him?

No, because of the same thing. I might have forgot to enter it. I think the best thing to do, is just what I've been doing and that is prepping his shot each time and always second guessing myself.

 

[Ale & Bobo & Minnie (GA)]

What a fluffy cutie!!! I’m very partial to black kitties

glad you kept him safe today!