Newbie Checklist
Newbie checklist:
Posting in the FELINE HEALTH forum is the preferred beginning route for newly registered members. The insulin support groups, such as this one for PZI, are recommended for more experienced caretakers. Your level of experience or your level of time & education commitment can only be determined by YOU and the decision on which forum to post in is also YOUR decision. If you are a newbie, please do not let the extreme detail here overwhelm you. PLEASE BEGIN IN THE FELINE HEALTH forum. You can always cross-post here, too. Thank you, Rebecca, Founder, FelineDiabetes.com and FDMB
For the newly diagnosed, feline diabetes can be overwhelming - it's normal and the learning curve is sharp. But stick with it - it does get better and easier. If needed, consume this list as you are able to. Treating the diabetes can also be very rewarding when you see their improvement.
Even if you haven't mastered a specific item, tackle those items that you can. Post in the PZI or
Health Forums with any difficulties you are having. Someone here has almost certainly been through the same struggle, and can offer tips & support. You can always try PMing ["Private Message"] others who have posted in the past too for ideas, clarification or to point to your topic.
If you have an emergency you may want to post in the
Health Forum in addition to PZI as Health can often be more frequently traveled/viewed.
PLEASE USE THE 911 icon for posts regarding emergency situations.
1) Get your home testing on! This can be challenging to learn.
Newbie Kits with meters and testing supplies are available
here. And
here are links that detail
how to achieve home testing - including videos and detailed how-to. It is recommended that you test at least before every shot. The more you test likely the faster you can adjust dosing to hopefully more quickly regulate your kitty. With PZI we also tend to like to concentrate on the "mid-cycle" hours of +3 and +6 and then hours adjoining those hours. Complete curves [testing every 2 hours for 12 hours] should be achieved as frequently as you have time to do so.
Reading about curves can be found
here. For those with busy schedules, hopefully perhaps take one weekend day a week in the beginning to achieve this. Even if you are still mastering home testing, read on! You can tackle other items on the checklist while you are still learning to test.
2) Get the diet right! Diet and insulin work hand in hand to treat diabetes. Food contains carbohydrates (sugar) so if you feed a high carbohydrate diet you have to give a lot more insulin. Your first goal in mastering the treatment of diabetes is to switch your cat to a low carbohydrate ["LC"] diet, preferably canned or raw foods. There is no such thing as low-carb dry food. There is low-er carb dry food, but if your cat will eat canned (or raw) that's the best. Please see
Janet & Binky's list and look for foods under 10% calories from carbs [not the "Guaranteed Analysis" printed on the can] that are available in your community and are priced for your budget.
Low carb treats are imperative too.
Dr. Pierson's page has many useful suggestions on how to transition cats who don't take to wet food, so if your cat is holding out, don't give up hope! If your cat does not have a history of
ketones, and you are giving more than 1u twice per day, you may want to drop back to 1u twice per day when you make the switch to LC - the resulting lowering of blood glucose ["BG"] values are sometimes dramatic. PLEASE NOTE: You must test before every shot if you are switching from dry to wet food. The diet change alone can radically lower glucose levels.
3) Pick your “no-shoot” number. This is the Pre-Shot [“PS”] number at which you will not give insulin. For beginners this is usually 200. You can reduce this number as you gain experience. There are
other options than just not shooting and you should be aware of your options which you can read about
here.
4) Watch for a Blood Glucose ["BG"] drop from the Low-Carb ["LC"]. After the switch to LC food one should start to see the effect of that anywhere from immediately to seven days. Be prepared to lower the insulin dose as necessary and/or have your no shoot number decided upon.
5) Dosing. Generally [but not always] PZI , including ProZinc, is suggested to start at 1 unit ["1u"] twice per day.
6) Print hypo instructions. Make sure you have printed out and read the “
how to treat a hypo instructions” and have them stashed somewhere in case you need them.
7) Read the PZI basics Please read the info in the Basic
PZI Reading & Links here. Learning about
onset, duration & nadir - or how PZI typically works - is important too. There are also many other helpful topics for newbies and the advanced covered in the remaining reading & links in the PZI Sticky.
8) Get your spreadsheet going! Once you are home testing, you will hopefully be recording your results in a spreadsheet that we can all view. It is ideal if you link to that spreadsheet [“SS”] in your signature. Instructions for this are in the
Tech Support Forum Stickies here at the top of that forum. Keeping detailed notes in your SS will help you later when the reasons why you made decisions are not so clear.
9) Get that profile up! Creating a profile of your kitty and linking to it in your signature will help us help you better. It's a good place to put the answers to questions you frequently receive or anything unique about your kitty. Instructions for this can be found in the
Tech Support Form Stickies here at the top of the forum.
10) Things not going right? See an incomplete
list of things that may cause wonky numbers for ideas. If you are not seeing 'results' in 6-8 weeks after switch to LC and start of insulin then you should re-evaluate. Try posting in PZI or Health asking for feedback on what to try next. There are alternate strategies for using PZI, as well as other insulins, that others may be able to help you evaluate.
11) Communicate! Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease in our PZI group. Some people post daily topics of their progress and we like following kitties and their progress. So do not hesitate to post questions or just how things are going. Ask for help or input if you would like some.
12) Give back. Lastly, giving back here in PZI the great advice, patience and help that was given to you as a newbie is a great way to help other PZI users. Please share your experience and knowledge with others here in PZI about how to use this insulin. It is only through you that the next newbie can learn the insulin and the cycle can be continued.
If you wish to see how sausage is made, you can visit this topic to see how the ideas for this guide were conceived. Please also use that draft topic to comment on the list or add your suggestions. Thank you. The bbCode version of this post is available here.
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