New to Diabetes

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lmunsie

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Originally Posted by catsallaround

Remeber that the 1 unit was rx'ed when he was on a high carb(pre diagnosis) food and he may need less insulin.

Good luck on the curve today
!
Yeah maybe, it seems like such a sharp drop! Trying to stay calm though, he is acting totally normal. testing again in 20 minutes, hopefully he won't still be low.....

EDIT: tested again at 1:30pm Back up to 16.4

Don't think I'm going to have a very good relationship with caninsulin
 

catsallaround

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Also keep in mind if on to much they will drop then spike soon after. I ran into this with Ben. I was told to up it but after reading/deciding to follow TR without talking to the vet about it I dropped him and used 100% the dosing on yourdiabeticcat.com
 
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lmunsie

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Here is his curve for the day, I will test again once more tonight before bed....

Time...........Glucose level.....insulin

7:30am......21.2 (378)......1 U Caninsulin
9:30am......11.8 (212)...... +2
11:30am......2.1 (37.8)..... +4
1:30 pm...... 16.4 (295)..... +6
4:00 pm...... 18.2 (327)...... +8.5

I don't think this insulin is going to work very well for him.

I don't want to give a higher dose because he bottomed out, but he didn't even test in the normal range once!



At least he was a super star for all the testing
 

catsallaround

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i would not go higher just yet. are you going to being shooting more frequently or just 2 times a day? i know you have said your schedule is tight. when is the next day you can be home to monitor?
 
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lmunsie

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I am supposed to only shoot once a day until he goes back to the vets (clearly not enough!). I want to shoot again overnight but I'll wait until tomorrow and hopefully I can talk to the vet and tell them what is going on. I really want their help but am afraid I won't get it.

According to the scale on yourdiabeticcat.com I should have given him 2U this morning, glad I didn't because he bottomed out at 2.1 on 1U, but because I'm not following the scale the moderator won't let me post their anymore.......... more frustration and less help


I can do curving in the evenings after his second shot (once he is on 2 shots a day) and then hopefully one day this weekend..... maybe Sunday. Because my days are so long I will have to moderate overnight and if he needs a third shot it will have to be in the wee hours of the morning. I wish I could just get a longer acting insulin. arrrrgh
 

catsallaround

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Do the best you can. Not sure why they won't let you post tho!
((

I know ben would go low but with prozinc it always worked out. I shot him any time his blood surgar was high after the peak. Seems a very different insulin. Have you thought of trying to do a consult far away to get the insulin?
 
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lmunsie

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ya i'm trying, I've contacted 2 of my old vets from when I was growing up (they know me really well and usually are willing to help)

They both said PZI is what they used to use on diabetic cats but it's not available in Canada anymore, although I think there is something similar under the name hypurin so I'm going to look into that now....
 

catsallaround

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have you looked into Canadian support groups? May get the best views/experiences that would most help you.
 
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lmunsie

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Spoke with my vet today. She actually took the fact that I did all the testing at home very well and agree's Cello needs a different insulin!

I'm hoping she'll give my hypurin which I think is the most similar to PROZINC that we can get in Canada. At least it's a start.... she seems more confident in my abilities and hopefully willing to work with me.

Shot Cello up this morning but that will be it for caninsulin for him, 24 hours off the juice and then onto something new....... what an... adventure?
 
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lmunsie

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new plan of attack: the vet wants to make sure he isn't fluctuating a lot during the day since I've changed his diet so now that he is off caninsulin i'm going to do a curve just based on food. Assuming there aren't any large swings throughout the day (I doubt there will be) I found a place that will compound BCP PZI and she finnaaallly agreed to write me the script for it so I can start TR in a week or two

 

catapault

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I have a 16 year old cat who was diagnosed with diabetes a couple of years ago.

My vet put her on Glipizide, an oral medication. At first we went in every week to check her glucose. She responded very well, and it was easy to manage - just put the pill in a little wet food and give her the rest after she'd eaten the spoonful of food + pill.

She gets Fancy Feat classic beef and FF classic turkey with giblets. That's it. On my own I changed to feeding her 4 times a day - when I get up, lunchtime, dinnertime, bedtime. Half a can of FF at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a full can at bedtime. I understand this is not possible for you. I removed all dry food from her diet.

She's always been an eager eater. Now that I'm controlling what she eats - no free feeding dry food - she has lost some weight which has also helped control her diabetes.

Every cat is different. The Glipizide really worked for Mist. She's been off Glipizide for over a year. Her diabetes is managed only by diet.

We're in New Jersey. Glipizide is used for human diabetics. I don't know if your vet would be willing to try but if you want to consider this option it surely could not hurt to ask.

Good luck to you and your sweet boy.
 

the_food_lady

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Hello,

I just wanted to share my experience. My angel kitty Taco was diabetic for 6 years until cancer took him. The Vet initially started him on Humulin L insulin but the manufacturer stopped making it, just when I'd gotten him so amazingly regulated....so I had to make the decision to switch to something else. My choices were PZI, caninsulin, Lantus or Levemir (the latter being 2 relatively new human insulins). After much research, I chose Levemir. At the time (this was about 4 years ago?), there was a small group of people on the Feline Diabetes Forum who were trying out Levemir in their cats (lead by a guythere name Steve, his cat's name was/is Jock). Levemir interested me the most because it worked differently than the other insulins in terms of.......it would keep the blood glucose level consistent for the 12 hour period as opposed to the other insulins in which there is a 'peak' action (and therefore the risk of hypo). I liked that. I wasn't sure what dose of Levemir to start him out at.......and it's not like I could get any suggestion from my Vet because she knew nothing about Levemir (in fact, most vets know diddly about feline diabetes and insulins, IMO). Based on the anecdotal experiences of those who were trying their cats on Levemir, I decided to start with 1 unit every 12 hours and give it time to settle, ensuring I did a curve to start....and kept a log of my readings. Start low, go slow is the motto. Now he was already pretty darn well controlled on the Humulin L so we were starting off with pretty good BGs to begin with, which I think helped. Anyway, I ended up tweaking the dose up to 1.5 units twice a day over time. I loved this insulin for him!!! It kept his BG nice and consistent for the whole 12 hour period. And I sometimes was a little late giving his shot and it didn't seem to matter. There were many times I didn't even have to give one of his shots because his BG was in the 'normal range'. It didn't take long to get him regulated so nicely that I swear, all of his BG readings (morning and night) were in the normal range....and they stayed there.

I had him on a strict diet of ONLY canned food and he wouldn't go for DM.....EVO canned is a good one, low carbs....have you tried that? ...he wasn't keen on it.....so we resorted to the pate varieties of Fancy Feast which are all low carb.

Find the forum on FDMB re: Levemir if you can.

I had considered PZI but found it would be too much of a pain in the arse to try and get it (I'm here in canada, too). i'd considered Lantus but seems to me, if I recall correctly, some found that a shot didn't provide a full 12 hours coverage (or maybe it was that there was too much overlap? can't recall now)......

I liked the Levemir too because I would buy a box of 5 cartridges and although it cost about $130 a box, that whole box would last me a year!!! The cartridges are designed for an insulin pen (for humans) but you just draw up the insulin from the cartridge by injecting the needle of the syringe into the little rubber stopper at the end of the cartridge, no different than if drawing it up from a regular vial. Didn't have to rotate the vial before using (in fact, not supposed to) but keep in fridge. If it wasn't for Taco's cancer, I know he would still be here today because I got him so perfectly controlled. Had I not wasted time with Humulin from the start, it's possible I could have gotten him off insulin altogether (guess you never know, though)....but I think by the time we made the switch to the Levemir, his pancreas was really kaput because it did take us a lot of time with the humulin to get him regulated.

Every cat is different
 
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lmunsie

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Thank you all for the advice and sharing your experiences. Totally makes me feel better. We thought about trying Glipizide, but like everything I want in Canada it is currently unavailable in my area.

I'm hell bent on getting PZI because I really really want to try first and foremost to get him in remission and tight regulation using this insulin and careful diet monitoring seems to be the most likely way to accomplish this. There is a chance I will be relocating from Canada to the UK in the next year and there is no way I can have a cat on insulin in quarantine, so I'm willing to work my butt off now so I can bring him with me, it would kill me to leave him behind.
 

cami&thomas

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Originally Posted by lmunsie

new plan of attack: the vet wants to make sure he isn't fluctuating a lot during the day since I've changed his diet so now that he is off caninsulin i'm going to do a curve just based on food. Assuming there aren't any large swings throughout the day (I doubt there will be) I found a place that will compound BCP PZI and she finnaaallly agreed to write me the script for it so I can start TR in a week or two

That's great news! I'm glad that you were about to find a pharmacy who can compound it for you up there.
 
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