If I want to make a curve? Do I have to withhold food?

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PH&MonkeyPenPenFaFaTiger

PH&MonkeyPenPenFaFaTiger

Member Since 2020
I want to check the BG for my cat Monkey, like 6 times a day to get more information.

My question is, if I want to get accurate result, do I have to withhold food? Currently I am feeding Monkey cooked chicken breast every 1 to 3 hours. Will this affect the result?

Thanks.
 
Peter H said:
Currently I am feeding Monkey cooked chicken breast every 1 to 3 hours.
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Is that all you're feeding? Because just chicken isn't a complete diet for a cat.

We don't want them to eat for the 2 hours immediately before shot times so that when you test, you get a number that's not influenced by food, but during the rest of the cycle, you should feed like you normally would.
 
Chris & China (GA) said:
Is that all you're feeding? Because just chicken isn't a complete diet for a cat.

We don't want them to eat for the 2 hours immediately before shot times so that when you test, you get a number that's not influenced by food, but during the rest of the cycle, you should feed like you normally would.
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Thanks Chris, I feed a lot of diabetes prescription dry food at 9 am and 9pm, and Monkey ate a lot. I was free feeding dry food, but Monkey seems to also like chicken breast, therefore I feed him more meat in the hope that meat can make him strong and not raise BG too much, and his energy would come less from dry food.

I do not understand exactly, if I need to without food 2 hours before shot times, why can I feed him as normally during the rest of the cycle?

Btw, what information about complete diet would you recommend? \
 
I think you should try to get the kibble out of his diet completely....even the "diabetic" kind. It's too high in carbohydrates for a diabetic cat.

Most of us feed our own cats canned foods like Friskies pates or Fancy Feast Classics. We've had another member from Hong Kong in the past and I do know there are acceptable low carb canned foods available but that was a long time ago and I don't remember exactly what they were.

Peter H said:
I do not understand exactly, if I need to without food 2 hours before shot times, why can I feed him as normally during the rest of the cycle?
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I know it's hard, but with Glargine insulins, the dose is based on how LOW it takes them, not the Pre-Shot, but we want to make sure they're high enough before we give them insulin for safety. So the Pre-Shot test should be done when he hasn't eaten for at least 2 hours.

Until you get enough experience and really understand how your cat responds to both food and insulin, it makes a difference if they're at or above 200 (11.1) or (for example) at 90 (5.0) before you give the shot.
 
Isn't Monkey still on Caninsulin? I know you're thinking of switching to Lantus, but I didn't think it had happened yet? Peter, if you could put the insulin you're using in your signature, that would be helpful.

Anyway, it's even more important to get a non-food influenced pre-shot number with Caninsulin. It's a safety measure. You, first, need to make sure his numbers are high enough to shoot, then second, make sure he'll eat food now so he has food on-board when the shot becomes active (sooner than for lantus, can be just an hour before Caninsulin starts working), then shoot.

The rest of the day, though, your goal is information, and what you want is not numbers free of food influence, but numbers that are as close to a 'normal day' as possible. So, feed whatever you'd usually feed, whenever you would usually feed it!
 
Nan & Amber (GA) said:
Isn't Monkey still on Caninsulin? I know you're thinking of switching to Lantus, but I didn't think it had happened yet? Peter, if you could put the insulin you're using in your signature, that would be helpful.

Anyway, it's even more important to get a non-food influenced pre-shot number with Caninsulin. It's a safety measure. You, first, need to make sure his numbers are high enough to shoot, then second, make sure he'll eat food now so he has food on-board when the shot becomes active (sooner than for lantus, can be just an hour before Caninsulin starts working), then shoot.

The rest of the day, though, your goal is information, and what you want is not numbers free of food influence, but numbers that are as close to a 'normal day' as possible. So, feed whatever you'd usually feed, whenever you would usually feed it!
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Monkey is still on Caninsulin. I have called the vet but he have refused to change the insulin until next appointment. He says "Caninsulin is good enough". It sounds that his experience with insulin is with Caninsulin most.

However, today I find that I can buy glargine without doctor prescription. (Well, this is how pharmacies in Hong Kong work)

Below two insulin I am considering, Lantus SoloStar and Basaglar KwikPen. That box of lantus cost 120 USD. Is that expensive compare to US?

Also, I want to ask again all the safety measures I need to take for switching from Caninsulin to Glargine. I know I asked the similar questions in previous post. I want to double check because I am so afraid my mistake can be fatal.
1. How to switch? How the volume of dose of Caninsulin convert to glargine? Or I should start very low, let say 1.0 U to 2.0 U (my caninsulin dose is 3.0 to 3.25 U)
2. How to communicate with the vet? If he dislikes the idea of switching or he is not skillful with glargine. I am considering do it on my own without saeeing the vet... because it seems that the vet is not good as the forks here. What do you thing.
3. Is this the exactly right insulin, Chris has already confirmed and of course I trust him, I just want to double confirm.
4. Any risk? Is there guide that talk about switching insulin.

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Oh, good news on being able to buy glargine over the counter! How convenient, I wish we could do that here!

We usually recommend just doing a direct switch with the same unit dose when changing insulins, sometimes a little lower. So if Monkey is on 3.25 on Caninsulin, you could start with 3.25 or 3.0 on glargine (if he's still in red/black numbers consistently by the time you switch, I'd recommend the 3.25)

The important thing is to make sure you have the right syringes. Glargine is a U100 insulin, Caninsulin is U40. That means that glargine insulin is more concentrated by volume. DO NOT use your Caninsulin syringes to draw up glargine, it will result in too much active insulin and a possible overdose.
 
The insulin molecule itself isn't that different from species to species. The commercial formulations mostly differ by the biochemistry of the suspension and delivery method-- keeping it stable in the vial, promoting activity once it's been injected, that kind of thing. The long-lasting human insulins actually work much better with a cat's fast metabolism than does Caninsulin (developed for dogs).
 
I'm going to have to agree with Chris, Peter. That dry food COULD be why he cant get his numbers down. I also agree Monkey AND Pen Pen need a more complete diet, can food wise. I KNOW its a big change but...sigh I think its necessary.
NOW... if and when you do decide to pull the dry food. It must be done slowly WHILE TESTING. If you take away the dry ALL AT ONCE his numbers will drop significantly. I cant express enough the difference it will make. We can help you through this process.

This doesnt reflect every cat because they are ALL wonderfully different but When I took the dry away from Troubles diet. He was OFF insulin in just a few weeks.. I'm not saying it works for every cat but...Doesnt Monkey deserve a chance for that?

I know we are throwing a lot at you all at once. Its only because we care. ok? We never mean to hound or bark orders, even though it may seem that way.:bighug:
 
Peter H said:
Btw, may I ask how can human insulin be applied to cat? I thought human's system is quite different from cats.
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The original insulins were harvested from the pancreas of cows (bovine) and pigs (porcine) and they worked OK for humans.
"Bovine insulin differs chemically from human insulin in three amino acid residues and porcine insulin in one, but their actions are very similar to those of human insulin."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/bovine-insulin
In the 1980's human insulin was manufactured using bacteria (recombinant DNA technology).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2690608

Bovine insulin is closer to feline insulin than human or porcine insulin and thus in ws thought that the older bovine insulins would be better in cats than either porcine or human insulins.
In the 1980's human insulin was manufactured using bacteria (recombinant DNA technology). One can still get bovine PZI insulin like BCP in Texas.

Regarding Vetsulin:
As a lente insulin, Vetsulin is classified as an intermediate-acting insulin. It is an aqueous suspension of 40 IU/mL of highly purified porcine insulin, consisting of 35% amorphous and 65% crystalline zinc insulin.
Unlike human insulin, porcine insulin has the same amino acid sequence as canine insulin, making it less likely for dogs to develop anti-insulin antibodies.
https://www.merck-animal-health-usa.com/vetsulin/about-vetsulin

Modifiers are added to regular (R) insulin to increase its duration. N insulin
:
HUMULIN N is a suspension of crystals produced from combining human insulin and protamine sulfate under appropriate conditions for crystal formation.
https://www.rxlist.com/humulin-n-drug.htm
ProZinc uses potime zinc, thus the Protamine Zinc

The human recombinant insulin is still used in human R and N insulins and in ProZinc. It was also used in the Human ultralente (U) and lente (L) which were discontinued in the 2000's when the long-duration insulin analogs Lantus and Levemir were available.
Lantus is human insulin which has been modified
LANTUS is produced by recombinant DNA technology utilizing a nonpathogenic laboratory strain of Escherichia coli (K12) as the production organism. Insulin glargine differs from human insulin in that the amino acid asparagine at position A21 is replaced by glycine and two arginines are added to the C-terminus of the B-chain.
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2007/021081s024lbl.pdf
 
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