Julie & steve j
Member Since 2018
Help, I’d really appreciate some advice. My cat Benny was on 5.0IU/4.5IU of Prozinc for 14 months. As part of his six monthly checkup at the vets, he had a Fructosamine test which showed an elevated number of 480. This surprised me as there had been no signs to suggest anything different in him. The vet’s advice was to increase to 5.5IU/5.0IU. Due to my circumstances (I’m on my own with him and work) I decided to increase gradually and went to 5.0IU/5.0IU. It became apparent quite quickly that Benny was struggling but he’d also had a dental procedure done at the same time which confused the issue. I started seeing a different vet who thought using a Freestyle Libre may help to get more readings and a better understanding of what was going on. We got readings from the sensors while he was on 4.5IU/4.5IU, 3.5IU/3.5IU and 4.0IU/3.5IU. The numbers obtained were a tad inconsistent. From what I can see, he’s not coming down too low in the day, with the odd exception. Generally, he’s starting somewhere in the twenties coming down to the teens and going back to the twenties on all the units we’ve monitored. The night time is different. He has nights where he’s come below 3.0 but other nights when he’s higher than 10, more so when he was on 4.5IU at night. The nights where he has come below 3 appear to cause a rebound and the following day he is starting very high (over 28). When I discuss all this with the vet over the telephone I sometimes feel like we are seeing different numbers. I conclude that he needs more insulin the day but less at night. The vet thinks differently. Her conclusions are that he either needs to start Prozinc again at 1.5IU twice daily, he needs to be referred to a specialist (she thinks maybe the best option) or that Prozinc isn’t the best insulin for him and that maybe Lantus would be better. I’m not sure which way to go and I’m wondering if anyone may be able to help. I'm amazed I'm in this situation as he'd been ok for 14months on 5.0IU/4.5IU I love my cat to pieces and I hate putting him through all of this. It’s not helping my stress levels either. I’m totally bogged down by numbers. Any advice about Lantus would be gratefully received. I’d also appreciate it if someone could tell me why I can’t enter his glucose numbers on the forum spreadsheet. I downloaded it some time ago, but can’t get into the cells. I seem to be locked out.
I hope it doesnt cause any problems. 
