? New To Lantus

MarleyMoo

MarleyMoo

Member Since 2020
My Marley moo is on Prozinc currently, but after 8 months (that went quick), he is still unregulated and Prozinc isn't doing well for him. After numerous advice posts in the Prozinc board, it was suggested I should try Lantus out due to the weird things his body is doing and start by coming here and get dosing recommendations on where to start.

SO! Vet has approved the Lantus, I had the prescription sent to Marks Marine, and I'm just waiting on a call to finalize my order. My vet said this would be starting over, so begin by giving 1U and start over the dose increase.

My spreadsheet is in my signature for Prozinc. I'm hoping the Lantus won't take too long to get here. Where should I start? The 1U that the vet has recommended?
 
Hi welcome to Lantus. I do believe your vet is correct. With starting with 1 unit, but hopefully someone else can help you with that question :). Marleymoo is a cute little cat
 
Welcome to you and Marley. There’s going to be a bit of a learning curve but we will guide you. Usually when switching from Prozinc you start at the same dose or maybe a little less. Lantus is a depot insulin so it will take about a week to see what the starting dose will do for him. Looking at his ss I would suggest 3.25. You can see what others think. While waiting for the insulin to arrive I suggest you read all the yellow stickies at the top of this forum and consider which dosing method you might want to follow. You appear to be a testaholic like many of us and feed only wet food so either method will work. I’m partial to TR.


Keep asking questions as you learn about Lantus. Someone will almost always answer.
 
Oh the irony that he threw you some greens today!

I do still think Lantus will be easier, given those sharp upticks after nadir. So don't let the greens trick you!
 
I also switched Buddy from Prozinc last year. He wasn't on Prozinc long and I switched him at the same dose. But he was still getting very high test numbers when I switched him.

I found Lantus much easier. You don't need to roll the vial. That was a pain for me to do with the Prozinc. I always worried that the suspension wasn't even. With Lantus you don't agitate the vial/pen.

I'm sure you know to get the new 100u syringes as well. The units are a lot less volume so it is a bit trickier measuring your doses.
 
MarleyMoo said:
Where should I start? The 1U that the vet has recommended?
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no need to go back to 1u, when switching insulins we take a look at the current insulin dose. Taking him back to 1u, when he you haven't seen anything lower than yellow on the 3.25u would be a waste of precious time, and could see you battle with glucose toxicity or worse.

I tend to agree with @tiffmaxee around the 3.25u would be a good dose.
Some cats can have a strong reaction to the dose change, so if you want to be a little more cautious then perhaps start at 3u, make sure you do the change on a day you can monitor, just in case he does have an initial strong reaction to the change.
 
Chiming in agreement, don't go back in dose to 1 unit. Been there done that when we went from Caninsulin to Lantus as per my vet - that was a waste of my time!

And welcome.
 
I also agree that you should start at 3.25u. Starting at 1u would leave him in high numbers unnecessarily and it takes time to build up the dose.

Sometimes, Lantus kicks in pretty fast so I’d suggest starting on a morning and not night, be sure you have plenty of foods, strips, hypo toolkit items, etc, and can be there to monitor.

Welcome to our family here!
 
Thanks everyone for the responses! I ended up falling asleep, so responding now. Thanks again, though. I didn't expect so many responses.

Adrienne & Molly said:
Hi welcome to Lantus. I do believe your vet is correct. With starting with 1 unit, but hopefully someone else can help you with that question :). Marleymoo is a cute little cat
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Thank you so much! He's definitely a cute little cow.

Laura and Gremlin said:
Have you read the stickies in this part of the forum? I believe there's one there about starting doses for Lantus, though the recommendation MAY be slightly different seeing as you're switching insulins. @Marje and Gracie should be able to help or tag someone who can.
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I have read them. Because I"m switching from another insulin, I didn't want to blindly follow the initial dosing guidelines unless that's what should be done with switching. Thanks!

tiffmaxee said:
Looking at his ss I would suggest 3.25. You can see what others think. While waiting for the insulin to arrive I suggest you read all the yellow stickies at the top of this forum and consider which dosing method you might want to follow. You appear to be a testaholic like many of us and feed only wet food so either method will work. I’m partial to TR.
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Thank you! His current 3.5U has been a little scary due to his potential glucose toxicity; we find a breakthrough dose which swings him to a super low, but if I reduce, he's back to 400s/500s. So while I definitely don't want to start at 1, I think 3U would make me more comfortable until I see what the Lantus does for him. I'll take that testaholic comment as high praise :D

FrostD said:
Oh the irony that he threw you some greens today!

I do still think Lantus will be easier, given those sharp upticks after nadir. So don't let the greens trick you!
Click to expand...

Ya he's been a little bugger and I was chasing him with some higher carb food than he's used to (Salmon Dr. Elsey) to make sure he didn't reach hypo numbers, but also didn't want to break out any syrup if he didn't really need it.

Gill & George said:
Some cats can have a strong reaction to the dose change, so if you want to be a little more cautious then perhaps start at 3u.
Click to expand...

Based on people saying 3.25, I was feeling pretty comfortable with 3, so unless something changes by the time it gets here (order's being processed!) then 3 it is!
 
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