Lantus 5 units once a day? Is this normal?

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Tiffany630

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My moms cat Mikey is 17lbs recently diagnosed with Diabetes. I have an awful feeling that the vet is not the most educated when it comes to this topic. He put him cat on 5 units of Lantus once a day. We have been at this for 1 1/2 weeks and his numbers are still in the 500's. I thought Lantus should be given twice a day and maybe at a lower dose. Can someone give me some insight. We are a nervous wreck. He is also on a prescription cat food. The Dr said it takes time for this med to adjust. But that is all the info that was given to us. He wants us back in 2 weeks? The only time we got a blood sugar of 200 was the day after our first appt.
 
Hello Tiffany, welcome! You are corect that usually Lantus is given twice a day, and we like to start it with smaller doses than what you are reporting.
Would you be able to write a starting post in this forum: Feline Health - (Welcome & Main Forum) to start? You would get more help getting set up. In order to help you, we need more info about your cat (or your mom's cat in your case).
I am going to tag people who can help you get started. You can also start reading these questions and answers, you will find a lot of informations there already. https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/feline-diabetes-faq-newcomers-start-here.2501/
@Bandit's Mom @Wendy&Neko can you help Tiffany get started?
 
Welcome. I’m addition to what Cecile suggested I suggest you read the sticky at the top of this forum on the dosing methods we use. Lantus has a duration of about 12 hours in cars. Shooting that large a dose once a day will give wonky bg numbers and depending on what food your mon’s cat is eating the starting dose would not be more than 2 units in a cat that was very large. My cat who weighed 14 pounds started on 1 unit every 12 hours. Your mom needs a new vet who understands feline diabetics but we can help safely treat her cat.
 
@Tiffany630
You can read all about Lantus here , please read all the yellow stickys
https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/lantus-levemir-biosimilars.9/

Information we need about Mikey
This is where you can set up what we call your signature, it's at the end of everyone's post in gray letters. Just tap on your name up top then tap on signature and add this information.

  • Add info we need to help you:
    • Caregiver & kitty's name
    • DX: Date
    • Name of Insulin (do not include dose or frequency)
    • Name of your meter
    • Diet: "LC wet" or "dry food" or "combo"
    • Dosing: TR or SLGS or Custom (if applicable)
    • DKA or other recent health issue (if applicable)
    • Bexacat or Senvelgo (if applicable) and dates
    • Acro, IAA, or Cushings (if applicable)
    • Spreadsheet link. Please put the signature link on the bottom line of your signature information, on its own, so it is easy to find.
    • Please do not put any information about your location in the signature for security reasons. If you wish to add your country location, please add it to your profile.
Be sure to click the 'Save Changes' button at the bottom. If you need help urgently it is important we know these things at a glance. We don’t want to waste valuable time finding out information.

You need to start home testing Mikey
Most members use the Relion Classic Premier
Here is the link for the meter and test strips so you don't have to search for them
Relion Premier Classic Meter at Walmart for 9 dollars
https://www.walmart.com/ip/ReliOn-Premier-CLASSIC-Blood-Glucose-Monitoring-System/552134103

The tests strips are 17.88 for 100
https://www.walmart.com/ip/ReliOn-Premier-Blood-Glucose-Test-Strips-100-Count/575088197
At least if you need more test strips you can run into Walmart and pick them up or if you're running low you can just order them from Walmart

We also have a spreadsheet where we track our cats BG
Any more questions just ask
 
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This post will help you get set up so we can help you faster and better:
New? How You Can Help Us Help You!

You were right in posting here, we can help. Lantus should be given twice a day and we typically start at much lower doses, like 1 unit twice a day. But there are some factors that can change the recommendation. Can you tell me a little bit about how he was diagnosed as diabetic?

You also don't need special prescription food for diabetics. Most of us feed commercially available low carb foods.
 
Tiffany630 said:
My moms cat Mikey is 17lbs recently diagnosed with Diabetes. I have an awful feeling that the vet is not the most educated when it comes to this topic. He put him cat on 5 units of Lantus once a day. We have been at this for 1 1/2 weeks and his numbers are still in the 500's. I thought Lantus should be given twice a day and maybe at a lower dose. Can someone give me some insight. We are a nervous wreck. He is also on a prescription cat food. The Dr said it takes time for this med to adjust. But that is all the info that was given to us. He wants us back in 2 weeks? The only time we got a blood sugar of 200 was the day after our first appt.
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Thank you so much. I’m going to give my mom my sign in information so she can go through all this helpful info. I really do appreciate it. We have started to give Mikey 3 units 3 twice a day. And that is definitely helping. He was in the 300’s. Big difference from almost 600.
 
Are you able to get a spreadsheet set up? If you have any trouble we can get someone to help you with it.
Once you have the SS and signature set up we can help you a lot.
 
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