Henry - Prozinc Dosing

Henry & Ginny

Henry & Ginny

Member Since 2025
Hello fellow Feline Diabetes members!

Henry was diagnosed and started insulin in October, on Halloween of all days! After diagnosis, we made dietary changes first and waited about a month before starting insulin. Since then, figuring out the correct dose has been incredibly frustrating.

I’ve been working closely with our vet, who has recommended increasing the dose by 1 unit at a time. That makes me nervous, though, since I work 12-hour shifts and can’t monitor him during the day. Because of that, I’ve been increasing by 0.5 units instead so I feel a little less stressed about him being home alone until my husband gets home.

What’s confusing is that it seems like every time we increase his insulin, his numbers actually get worse instead of better. At the same time, I haven’t caught him going too low. I’m wondering if he’s still dealing with glucose toxicity and if so, at what point should we expect to see more meaningful improvement?

For food, he gets Dr. Elsey’s Cleanprotein Chicken in the morning with added water, and Tiki Cat After Dark shreds in the evening, also with extra water. With just the dietary changes, his numbers were getting into the yellow range, which made me hopeful that insulin would really help once we started.

Any suggestions or shared experiences would be greatly appreciated. This process has been overwhelming, and I just want to make sure we’re doing the right thing for him.

Henry's Spreadsheet
 

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Hello and welcome! I know what it’s like to keep increasing insulin and not seeing any movement in numbers. It’s extremely disheartening and frustrating.

I’m studying Henry’s spreadsheet and will get back with you later this afternoon. Okay? I just didn’t want you to think that you were being ignored.
 
Hello again! I’m glad that you have learned how to test Henry’s blood glucose at home and are tracking it on his spreadsheet. Well done. Also, it was the right thing to do to switch him to low carb food. I notice that I don’t see a preshot test before every insulin injection. It’s important to test before each insulin injection to make sure it’s safe to give the shot and to track the difference between his AMPS/PMPS and nadir. I know a lot of this seems pointless right now with him staying so high all the time.

I would have liked to see Henry started on 1 unit instead of 2 and for the increases to be done in smaller increments. It was a good move to only increase by half units instead of whole units. Cats are small creatures and small changes in insulin can make a big difference. Still, he has never dropped low according to your testing yet.

So he is eating all wet food and no dry? That would be something for you to add to your signature, as well as the name of your glucometer, any other health conditions he may have, your time zone, etc. Do you know what his Fructosamine number was at diagnosis? Any ketones at diagnosis ? Are you testing for ketones noHow is he behaving now? Eating, drinking, purring, playing, litter box use. etc. Hungry all the time? What is his feeding schedule like?
 
Thank you so much for taking the time to review Henry’s spreadsheet and for the encouragement, I really appreciate it. I’m very grateful for the guidance here.

As a nurse, I never imagined I’d be expanding my skill set into feline diabetes, but it has helped me feel more comfortable with home testing and data tracking. I always test Henry before his morning feed, depending on whether it’s closer to 6 or 7 a.m., that sometimes changes which column I enter it under. My husband has been working on getting more comfortable checking his blood sugar and giving insulin. On my long workdays, he has been feeding Henry and giving the insulin. Since Henry’s numbers have been trending high, my priority initially was making sure he received his insulin safely while my husband built confidence with testing. He was able to do all checks and shots yesterday, so I think he’s finally getting the hang of it. :)

In hindsight, I agree that starting at 1 unit would have been preferable. That decision was made with our vet, but once I learned more about how sensitive cats can be to insulin, I became uncomfortable with full-unit increases. That’s why I’ve since switched to increasing by 0.5 units. I also struggle with not wanting him to stay so high so the extra guidance on here is reassuring. How many doses or days should we be giving each dose between changes?

Regarding diet: Henry was a dry-food-only cat prior to diagnosis and ate Stella & Chewy’s twice daily. We have an auto feeder that I am able to schedule his amount and times. We had tried wet food multiple times in the past without much success. At diagnosis, the vet sent us home with DM dry, but after finding this group, I returned it and transitioned him to Dr. Elsey’s CleanProtein Chicken, which was very similar in kibble size to his previous food and made the transition easy. To encourage the moisture, I've recently started adding a few shot glasses of water to the dry food in the morning, which he eats without issue.

I’ve slowly transitioned him to wet food in the evenings. He likes Tiki Cat After Dark Shreds, and I add extra water to that as well. He tends to graze on it over time. I’ve tried wet food in the mornings, but he has strong opinions about missing his dry food. At this point, mornings are dry-with-water and evenings are wet-with-water. I've debated if spreading out his dry food over a few morning feedings would be better with the auto feeder, but haven't wanted to change too many variables.

We are using the ReliOn Platinum human glucometer. At diagnosis on 10/31, his blood glucose at the vet was 432, fructosamine was 422, and he weighed 14.25 lbs. I initially brought him in because he had started peeing on things around the house. We hadn’t noticed a major change in litter box output at the time, but he had been acting very hungry for a couple of months. We had changed his food around that time and mistakenly assumed that was the cause... clearly, we were wrong.

After dietary changes, we followed up on 11/20. His blood glucose was 483, fructosamine had improved to 341, and his weight was down to 13.5 lbs. Urinalysis and ketones were negative at that time.

Currently, Henry continues to eat well. He grazes at times but does finish his meals and drinks the added water. He’s less playful and sleeps more, which I imagine ongoing hyperglycemia contributes to. He responds to his name, purrs when petted, but is a bit more distant and less snuggly than he used to be.

I am not currently testing ketones at home. To be honest, I’m not sure we could afford hospitalization for DKA if it occurred, which has been weighing heavily on me.

We’re still having intermittent issues with him peeing outside the litter box, particularly in my child’s room and the mudroom. When we’re diligent about keeping items off the floor, the inappropriate urination stops. It seems to happen only when something is left down.

I know the numbers are still high and that can feel discouraging, but I’m committed to home testing, careful dose adjustments, and learning as much as I can. I truly appreciate the support and expertise in this group! It’s been invaluable. :)
 
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Henry & Ginny said:
I always test Henry before his morning feed, depending on whether it’s closer to 6 or 7 a.m., that sometimes changes which column I enter it under.
Click to expand...
Okay. Maybe I am understanding this? The procedure for ProZinc is test, feed, shoot in that order — all within about a 10 minute period of time. He’s not supposed to eat any food for two hours before the preshot test (AMPS/PMPS). If you test, for example, at one hour before his shot time, you would put that number in the +11 cell.

What is his shot time in your local time?
 
Henry & Ginny said:
its. I also struggle with not wanting him to stay so high so the extra guidance on here is reassuring. How many doses or days should we be giving each dose between changes?
Click to expand...
Yes. I agree that we should be pressing forward with the increases. Unfortunately, with dry food in the picture, it’s safer to hold the dose a bit longer. With nadirs in the 300s though, we would use half unit increases until those nadirs come down and then we would do .25 unit increases.
 
I do think it would be a good idea to test for ketones at home. The least expensive way of doing it is to use the keto diastix that you put in the urine stream of your cat. My preferred way is to use a blood ketone meter. I understand about the costs of treating a DKA because my cat spent a week in intensive care with a DKA and I had to put it on Care Credit and then take out a personal loan to pay that bill off. Anyway, we want to monitor ketones to prevent a DKA. Some cats are not as prone to ketones as others so hopefully Henry is not.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Okay. Maybe I am understanding this? The procedure for ProZinc is test, feed, shoot in that order — all within about a 10 minute period of time. He’s not supposed to eat any food for two hours before the preshot test (AMPS/PMPS). If you test, for example, at one hour before his shot time, you would put that number in the +11 cell.

What is his shot time in your local time?
Click to expand...
We tend to do his morning feed between 6-7am and his evening feed around 6-7pm. I had added the time under the + columns so I can see how that could make it more confusing.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Yes. I agree that we should be pressing forward with the increases. Unfortunately, with dry food in the picture, it’s safer to hold the dose a bit longer. With nadirs in the 300s though, we would use half unit increases until those nadirs come down and then we would do .25 unit increases.
Click to expand...
That makes sense. How many days should we hold the dose before increasing?
 
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