Re: Need Lantus Help and hope I am in posting in right area
hi cindy!
For reference, using an alpha trak, normal numbers are considered to be about 68-160ish. That compares to most of us using human meters who count 50-120 as being the normal range. When you read things on here unless it's designated as AT numbers, they're in human numbers.
Your sweet Norman is looking great. Likely what you've got going on is that Norman's pancreas is healing and may be beginning to put out some insulin of its own. Cats are unique in their ability to heal and begin putting out their own insulin again. At the point where they go off of insulin, we still consider them diabetic, but they become diet-controlled. Looks like Norman may be headed there. Your job is to keep him safe while this process happens.
I'm glad you're going to be able to get a couple of tests in this evening. As long as he's over 68, just go about your normal routine. If he falls below 68, then you want to break out the high carbs - either honey, corn syrup, high carb gravy from canned cat food - whatever you have that's full of sugar. you give him a couple of drops of syrup or about a teaspoon of the gravy, then post here and ask for help. Edit the subject line of your first post in this thread - that's the subject line that appears on the main page.
if you get scared of the low numbers, you can hit the 911 in the first post of this thread.
At 68, you'll have time to take care of him and safely pull him back up over 68. Think of the 60's as your "take action" zone. Then you'll retest in 20-30 minutes to see where his blood sugar is at then. If he's still under 68, repeat the process. Here's the directions on how to handle low numbers, but i wanted to give you a simple outline to start from :
Handling Low Numbers.
When a cat is in a healing phase, like it looks like Norman is, you want to be extra careful to get a mid-cycle test in every cycle so that if he goes below 68 you can raise his blood sugar up to a safe level (over 68) and then you also can reduce his dose with the next shot. If i were you, I'd check him about +2 or +3 in every cycle, then again about +5/6 in every cycle. That ought to be enough to let us know how low he's going.
congrats - your sweet Norman is very lucky to be doing so well!
and yes, you're in the right spot.
