Before the August episode with vomiting and hospitalization to prevent him from going hypoglycemic (I'd already given the insulin before realizing he was vomiting repeatedly), he seemed to be stable on 2 units. The vet at MedVet thought he was on too high a dose and told me he might only need 0.5 units. Uh...I don't think so. Additionally, ultrasound of the abdomen whoed diffuse hepatopathy ... whatever that means ... and renomegaly.
I gave ProZinc a trial, because it is more flexible in scheduling and I thought maybe the Lantus wasn't right for him. The duration seemed too short to me, with very steep curves. It seemed to me that a dose of about 2.5 units was where he got the best control, albeit with huge preshot numbers.
I tried combining ProZinc with some Lantus (probably too old to be very effective) and was reamed out for it in this forum. So much for trying for the best of both worlds. It made sense to me that there could be a running level of Lantus and an as needed level of ProZinc, but apparently this is "just not done".
On Dec 13th, he had an AMPS of 145 and I made sure he ate before shooting; I was a little nervous about how low he might've gone overnight. I came home at +6 to a higher number. My thought was that he was on too high a dose and his liver had compensated or maybe he'd become very hungry because of it and eaten more. The food composition had not been changed. I decided I should back off to 2.0 units; obviously, the shed would need to clear for a bit.
On Dec 14th, he had another +6 that was higher than the AMPS; I was still thinking too much insulin had built up and backed off to 1.0 unit for a couple doses to drain the shed some more.
Since Dec 16th evening, I've been trying to stabilize on 1.5 units and I've got about 4 more cycles to stabilize at that level before I can do a curve to see if this is going to work for him. It doesn't look like its the right dose, but I didn't want to go to high with his variable appetite.
He's so thin, I've been having issues with fur shots - the needle has a tendency to go right through his skin. I'm trying to make sure I'm either holding him, or he is distracted by his treat after testing in the bathroom when I give the insulin.
