12/24 First post in this forum

Jacky's Mom

Jacky's Mom

Member Since 2019
Merry Christmas! I just got Levemir today. My Jacky has been on Novolin N for 3 months. For most of those 3 months, I've been trying to get him off of it and on a better insulin. It was.. wait for this and ...wait for that. I am glad we got his bad teeth taken out first. Anyway, my vet, my new vet (I ended up changing vets along the way) admits she knows little about Levemir and put the dosage at 1 unit twice a day. She seems fine with letting me be the one to manage his treatment. Her only thing is that she insists my ReliOn Premier is not giving accurate readings and wants me to use a pet meter. I plan to use the human meter until/if I see a reason not to myself.

So, I'm all ready to start him on Levemir Thursday morning. Not even going to try until after Christmas. I believe the SLGS is more my style. I will need lots of help. Please and thank you! ♡♡♡♡
 
Hello and welcome. I think you and Jacky will like Levemir much better. One of the things you will have to get used to is that we determine the Lev dosed based on how low it takes the kitty. That means you will have to start getting mid cycles tests to try to spot the nadir. Occasionally with Lev the nadirs will be around preshot, but typically closer to +8, depending on the cat of course.

Levemir is also a depot insulin, so it may take a few days until the depot is build before you see much action. I wouldn’t be surprised if 1 unit is way too low, since his N dose was quite a bit higher. Make sure you test daily for ketones when you go to the lower dose.

When you start the Levemir, could you put a blank line in the spreadsheet after the last day of N, so we can easily spot when you make the change. Glad you are sticking to the human meter. That’ll make dosing easier as that’s what the dosing methods use,

Good luck with the switch?
 
Welcome to the very best place you never thought you'd need to be. I don't have any experience with Levimer so I can't help you there. But I can send you these :bighug::bighug: and wish you Happy Holidays.
 
Wendy&Neko said:
Hello and welcome. I think you and Jacky will like Levemir much better. One of the things you will have to get used to is that we determine the Lev dosed based on how low it takes the kitty. That means you will have to start getting mid cycles tests to try to spot the nadir. Occasionally with Lev the nadirs will be around preshot, but typically closer to +8, depending on the cat of course.

Levemir is also a depot insulin, so it may take a few days until the depot is build before you see much action. I wouldn’t be surprised if 1 unit is way too low, since his N dose was quite a bit higher. Make sure you test daily for ketones when you go to the lower dose.

When you start the Levemir, could you put a blank line in the spreadsheet after the last day of N, so we can easily spot when you make the change. Glad you are sticking to the human meter. That’ll make dosing easier as that’s what the dosing methods use,

Good luck with the switch?
Click to expand...
Hi! To clarify, not my first post, just first one in Levemir group. Yes, I'm ready to start testing more often. For some reason, I haven't quite wrapped my head around terms like nadir, although I have a basic understanding if that makes any sense. I'm sure I'll get used to it.
I actually thought 1 unit of the Levemir was a lot. I was prescribed 3 units of the Novolin, but have been giving him 2 units with the expectation that his dental surgery was going to bring his numbers down. I'm not even sure the Novolin is still effective. I've had it since the first of October.
Well, this is a busy day for everyone. Thanks for taking time to respond.
 
We look at how the dose of the current insulin is doing when suggesting where to start the depot insulins. Hard to tell without mid cycle tests, but I don’t think 2 or even 3 units of Novolin was getting him very low. The question for the depot insulins is “how low does this dose take my cat”. Answering that question, ie. the nadirs, tells us how to change the dose.

If you haven’t already, I recommend reading the Sticky Notes on the top of this forum. They will help with terminology such as onset, nadir, and duration. It’s a lot of reading, feel free to ask questions. People here are very generous with their time.
 
Hello and welcome to the forum! We've been on Lev for about 6 months and I really love it! Luci has less of those highs and lows - well mostly..than she used to have on Lantus.

I also see that your Jack and Luci could have been litter mates!!! Always nice to welcome another tux to the group...

You can look at our SS and see how things changed - starting in July of this year when we switched to Lev.

Please post and ask lots of questions. I learned a lot from just reading other people's condos...so many different issues and solutions on a daily basis.

Welcome again!!! Hope your Jacky is a quick study and can benefit from Lev quickly :)
 
Welcome to Lantus and Levemir!

You’ve been given great responses already. I guess to clarify more about nadir and how low a dose takes, one of the hardest things I had to learn going from PZI to Lantus/Lev was that pre-shot numbers don’t always determine the dose. The mantra here is: shoot low to stay low. You tend to get flatter cycles when shooting low numbers. (However, ECID)

What I like about Lev is the later onset. I know I have about 3-5 hours before the next dose starts to take effect and it’s why I’m more comfortable shooting PS numbers in the 50s and 60s. Of course, it took a lot of data gathering and time before I understood Ming’s Lev cycle. Sometimes Ming’s nadir is at shot time :eek:
 
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