12/5 Milo 500-600s

[treighsee]

15 year old Milo has been diagnosed with diabetes for about 2 years. The only symptoms to alert us were excessive water drinking and a slight wobble in his back legs. After diagnosis, we've been using at home alphatrax 2 testing am/pm and 3 units of lantus from a pen. No other symptoms. He eats a lot! Always has. We free feed Purina One dry food with him and 3 other cats. They all share a can of wet friskies in the mornings. I've been happy with numbers in the 300s but lately he's testing 5-600s and I've moved to 4 units when he's that high.

I know I need to do a curve. Haven't done one in months. My question is, is it worth clearing his system of all insulin and getting a "start" curve and and then start with a 1 unit dose to see how that affects things? Or just start a curve with the normal 3/4 unit doses? I've read many threads on here about how more insulin may make numbers higher and you should back off the insulin. Milo is fine, no adverse symptoms to having/not having a shot, I'm just concerned to see those high numbers. So I'm open to suggestions. We use the Lantus pen which only allows whole units. Thoughts? Thank you from a newbie poster

 

[Olive & Paula]

Welcome. Others will chime in soon. On my way to work so can't give you to much info.

You can buy syringes at pharmacy, some states do not require scripts. You want The ones with 1/2 unit marks. You draw The insulin out from the stopper when you take the cap off. Do not inject air or insulin back into the pen.

The dry food is high in carbs an causing the high glucoses. You might need to think of eliminating it if possible. Wet pate food is best for all your cats. There are only 2 dry foods low in carbs. Dr Elseys Clean Protein (chewy has it) or Young Again Zero (only available from manufacturer). If you must feed dry they are the better option.

I will catch up after work.

 

[Bandit's Mom]

Hello and welcome to FDMB!

If I understand correctly, Milo has been on Lantus for 2 years and you have been home testing him twice a day before giving him his shot? I see that you have set-up his spreadsheet . If you can input his BG numbers and the units of insulin you have been giving him into it - at least the last few weeks/months - it would be very helpful. We are very data dependent here.

A change to a low carb food (dry or canned) could cause a significant reduction in blood sugar numbers. 4 units is a pretty high dose of insulin and Milo's insulin requirements could reduce dramatically with the food change. You want to monitor/test him very closely during the food transition.

We strongly advocate home testing and have two dosing protocols - (a) TR which is a more aggressive protocol and requires at least 1 mid-cycle test in addition to pre-shot tests and (b) SLGS which requires only pre-shot tests and a weekly curve. More on these protocols can be found here. Lantus dosing is based on how low a cat goes on the dose and not based on pre-shots.

Most people here use human meters and our dosing protocols are written with human meters in mind since the strips are much cheaper than pet meters.

There is a lot of information available on the stickies at the top of the LBL Forum. I don't want to overwhelm you by posting a whole lot of information here.

Please feel free to ask questions. There is a lot of information and experience on this forum and we would be happy to help!