3.9.15 SYRINGE CHECK PLEASE DOSECREASE measurement help PICTURE of our syringe.....Zoey 381

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Rose

Rose

Member Since 2015
good morning!

is it strange that zoey's numbers go lower in the day than they do at night? i know ... ECID, know thy cat. :D but if you've got any ideas let me know and i'll throw them in the mix of everything bouncing around in my head.

@julie & punkin (ga) has suggested that we increase zoey's dose by .25 units to get her into the green. i will be looking for new syringes today and plan to do that tomorrow a.m.

oh ... and curiosity: why are CGs beans and furballs vines? i've never come across that until now and wondering the origin or back story.

yesterday can be revisited here.

have a wonderful day everyone!
 
Beans....short for "human beings"

Vines....originally was just a typo when someone was sending "good vibes" and it's just caught on! We have all kinds of vines now...Good appy vines, good vetty vines, even good poo vines!

I agree there's room for a .25 increase, but it's nice to see Zoey getting some pretty blue numbers occasionally!

Good luck with the dosecrease!!
 
"Vines" came about because of a typo someone made years ago here in L&LL...someone meant to say they were sending "positive vibes", but it came out "positive vines", and it stuck! I've been using "vines" so long that now I have a hard time typing "vibes" instead of "vines".

Yep, I'd say the most likely reason Zoey's numbers are lower in the day than at night is because "she's a cat". One thing I can say is don't get too comfy with that pattern...since she is a cat, she can change it whenever she wants!

Good luck with the new dose...work it Zoey!
 
Thanks for the 411 on Beans and Vines. They actually go well together, since beans can't grow and flourish without the support of vines, and when vines are being sent and received by beans, we do feel like they are encircling us and giving support and energy to keep going; so it makes perfectly good sense, to me! :bighug:

New Question: So, I might be incredibly stupid, and I'm feeling a little foolish to have not asked before now ... but I actually just noticed. :banghead: The 100 unit syringes are divided in 5ths with their lines. In dosing two units, I have been going to the second line (vet said two lines). Is that actually four units? And I have been working on an accurate measurement for the .25 dosing and I can get exactly 5 drops out of each unit (or line that I've been measuring as a unit). If I increase to 2.25 units/lines in the a.m., I am going to fill to the third line/unit and then release either 3 drops or 4. Neither of those measurements would be exactly right so how do I get less than that or do I pick one and consistently stay the course?

I want to follow @purrdydolly 's advice and pre-measure a water-colored syringe and use it to match to each draw.
 
We do have a lot of lingo here. ;) You've made an interesting connection between beans and vines.

In the New to the Group Sticky, about 3/4 of the way down, there are some pictures of syringes and smaller doses. You'll see there are a couple of versions of syringes with 1/2 unit markings. Some are on the opposite side of the line from the whole unit marks, and some are on the same side, but shorter lines. You should be using U-100 syringes with 30 unit markings on them. If you look at the pictures, there are darker major lines that separate the groups of 5 units. See the diagram of whole and half unit scales. What syringes are you using and what do they look like? If you have whole unit syringes, the second line is two units.
 
025unit-1.jpg


Just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, this is a U100, 3/10cc syringe. It's marked in half unit increments. So, there are 10 marks on the barrel -- the shorter lines are half units the longer lines are 1.0u. What you're seeing in the photo are 5.0u. If your syringes are in half units, then 4 lines = 2.0u with the first line being the "0" line.

Below is the comparison between what you'd see on the barrel of the syringe if you have syringes in half units vs. whole units. The number of lines depends on whether you have syringes calibrated in half units.
resource.gif
 
Zoey's syringe.jpg
Yeah, not at all what my syringe looks like. I'm a bad, bad bean. Here is my syringe:
 
I've been giving Zoey up to the second black mark. You don't see it in that picture, I don't think, but each of those lines goes by 2s, so it would be the second black mark below the "10". I use that as 2 units.

Vet told me to draw to the second line; gave pharmacist prescription and told him we wanted syringes for the prescription, measured in halves. Above is what we got.
 
It looks like you have syringes that go to 100cc, not 30 cc. Thus, the barrel is narrower and the calibration is in 2u increments. If you are going to the 2nd line, I think you're dosing 4u.

The problem is that your vet wrote the prescription for the syringes incorrectly and the pharmacist misunderstood. The Rx should have been for U100 3/10cc insulin syringes with half unit markings. (There can be more info -- like the gauge of the needle -- 31g)

I'm going to round up some others to take a look to make sure I'm reading your photo correctly.

 
Are they marked as for U-100 insulin? That's not how my syringes are marked. Mine go up 5, 10, 15, 20... like the picture Sienne included. Can you edit your subject line with 'syringe check' so someone can come along and make sure they're the right thing. Maybe they are just marked differently because they're so much bigger, most of us would use syringes that only take up to 30 units, but people have been given the wrong type of syringes many a time before so better that someone who can recognise the wrong ones checks.

In regard to measuring the dose, you want to be as close as you can to the specified dose but consistency is the most important thing so even if your 1.25 measurement is 2 drops different from my 1.25 measurement as long as you consistently give the same dose that is fine.

ETA - scratch the check I see that Sienne has been and I'm sure she would recognise if they were the wrong ones. You're going to find it pretty impossible to do .25 dosing by eye with those and yes, if you're going to the second line you must be giving 4 units.
 
Looks to me like you've been giving 4 units too since each mark on your syringes are 2 units

And you are NOT a bad bean!! We trust our vets and pharmacists to know what they're talking about and write our prescriptions correctly.

If your vet wrote it wrong, that's not your fault! If the pharmacist sold you the wrong syringes, that's not your fault either!
 
Rose, when I got here and landed in a conversation about syringes, someone figured out that I was using u-40 syringes (punkin had been on ProZinc, which is a u-40 insulin) but when the vet switched us to Lantus, he didn't tell me that I needed u-100 syringes.

So it turned out that instead of giving punkin 3.5u I was actually giving him 7u of Lantus. Fortunately his acromegaly saved the day there, and he was able to tolerate that volume - and then it turned out he needed that much and more anyway.

My point is that the amount you've been giving her doesn't look too bad. Let's get it figured out what she's really getting and then we can go from there.

No worries. She's survived and nothing is set in stone - you can start over with the dose or you can move on from here. I'm glad you're asking the question now.
 
Lots of people arrive here with their vets having started their cats on way too much insulin. The good news is that Zoey's numbers didn't tank.

 
Rose, i'm looking at your signature line. If I'm reading it right, were you giving 2.5u Vetsulin three times per day? Do you have any idea of any blood sugar tests with that amount of the Vetsulin? in other words, do you have any idea of how low the Vetsulin was taking Zoey?
 
@julie & punkin (ga) - the whole vetsulin thing was a mess. Vet started on 1 time a day. Information here was at least twice. Vetsulin wouldn't carry her more than 8 hours. I started giving it to her 3 times a day. Two different vets convinced me that I should only be using them for the drugs we need them for and leave the rest to people who are more experienced with diabetes with a higher success rate of effective treatment. ....here we are.

Our vet did not write the prescription for the needles. He wrote the prescription for the insulin, we sent that to Marks Marine and took the paper prescription to the local pharmacy to get the syringes without issues. Husband showed the pharmacy the prescription, asked for the correct syringes with half-unit measurements. They said, no problem, rang them up, took our money and sent us on our merry way. And while it's not "my fault," truthfully, I should have known to check it all out before using them. Nothing from the get-go has been correct. And the common denominator here with all of these people is ... us. Surely we must not be communicating effectively.
 
some of us are talking about the dose again. If you look back at that previous post that Chris linked, we went over the logic then of the dose we were suggesting. Now we have 6 days of her being on 4u of Lantus and that test data. You already shot tonight, right, so we can have a little time to figure this out?
 
I'm working on transcripts all evening so I'll check in often. Thank you ALL.
 
Don't beat yourself up about it, these things happen and no harm done :) the blame game is just a waste of your time and energy. It's sorted now.

She looks very cute sitting back in her throne :cat:
 
Rose, since that one test on the morning of 3/6 was a bad one, you should probably remove it from your spreadsheet. Don't want anyone thinking she really started out at 38!

You'll probably want to change the dosage amounts too...and just FYI, there's no entry in the PMPS for 3/7

Love the picture of Zoey!! What a character she is!
 
Good idea @Chris & China . I removed the 38, added the missing "2" for the 3.7 pmps and as soon as I hear back for sure that we are doubling the dose, I will change all of that to read "4".

Thanks for the good eye!

Yes, Zoey is definitely a character. That is before she got sick. Now she's bald and proud. ; ) All of that hair was just too much for her to worry with.
 
Did you lion cut her?

I have one that gets a lion cut every spring....I never have figured out why, but it totally changes her personality! When she has hair, she's pretty stand-offish and doesn't want much to do with anybody, but as soon as she gets her lion cut, she becomes very cuddly!
 
Rose said:
I've been giving Zoey up to the second black mark. You don't see it in that picture, I don't think, but each of those lines goes by 2s, so it would be the second black mark below the "10". I use that as 2 units.
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I want to double-check on this. I'm looking at the photo you posted, and the first black mark below 10 would be 8u. the second black mark below the 10 would be 6units. Are you at the second black mark BELOW the 10, or counting up from the needle end? If you're not sure, would you post a new picture with some colored water in the syringe showing exactly what you're giving as a dose?
 
Evidently my phone is not picking up the emails to alert me. I'm sorry it's been so long before my reply.

Zoey has been shaved all over from the neck down. I had trimmed her hair with scissors (by myself) so it was kind of choppy and vet shaved her. No medical story.

From the needle end of the syringe, two marks up. There are four marks and then the number 10 is where the 5th mark would be. The measurements are in 5ths, so 2/5ths. (5 "units" for each 10 multiple)
 
@julie & punkin (ga) syringe views so you can see both lines and what it looks like on the number side. Cannot get them both showing together.
 

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Zoe, shaved. I have a picture of her in a reclined position like her avatar, but without hair covering that big old belly up, it's kind of ... well, not very lady like. :oops:

I had taken the "belly" picture (that I haven't posted) because of a rash she had developed on her stomach. It appeared immediately after I had given her a B-12 supplemental tablet from the health food store and as soon as I stopped the B-12 supplement the rash cleared up.
 

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@julie & punkin (ga) okay. that's what it appears to be to me, too. i'll change the shot numbers from 2s on the spreadsheet to 4s. (I was hoping some way, some how, that the dose I was giving her was somehow less than the 2 I was thinking. It's discouraging to think that 4 is not getting her to blues and she's still going up. I know it's a journey though so we'll see where this detour goes.)

is there still a meeting of minds going on for the morning dose or should i keep her where she is until further discussion?
 
I wonder if once Zoey is better regulated, if she'll be able to handle her beautiful fur coat better?

China's short haired, but when we first got her diagnosis, her coat was really awful looking. I realized a little ways into our journey that she hadn't been grooming at all....hopefully when Zoey is feeling better, she'll be able to maintain her coat

This is what she looked like at diagnosis
China before diagnosis.jpg



Here she is about 3 months after we started on Lantus
China after 4 months insulin therapy_zpsf9fd87af.jpg
 
@Wendy&Neko I can get new syringes tomorrow in time for her pm shot. Would we be setting things back if we waited until Thursday morning's shot to make the dose change? Will allow me to get the syringes tomorrow and then start the new dose in the a.m. so I can be wide awake to catch the nadir.

@Chris & China That's exactly what was going on with Zoey. Just was not able to keep up and like China, she was stand offish and didn't really like anyone messing with her. Now? She's my shadow and wants to be held and loved ... weird.
 
Wendy, Sienne & I had a chance to talk about it. Just looking at her spreadsheet, it looks like she needs the amount of insulin she's getting now, and maybe a little bit more. We're thinking that it wouldn't make sense to drop her dose back when this dose is getting her in low blue numbers. Perhaps in this case the mistake worked in her favor - just as it did with punkin.

I think it makes a lot of sense to get your new syringes tomorrow, and then wait til Thursday morning to increase her dose if that works best for your schedule. I don't think there is anything urgent here that says that you have to act before then.

Of course, all of this is up to you, but those are some of the things we're thinking about. What would you like to do?
 
Sounds good. We'll get our new syringes tomorrow and hopefully I'll find some with half marks.

If you have the information available, please tell me the exact information to take to the pharmacist so I can be sure that we get it right this time. 100 ul, 30 ccs, 1/2" #31s? ... with 1/2 unit measurements, if possible.
 
the 0.5u measurements are really essential. There are plenty of syringes out there with 0.5u increments, so i wouldn't come home without syringes that have those. @Chris & China - didn't you say all the Walmart syringes have 1/2u markings? The brand I used to buy has been off the market so I don't know what to suggest. BD makes one that fits the specs.

You want syringes for u-100 insulin.

These are the ones I bought (and lots of people here used as well) but Terumo has stopped making them. At least they give you the specs, though. Whether you get a longer needle or shorter needle is just a matter of personal preference. I used both and thought both worked fine.
 
Okay. Got the information in the product details. Thank you so much! We will not come home without half markings ....

g'night all you wonderful angels.
 
U100, 3/10 ml/cc is for 30 units or less of insulin. It looks like your current syringes are BD. If you want to try some BD's, here is one Option it is a 31 gauge needle with a 6mm or 15/64th inch length needle. I can also get something similar in Canada called the Ultrafine II which is a 8mm long needle, not sure if you can get it in the US. I now just refer to it as the BD, purple box. Good luck with the shopping.
 
Walmart's Relion brand comes in half unit increments. I don't use that brand -- I order online. You may need to be insistent when asking for them. Sometimes they are not on the shelves. Depending on where you're located, you may need a prescription for the syringes. Whether or not you need an Rx depends on what state you're in (but I think most places now require an Rx).
 
When you ask for the half unit marked ones at Walmart - they may look at you like you have 2 heads...they're not diabetic so even tho' they sell syringes, they know nothing about them. Just ask to see them...

HUGS!
 
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