4/3-Shakespeare-thinking of switching-advice

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dmartini4

dmartini4

Member Since 2010
hi Everyone
Me and my baby Shakespeare have been battling FD for about one and a half years now
He has been on PZI for one year, many up and downs, including using freestyle meter
that gives bad readings
I am thinking of switching insulins again.
Shakes has been on Lantus prior to PZI but did very bad.
He is very sensitve and reacted badly, very lethargic, not himself, head hanging low...etc...
Is leveimir so similiar to Lantus that he would have the same reaction?
has anyone here switched from Lantus to Levemir...any advice
Thank you for any input you might have
Denise and Shakes
 
Hi, Denise and Shakes,
We also started on Lantus and switched to Prozinc and then moved to Levemir. To be fair to Lantus, our vet started Klinger at too high of a dose, so he never felt well or acted like himself. He seemed a little better on Prozinc once we 'started over'. Honestly, Klinger seems like he feels the best on Levemir. He hangs out in the living room and he's more playful.
I'm having issues opening ss today, so I can't see how things have been going for Shakes. Others will be on to give their input soon.
Hang in there.
Marcy & Klinger
 
dmartini4 said:
hi Everyone
Me and my baby Shakespeare have been battling FD for about one and a half years now
He has been on PZI for one year, many up and downs, including using freestyle meter
that gives bad readings
I am thinking of switching insulins again.
Shakes has been on Lantus prior to PZI but did very bad.
He is very sensitve and reacted badly, very lethargic, not himself, head hanging low...etc...
Is leveimir so similiar to Lantus that he would have the same reaction?
has anyone here switched from Lantus to Levemir...any advice
Thank you for any input you might have
Denise and Shakes
Click to expand...

I can comment on the differences to some cats.
One of my cats, Shadoe, did not do that well on Lantus; she was tense, and did not have great numbers. I switched her to Lev and it was a different cat.. she was visibly more relaxed and had an improvement in her numbers and had a more gentle curve.
My Ollie didn't seem any different on either.
It's sounding like maybe your Shakes is reacting a bit like my Shadoe did, so you may be very pleased with the way Levemir works.

Switching from Lantus to Levemir, a safe dose switch would be around 70% or so; I can't comment on switching from PZI to Levemir but there are are a few who have done that switch and could advice better for you.

While the two are similar, the DO have differences including ph is different and I think the curve is more level, less extremes in the numbers.
 
I'll throw my vote in for Levemir too...Musette was clearly an unhappy little girl on Lantus and I tried everything I could think of to make it work for her and it just didn't. On Lantus she had much the same response as you just described with Shakes, head down, acted like she had a headache, lethargic etc. Put her on Lev and I have a different kitty, she is happy, social, purring and playing. She now even chases the kittens around the house like a kitten herself. On Lantus she even got to the point that she was growling and trying to bite me when it was shot time, or if I would try to give it to her while she was eating she would stop eating and hide, with Lev she actually comes running for her shots and will give head butts and purrs while getting it.

I only wish I would have started her on it sooner, it has been an amazing tranformation for her...so much so we are now on our 3 day of green numbers with only a sprinkling of blues and absolutely no bouncing sky high off those lower numbers, before if I could get her to blue or green she would soar up and stay there for weeks on end. Now her curves are flat and even no high highs, and only a couple of low lows which were mostly my fault because I expected her to bounce so tried to shoot through the bounce only for her not to bounce.

We are still learning the ins and outs of how Lev works for her, but I couldn't be happier with the great response and the personality shift in her since I put her on Lev. She may still be a tortie but she has lost the tortietude, unless one of the other cats tries to take her yellow mousie...lol But hey, I can't blame her there she just learned what toys are for, so I can see her being possessive of her favorite one. ohmygod_smile

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang
 
Thank you all so much for all the information
I am now really thinking I might change as Shakes has been bouncing for a year on PZI
and I think we have just about had enough
If there is a way we can stop this bouncing if he even sees a blue, hey we are there!
I will speak with my vet and hopefully start, if she gives the ok, in about a month.
One question though,
with Lantus, "the shed" always confused me, I understand that Levemir has the shed,
so does that mean it is as strick as Lantus, where you could not be late?
thanks again for the wealth of info!
 
While regular 12/12 shots are ideal on Levemir as well, I found Levemir to be flexible within certain guidelines. You can stagger shots if you split them and give earlier shots if needed if you lower the dose a bit. Schedule idiosyncrasies are something we can help with, just let us know what you need to do. Missing a shot by 15 minutes isn't a problem, but missing by an hour is.
 
I may be a little more "laissez faire" on shot schedules then most people here, but I don't sweat the 12/12 schedule. Yes I try for it. And I don't shoot early by more than 15-20 mins without dropping the dose a bit. However, I have sometimes gotten caught up in work, or a book, or something and missed a shot by an hour. Oh well. I just shoot the reg dose. But it is important to then "systematically" move the shot back to the normal time by either reducing the before and after the move shots or by moving it earlier by 15 mins per cycle for 4 cycles.

Denise, you will find that we work here to support your needs in managing Shakes FD within you life as well as his needs for BG control. We have collective experience in working with odd work schedules so can help with that, as Vicky mentioned. No one should have to give up their life to manage their cat's FD, or feel guilty about not being "perfect" about it. Life happens and you just have to do the best that YOU can do to help your cat.

I should also mention that changing shot times will have an effect on BG management. There is always a settle period after a change. That is a good reason to try for 12/12 as much as is possible. But if you have to move the time, then you have to move the time and you can learn to make that work.

As far as the shed goes, for both insulins (Lev an lantus) I think if it more like they create a "time-release" characteristic. I have never liked the shed term because to me that seems like you store stuff in a shed and it sits there until you use it, but really these insulins bind up into forms that are not usable as insulin and then break down into useable insulin molecules over time. That process will continue to happen at a constant rate over time until there is no more insulin available. The trick is finding the dose that will "replenish" the amount needed every 12 hours and not be too much or too little. Shoot early and there is more supply releasing molecules into the blood stream, so that is like a dose increase, shoot late and the previous supply has started to peter out, so that is like a dose decrease. Make sense? A little?
 
I should mention that I also was not totally strict on the 12/12, but one thing I did stick to was the test before the shot had to be less than 15min before the shot.
I made sure I gave the shot within 5min of testing, which was about how long it took to draw the shots and prepare their meds, plus have foods ready to put down for them.

So, 10min early or even 20min late, it was usually OK. I never even noted those times on our ss's; I would note only if something like an hour diff, but it still seemed to be no problem with their BG.
 
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