5/20 Johnny AMPS 176 -- newly diagnosed -- feedback welcome

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Janice & Johnny

Janice & Johnny

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Hi all,

I've been posting on the main board (formerly as starfish j...changed to Janice & Johnny today) for the past week or so and thought it was time to dive into LL Land! Johnny was diagnosed as a sugar cat on 5/8 with a BG of 491. We switched his diet over the next week to an all low carb/high protein canned food (he's always loved it, but it was a "treat" before...he's loving the switch, thankfully) diet with access to lc/hp dry. Tonight marks one week of testing/injecting for us! It's amazing how much more in control I feel one week later. This site has been a wonderful help in this department!

He's on 2 units of Lantus twice a day. See the link to his chart in my signature. Note: We haven't given him insulin when his numbers were below 200 b/c we were afraid of making his level too low. I have a call into the vet to ask about that situation and whether we should adjust dosage in those situations.

Thanks in advance if you take a peek at his chart. I think it looks promising, but I'm curious how it looks to those with more than a week's experience, lol.
 
HI Janice
Welcome to Lantus.
I have attached your thread from health for those stopping by and want some of the background, especially as to why you have started at 2u of Lantus.
Johnny is so handsome.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14316

Others will be by to have a peek at his ss. As you have been told we mostly start at 1u and work our way up if need be. Have you read all the stickies at the top of the group here.
 
Janice
What food are you feeding Johnny? I'm trying to find one that my girl, Jezebel, will eat.
thanks
Debie & Jez
 
Thanks for the reply, Randi! Congrats to you and Max for being OTJ.

I'm reading the stickies right now and already finding more info re: dosing at lower BG levels...

Re: the 2 units 2x a day...It's what our vet prescribed. I consulted with a friend who's a vet and she said she would start off at 2 for a cat diagnosed over 350 (Johnny was 491). I would love to step him down, but will need to really arm myself with the right info and talk to DH. I'm a rule follower by nature, so it makes me uncomfortable. Would I tell my vet we're going down to 1? Any risks?

Back to the stickies... ;)
 
Welcome to Lantus/Lev.
Is there a way for you to get more mid-cycle checks? You'll need those.
I would agree here to drop dose to 1u. SS looks very promising.
 
Jezebel said:
Janice
What food are you feeding Johnny? I'm trying to find one that my girl, Jezebel, will eat.
thanks
Debie & Jez
Click to expand...

Debie,

As far as the canned food, we are mostly feeding Fancy Feast varieties. Johnny LOVED the Tender Beef Feast, Flaked Fish & Shrimp Feast, Tuna, Ocean Whitefish/Tuna. We have a couple other kinds we've tried and they've been hit or miss. I'll look at the brands when I get home tonight.

For the hard food, we have Blue Wildnerness, chicken variety. DH bought it at either Petsmart or Petco (can ANYONE else not tell the difference between the two??). It has one tough cat on the front who I doubt eats the food, but I think it impresses the kitties. ;) Three Cat Chow lovers seem to like it okay. We also might try Evo...I've had a few people recommend it.

Good luck with Jez!
Janice
 
Janice
Now I am not telling you to go against your vet but this is what I will tell you. Firstly you should always be comfortable with what you are doing.

Thank you for the Congrats on Max being OTJ. Did you have a peek at his ss?
Well it is only thanks to the board here (and my hard work) that Max is where he is today.
I did this all without any vet support, and as my friend here know, I went through 4 of them.
My first one did not support me in using Lantus and had us on Caninsulin (vetsulin) at the time of the recall. Then the next 3 vets did not believe in hometesting at all
and all said I could not get Max off insulin.
Sure it is a huge leap of faith in getting help over the internet, trust me, you will be so happy here and get the help you need for Johnny.

D knows what she is saying. You are still new, start clean, start at 1u and try and get those spot checks in.
We proved them wrong!!!!!! :-D
 
If you pull that dry food out of the picture I bet you would have a cat in remission in no time. :mrgreen:
If you do pull the dry food then dose HAS to be dropped down. Even Evo drives the numbers up.

Two recent spreadsheets of cats who went off dry, one went OTJ (off the juice) and the other one is (anti-jinx) headed there.

Do Lou (scroll down to 4/29 and see where the dry food was being transitioned out, also note how the dosage corresponds)
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key ... 6U2c&hl=en

Tugger (3/14 shows where she changed the diet)
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key= ... utput=html
 
Welcome Janice! I'm in Chicago, as well.

As I suspect you are gathering, we are not big fans of dry food. Even the "low carb" dry foods seem to drive numbers up and as D said, there are several people here who are transitioning their cats from dry to canned food with wonderful results. If you've not yet found the website by Lisa Pierson, DVM on feline nutrition, it was what convinced me to switch Gabby to an all canned food diet.

We use a well researched protocol to guide dosing decisions. There is a modified version, along with links to the protocol, in the Lantus & Levemir: Tight Regulation Protocol sticky. The starting dose of Lantus is based on Johnny's ideal weight (dose = 0.25 x kilograms ideal weight). Generally, this works out to about 1.0u unless Johnny is a really big cat. Many vets are not thoroughly familiar with these dosing protocols and apply what they know about other, shorter acting types of insulin to Lantus. As a result, the will advise dose changes based on pre-shot numbers. Lantus and Levemir dosing is based on the lowest point of the cycle (nadir). This is why we strongly encourage spot checks whenever you can get them throughout the cycle.

In addition, Lantus likes consistency. We try to not skip shots unless it is clearly not safe to give insulin. You may want to read the stickies at the top of the board on the storage shed which will help you to understand why skipping a shot is not always the best option as well as the sticky on becoming data ready to shoot low numbers.

The front end of this learning curve is completely overwhelming. Please ask questions. Read our condos and look at our spreadsheets. We're here to help.
 
Welcome to LL :smile: I can only share my experience with you. My vet started Oreo at 2u also. You can see our SS and notice it didn't last very long! All of m dose changes have been done based on this group, not my vet. However, my vet is very impressed with Oreo's condition now :smile:

I recently switched over to Levemir which has similar properties and dosing scales as Lantus. Again, my vet wasn't sure about the switch as he has no other cats on Levemir, but with the help of this board they gave me the information my vet needed to give me the lev script. After some bobbles on my part, I think we may be gettng somewhere :smile:

please, ditch the dry food all together if you can. Your kitty will feel so much better and their fur is so much softer! Your Johnny looks like my Tommy!

Welcome, you are in the right place!
 
Just want to add my 2 cents I work for my vets have been there for almost 16 years and spent the first 5 months with Do Lou's FD in their care on Novolin and watched him do down hill and knew things had to change my I finally got one to agree to giving me a script for lantus was like pulling teeth. Most of my vets do not believe in hometesting really and I just had to take things into my own hands and ignore them and trust this board and its with the help of this board that has gotten Do Lou and I where we are today so just wanted to let you know that sometimes vets can be behind in FD knowledge so just kinda keep a open mind to all the advice everyone is giving you here they really do know what they are talking about ok I will quit babbling on and welcome to LL and if you are on dry start working your way towards wet since I sure wish I had tried to do that sooner it really does make a difference in your numbers :mrgreen: I should add to take time to read all the stickys at the top of the page over and over you just cannot read them too many times I do not think
 
Welcome! You are in the best place now!
Yeah, ditto to what the others said, but there are just a few things I would say.

First, get rid of ALL the dry foods; there are some kitties who go OTJ or never need insulin as they are diet controlled. All that dry food, with their claims that they are low carb, well, there are some kitties who just can't eat even a couple pieces without their numbers going up. Best to go with the wet, and it sounds like you won't have any trouble at all ditching the dry!

Starting from scratch at 1u and following the protocol may be a good idea, but that's up to you. You can see what I did for both of my kitties.

Now about the vet issue. Johnny is your cat, not the vet's. I really don't get why vets want to start at 2u and say things like don't shoot under200 - what do they want your cat on insulin forever? if you don't go for those loser numbers, how will you ever be able to get down to OTJ state?

So, here's how I see it. It's MY cat and MY money, and the vet is paid by ME with MY money. The vet is providing me with a service, and if I don't get that service, I go elsewhere. Vet don't like my hometesting? I don't care; I am not shooting blind and killing my cat. Vet don't like my going back down to 1u? My vet knows nothing about Lantus or Lev so their opin does not have much weight.
My vet is needed for blood work, and Xrays, and dental, and stuff like that. Give me meds and SQuids when my cats are sick, but the diabetes part of things, I gave my vet printout of the protocol, my cats' ss, and said this is what I am doing. No discussion.

The home testing is very important. Just take a look at some of the ss for kitties and you will see how the numbers in the middle can be very different for each cats, but their ps numbers all look the same. That's why you need to see the stuff in the middle. You really need to know where Johnny's nadir is and you can't guess. My Shadoe is usually early like +4 but Oliver is almost around +10.

OK now it's time for their +4 tests.
 
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