Advice needed re: next shot

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supervix56

Member Since 2012
Hi everyone,

LeeLee was just diagnosed with diabetes this week. The vet started her off with 2 units of Lantus, twice a day. Several people have mentioned that it seemed like a lot. LeeLee is about 13 lbs.

I'm trying to get the hang of hometesting, so I've only done it three times, a bit randomly.

BG:
At the vet office - 508
Yesterday, 6 hours after her AM shot - 265
Yesterday, 3.5 hours after her PM shot - 176

Just now, 6.75 hours after her AM shot - 74 (she's acting normal and I just got her to eat some food)

I spoke with a different vet just now and she said, moving forward, to switch to 1 unit, twice a day. She said if LeeLee didn't eat before her 7pm shot tonight, to skip that shot and start again tomorrow morning.

My question: how much does she need to eat before it's OK to give her the 7pm shot tonight? Should I just not give her the shot to be safe?

She's always been a snacker/grazer and I'm having trouble getting her to eat consistently. I try to take the food away 2 hours before shot time if I can. She's still getting some dry as I don't feel confident enough in my hometesting (yet) and insulin knowledge to drop the carbs in her diet so drastically. She used to eat both canned and dry food that was quite high in carbs. Now she's eating Wellness canned and a dry that is lower in carbs that her old dry.

Thanks,
Erin and LeeLee
 
My question: how much does she need to eat before it's OK to give her the 7pm shot tonight? Should I just not give her the shot to be safe?
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Hi Erin,
Well, it's not that simple unfortunately. There isn't a way to figure out how much her BG will rise from eating by the time it is time for her shot. The only real way to tell if it's safe or not is to be able to test just before you give her the shot, which is why we're such advocates of home testing, and testing before every shot. The problem, at first, is convincing the cat that we need to test their BG when we need to know the numbers :smile:

It's great that you have been able to get some tests done successfully! Now we need to put those numbers together so we can help you make sense of them. If you can test before the shot, and get a couple of tests after that, then you'll see what the dose does for her. In the beginning, a great way to do that is to test at shot time, and 3, 6 and 9 hours later. What you would hope to see is her BG drop a little by +3 hours, then be about as low as it is going to go by +6, and then see it come up again by +9. When you get to 12 hours later, you've completed what we call a "mini-curve" and you'll have the data to see what the dose is doing.

Happy to hear the 2nd vet's opinion was to drop her to 1u. That's a logical starting dose for most cats, especially if you are trying to wean her off of the dry food. The number you saw at +6.75 today (74) is not excessively low, but it is in the "normal range" of BG numbers. That may or may not be the "low point" of this cycle, but it was taken right around the point where you would expect the BG to be at the low point.

If you can, try to get a sample about an hour before shot time tonight and post that number here. And continue to do what you have been doing and remove any food in the 2 hour time period leading up to shot time. That helps because you'll know that the preshot tests are free of any rise in BG due to eating.

Carl
 
An automatic feeder might make this easier. I use the PetSafe5 and love it. You can decide when she can eat (like after the shot up to 2 hours before the next one) and set the timer to open at various intervals with a small amount of food. Then set it to open to an empty slot 2 hours before the shot. Often once the cat realizes that this magical whirly thing dispenses food, they wait for it and are interested in eating it before it goes away. My cat goes to the feeder when it is supposed to open and waits.
 
I'll check her BG at 6pm (CST) and post it here.

Regarding the automatic cat feeder - it sounds like a great idea, but I've got four cats. I could separate LeeLee in a room, but when I do that she tends to get anxious, which may affect her eating. It would be nice if there was an automatic feeder that recognized which cat approached it. Though my fat one would probably figure a way around that, like sticking his face in the feeder while another is eating.
 
Good that you got the test. Now you will want to check again just before her shot. You would want to see a number above 200 in order to give her a shot since you have not been doing this for long with tests. If you see a number higher than 200, you could feed her and then give her 1u.

I'll check back in an hour.

Carl
 
OK - now her BG is 227. I'm going to give her dinner and, assuming she eats at least some of it, give her her insulin.

Thanks so much for your help, Carl. LeeLee and I appreciate it.
 
Great job, Erin!

Earlier, I posted this:
If you can test before the shot, and get a couple of tests after that, then you'll see what the dose does for her. In the beginning, a great way to do that is to test at shot time, and 3, 6 and 9 hours later. What you would hope to see is her BG drop a little by +3 hours, then be about as low as it is going to go by +6, and then see it come up again by +9.
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Of course, people need to sleep at some point in time :-D but if you can get a test at +3, or sometime before going to bed tonight, that will help you see how the 1u dose does.

Carl
 
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