Dragonnns
Member
...and some questions.
Hi all,
I've been lurking here for the past two days and have enjoyed the discussion on ProZinc protocols. While those of you involved in the process may not have something written down yet, I'd love to get some feedback from you as it pertains to my situation.
Let me tell you a bit about Cindy. She is a spayed female Domestic Shorthair. We assume she is approximately 12 years old. She was declawed when she arrived in our lives and at the time, really didn't like any of the other cats in the household. She would bat at them and growl and they returned the favor.
In July of 2008 she had several grand mal seizures. After extensive testing, she was diagnosed with cryptogenic epilepsy and put on 8 mg of phenobarbitol BID. One positive side effect of all this is that she now gets along with almost every other cat in the house!
In March of 2010 she started to have eye problems. She was eventually diagnosed with entropian eyes. She was put on various eye drops and fluid therapy to try to reverse the situation without surgery.
In May of 2010 she was diagnosed with diabetes. We started with 1 unit of Lantus BID. She has been on Lantus since.
Meanwhile, her eye situation was not improving. She would need surgery to resolve the situation. Her eyes were extremely painful and nothing much was helping. Eventually we had to give her prednisone eye drops for the pain. Of course, this didn't help the diabetes. The eye surgeon didn't want to do the surgery until the diabetes was regulated. Clearly, the two situations were incompatible. Eventually we were able to get an internal specialist involved and he recommended the surgery so that 1) her painful eyes would be corrected and 2) we could get her off the steroids.
In the meantime, to try to figure out why the diabetes wasn't regulating, she had an ultrasound which showed an enlarged left atrium and slight inflammation of the lower bowel (potential IBD although she has no other symptoms). Even so, we decided that surgery was really the best option. She had the eye surgery at the end of August 2010. She came out fine and was clearly feeling a lot better. However, there was no change with blood glucose levels.
We have increased from 1 unit BID to 7 units BID with no change whatsoever. Her blood sugar continues to hoover between 350 to 450. The internal specialist wants to move from Lantus to ProZinc.
Some additional information:
There are 11 other cats living in the house with Cindy. One of them is IBD and needs to stay grain and gluten free. His diet consists mainly of duck. Duck diets tend to be a bit higher in fat than most other diets. Since his diet is the most restrictive, everyone else gets to eat duck too. I occassionally add in some turkey or chicken, just to give them some variety.
Originally, the various veterinarians wanted Cindy to have Purina's DM. However, the IBD cat also wanted it and it caused serious flare-ups for him when he was able to steal it. I free feed canned food (EVO Chicken, EVO TUrkey, EVO Duck, Wilderness Duck, Natural Balance Duck) and treat occassionally (not the IBD cat) with EVO's Turkey and Chicken dry. However, I've moved Cindy from the DM to Fancy Feast Classic (Chicken and Turkey varieties).
This is where I'd like your insight. Because she has been so unregulated and clearly non-responsive to the glargine, the internal specialist has suggested we start the ProZinc at 2 units BID. Should we start at 1 instead (as I am assuming is more normal) or is this likely to be a safe number considering her insulin resistance?
I am more familiar with Lantus at the moment. Lantus takes about a week to get any stabilization in BG levels. Based on what I've been reading, it seems that changing doses almost daily is more common with ProZinc? Is this true or am I misunderstanding something?
Thanks for any feedback you can give!
Hi all,
I've been lurking here for the past two days and have enjoyed the discussion on ProZinc protocols. While those of you involved in the process may not have something written down yet, I'd love to get some feedback from you as it pertains to my situation.
Let me tell you a bit about Cindy. She is a spayed female Domestic Shorthair. We assume she is approximately 12 years old. She was declawed when she arrived in our lives and at the time, really didn't like any of the other cats in the household. She would bat at them and growl and they returned the favor.
In July of 2008 she had several grand mal seizures. After extensive testing, she was diagnosed with cryptogenic epilepsy and put on 8 mg of phenobarbitol BID. One positive side effect of all this is that she now gets along with almost every other cat in the house!
In March of 2010 she started to have eye problems. She was eventually diagnosed with entropian eyes. She was put on various eye drops and fluid therapy to try to reverse the situation without surgery.
In May of 2010 she was diagnosed with diabetes. We started with 1 unit of Lantus BID. She has been on Lantus since.
Meanwhile, her eye situation was not improving. She would need surgery to resolve the situation. Her eyes were extremely painful and nothing much was helping. Eventually we had to give her prednisone eye drops for the pain. Of course, this didn't help the diabetes. The eye surgeon didn't want to do the surgery until the diabetes was regulated. Clearly, the two situations were incompatible. Eventually we were able to get an internal specialist involved and he recommended the surgery so that 1) her painful eyes would be corrected and 2) we could get her off the steroids.
In the meantime, to try to figure out why the diabetes wasn't regulating, she had an ultrasound which showed an enlarged left atrium and slight inflammation of the lower bowel (potential IBD although she has no other symptoms). Even so, we decided that surgery was really the best option. She had the eye surgery at the end of August 2010. She came out fine and was clearly feeling a lot better. However, there was no change with blood glucose levels.
We have increased from 1 unit BID to 7 units BID with no change whatsoever. Her blood sugar continues to hoover between 350 to 450. The internal specialist wants to move from Lantus to ProZinc.
Some additional information:
There are 11 other cats living in the house with Cindy. One of them is IBD and needs to stay grain and gluten free. His diet consists mainly of duck. Duck diets tend to be a bit higher in fat than most other diets. Since his diet is the most restrictive, everyone else gets to eat duck too. I occassionally add in some turkey or chicken, just to give them some variety.
Originally, the various veterinarians wanted Cindy to have Purina's DM. However, the IBD cat also wanted it and it caused serious flare-ups for him when he was able to steal it. I free feed canned food (EVO Chicken, EVO TUrkey, EVO Duck, Wilderness Duck, Natural Balance Duck) and treat occassionally (not the IBD cat) with EVO's Turkey and Chicken dry. However, I've moved Cindy from the DM to Fancy Feast Classic (Chicken and Turkey varieties).
This is where I'd like your insight. Because she has been so unregulated and clearly non-responsive to the glargine, the internal specialist has suggested we start the ProZinc at 2 units BID. Should we start at 1 instead (as I am assuming is more normal) or is this likely to be a safe number considering her insulin resistance?
I am more familiar with Lantus at the moment. Lantus takes about a week to get any stabilization in BG levels. Based on what I've been reading, it seems that changing doses almost daily is more common with ProZinc? Is this true or am I misunderstanding something?
Thanks for any feedback you can give!
)
