Buddy DKA recovery New Thread

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DArcey and Buddy

DArcey and Buddy

Member Since 2020
Good idea to start a new thread.
Looks like Buddy is making progress with the lower BGs.
I’ll tag @JanetNJ about shooting that BG as she uses Prozinc.
I think you would be ok because you monitor closely and know how to feed to bring the Bg up higher but I’d like to have JanetNJ input
 
D'Arcey and Buddy said:
We stalled for a half hour, but she is still low: 230 (12.8). I think we are going to stall another half hour, and see where she is at then. We really want to shoot the whole dose, but this number is quite low.
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Just be aware that if you stall for too long, the BG could drop lower, because Buddy is hungry.
 
Bron and Sheba (GA) said:
Just be aware that if you stall for too long, the BG could drop lower, because Buddy is hungry.
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Hi @Bron and Sheba (GA) :bighug: We ended up stalling 1.5 hours and shooting the full amount. Slowly we may rebuild our confidence and become comfortable shooting lower and lower preshot numbers, but it will take time! For now, I think this was the best decision! I also don’t want to lower the dose prematurely, ie I don’t want to lower the dose because of the preshot number (as opposed to based on her nadirs) unless we really have to :cat:
 
D'Arcey and Buddy said:
Hi @Bron and Sheba (GA) :bighug: We ended up stalling 1.5 hours and shooting the full amount. Slowly we may rebuild our confidence and become comfortable shooting lower and lower preshot numbers, but it will take time! For now, I think this was the best decision! I also don’t want to lower the dose prematurely, ie I don’t want to lower the dose because of the preshot number (as opposed to based on her nadirs) unless we really have to :cat:
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Sounds good. You have to be comfortable with what you do. And I do understand you need to rebuild confidence in shooting lower numbers. You will get there. You have all been on quite a ride…..but are making good progress.
 
How are things going ? I see there are some low greens appearing but still higher preshots.
I am wondering if Buddy would be better on Lantus insulin. It has nice flat curves .
If you see interested I would wait a bit longer until you are a bit further away from the DKA diagnosis, but I really think she could do well on it and maybe get rid of those higher preshots.
 
Bron and Sheba (GA) said:
How are things going ? I see there are some low greens appearing but still higher preshots.
I am wondering if Buddy would be better on Lantus insulin. It has nice flat curves .
If you see interested I would wait a bit longer until you are a bit further away from the DKA diagnosis, but I really think she could do well on it and maybe get rid of those higher preshots.
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Hi @Bron and Sheba (GA)! Things are doing fairly well!

Yes, lots of lovely greens! She has gone to 2.9 (52) the past two cycles (tonight and last night), and because we don’t really feel comfortable letting her go any lower than that, we feed high carb food as soon as she hits that number. So that may also be contributing to the higher preshot numbers.

We have only used Prozinc in the past 1.5 years since her initial diagnosis, but of course we want to do anything and everything to get her feeling as well as possible, so we are definitely open to the idea of trying out a different insulin eventually! As you mentioned we will probably give it more time, to ensure that she is past this DKA- and recovered from the pancreatitis bout hopefully!- and then we could try a change. I’m not 100% sure, but I think our vets office has lantus as well so that likely an option!
 
You can buy Lantus over the counter in Canada.
It is a great insulin for cats and I find you can shoot a lower preshot with Lantus than you can with Prozinc and you tend to see greener SS with Lantus users who are regulated. Something to think about a bit further down the track.

I’m so glad things are going well. From Sunday, I’m not going to be around for at least a week, maybe longer so if you need any help both @Bandit's Mom and @tiffmaxee will be able to help you. Just tag them and of course Chris and Janet.
 
Bron and Sheba (GA) said:
You can buy Lantus over the counter in Canada.
It is a great insulin for cats and I find you can shoot a lower preshot with Lantus than you can with Prozinc and you tend to see greener SS with Lantus users who are regulated. Something to think about a bit further down the track.

I’m so glad things are going well. From Sunday, I’m not going to be around for at least a week, maybe longer so if you need any help both @Bandit's Mom and @tiffmaxee will be able to help you. Just tag them and of course Chris and Janet.
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Oh that’s good to know about lantus! It’s probably a better price than the prozinc from the vet then too!

Whew- Buddy just hit the neon greens. Eek! I’m a lot more nervous than I used to be, with everything that has happened, so she gave me a bit of a scare. When she hit 2.9 (52) I fed high carb food, and she still kept going down, to 2.6 (47) so we gave her a bit of honey and some treats.

Thanks for letting us know you will be away! Hope you are going on a lovely vacation or well deserved break of some kind! I will definitely be sure to tag the others if we need any help during that time :cat:
 
@Bandit's Mom @tiffmaxee @Chris & China (GA) @JanetNJ

Hi all! We had quite a stressful morning here. Buddy dropped pretty quickly today. When she hit 49 (2.7) we immediately gave high carb food, but she just kept going down. Once we saw the numbers continuing to go down, and quickly, we gave honey, more food, some treats. She kept going down for the next half an hour, and even got to 32 (1.8). That realllllly freaked me out- I’ve never seen her that low- so we put some honey right on her gums to be safe.

She is now back into the safe range, 72 (4). We are monitoring her very closely.

She did not seem to have any hypo symptoms, other than the ravenous hunger. However, I have read that they can be more sensitive to insulin after a hypo incident. Is that true? I am thinking ahead to this evenings shot, and wondering - should we just reduce by .25, or would it be safer to reduce by more? I see that in some cases, people have had to involve their vets/rush the cat to the vets, etc, and I just want to make sure we are taking this as seriously as we need to and not messing anything up! And of course, with her having just gotten home from the hospital a few weeks ago, it’s a delicate balance- and I’m a bit paranoid and anxious these days!

Thanks in advance for any help and advice!!
 
What a scary morning for you. Don’t stop resting because the honey will wear off. The honey will take about 15 minutes to work and high carb food about 30 minutes so testing every 5 minutes doesn’t give either time to work. Test again 30 minutes after your last test. You might see a big bounce so let’s see the rest of the cycle to decide on tonight’s dose and what to do as far as the new dose. With DKA you don’t want to reduce too much. It’s true cats can be more sensitive to insulin after a symptomatic hypo but it sounds like this was not symptomatic. Max dropped that low without symptoms too.
 
tiffmaxee said:
What a scary morning for you. Don’t stop resting because the honey will wear off. The honey will take about 15 minutes to work and high carb food about 30 minutes so testing every 5 minutes doesn’t give either time to work. Test again 30 minutes after your last test. You might see a big bounce so let’s see the rest of the cycle to decide on tonight’s dose and what to do as far as the new dose. With DKA you don’t want to reduce too much. It’s true cats can be more sensitive to insulin after a symptomatic hypo but it sounds like this was not symptomatic. Max dropped that low without symptoms too.
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Thanks so much for all this info and advice, we really appreciate it!! :cat: We tested again after a half hour, and she is now in the blues, at 104 (5.8). Whew!! We will keep monitoring every hour to see how she does.

Good to know that it is usually after a symptomatic hypo that they are more sensitive! I agree, this was not symptomatic, thank god!
 
tiffmaxee said:
I’m not a Prozinc user to hopefully @JanetNJ will see this.
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No problem at all! We may go ahead and lower to 2 units to be safe. We have tested for ketones and she’s at 0.1 ketones which seems to be normal for her. So we may just go with 2 units, and we can always increase back to 2.25 if we don’t find the 2 to be working well.
 
DArcey and Buddy said:
No problem at all! We may go ahead and lower to 2 units to be safe. We have tested for ketones and she’s at 0.1 ketones which seems to be normal for her. So we may just go with 2 units, and we can always increase back to 2.25 if we don’t find the 2 to be working well.
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I think 2.25 is safe to do since the number came up.
 
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