? Buster New- Started lantus 8/1

Marisa Licata

Member Since 2019
Newly diagnosed, we started Buster on lantus last Thursday and he went hypo on .5 unit. Reduced to 1 drop from u100- .125 . Friday. Saturday did a curve. Both Friday and Saturday he got sub q- 100 cc - he is crf so get fluids as needed. Ans do far his pmps number has been tooo low to comfortably shoot. This brings us to day with his amps at 434 whic is super high in comp[arison to the high 200s andmid threehundreds- thinking it is either or both not getting fluids yesterday/meter variance. We use the Relion Prime.

Vet is proposing a one dose per day regimin due to his low pmps. At plus 6 he was back down to 127. I don't know what to do. He is hating being pricked after Saturday's curve. I thouht of giving him some fluids at lunch, but the 127 made me think I should not.

He weighs 13lbs

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YpTkAZ7ZMRG3S2hmUE78rxZT1QJh0SGlusy-V32foAI/edit?usp=sharing
 
Hello and welcome. Can you tell me a bit more about your kitty, how he was diagnosed? Also, what type of meter are you using? It can be helpful to put the date of diagnosis, any medical conditions (like CKD), and meter type in your signature, along with the link to your spreadsheet.

127 is not a bad number. If using at AT, we don't want them below 68, with a human meter than number where we take action is 50. Skipping the evening has not been doing him any favours, as he is sky high the next morning. What is your "no shoot" number. Typically new people on the Feline Heath forum are told not to shoot anything below 200, until they get a bit of data. On this forum, the "don't shoot, don't feed and ask for help" number is anything below 150. I don't think his insulin dose is too much, but you'd need to shoot the same dose twice a day to see what happens. Normally if you shoot lower, the cycles are flatter and they don't drop as much as if they started high.

What time of day do you give the fluids in relation to the shot? I tried to separate the two by several hours. Also, shoot the insulin in a separate spot from the fluids. Some, but not all, cats go lower with fluids.
 
Welcome Marista!

Glad to see you here on the Lantus forum! Was Buster eating dry food before he was diagnosed? Glad to see you're testing - sorry he doesn't like it very much - but are you giving him a treat with every poke - whether you're successful or not - I always offered my difficult Luci a treat - soon she associated all the handling and poking business with the food - and pretty much forgot all about what I was doing - it took us a while but finally we got it and you will too! Hang in there - ask lots of questions and you'll get lots of great advice and support.

See you tomorrow - we each post a new 'thread aka/condo' each day - and typically do it in this format: 8/6 Buster AMPS ### - so that's what it would look like tomorrow morning - if you have a question, you can use the '?' icon (from the drop down menu) and add it after your AMPS number - just a thing we do here to kinda keep it all straight about which day and who we're looking at. Great job on the SS!!
 
Hello and welcome. Can you tell me a bit more about your kitty, how he was diagnosed? Also, what type of meter are you using? It can be helpful to put the date of diagnosis, any medical conditions (like CKD), and meter type in your signature, along with the link to your spreadsheet.

127 is not a bad number. If using at AT, we don't want them below 68, with a human meter than number where we take action is 50. Skipping the evening has not been doing him any favours, as he is sky high the next morning. What is your "no shoot" number. Typically new people on the Feline Heath forum are told not to shoot anything below 200, until they get a bit of data. On this forum, the "don't shoot, don't feed and ask for help" number is anything below 150. I don't think his insulin dose is too much, but you'd need to shoot the same dose twice a day to see what happens. Normally if you shoot lower, the cycles are flatter and they don't drop as much as if they started high.

What time of day do you give the fluids in relation to the shot? I tried to separate the two by several hours. Also, shoot the insulin in a separate spot from the fluids. Some, but not all, cats go lower with fluids.


6 am and 6pm. Prime meter. He was diagnosed from labs- you can see his labs on the second tab of the spreadsheet. Vet says not to shoot under 300 and with him dropping to 67 on his .5 first shot, I am scared to do a PM shot and have him get hypo again. We dropped to lowest dose- 1 drop, He was eating dry. He went from 448 at vet to 282 in two days just quitting the dry food. he is getting FF and Whole earth duck pate. he is early CRF so I am putting some binder and miralax in the food.

he was ok with the pricks until I did the curve. Thanks for responding. I can't seem to copy the urinalysis into the spreadsheet but he had no ketones and glucose was +3- rest of labs are on the second tab
 
he is 15, has had pancreatitis for 3 years, I gave fluids mid afternoon friday after a 6am shot, and at 8pm saturday when done with curve, no pam shot
 
Vet says not to shoot under 300 and with him dropping to 67 on his .5 first shot, I am scared to do a PM shot and have him get hypo again.
300 is super high as a no shot number. I think you can try lowering that a little. Lantus is good at keeping lower numbers low, not so good at yanking down numbers. It sounds like with the switch from dry to wet, you've made some good progress with his blood sugar so far. If you are interested at all in remission (not everyone is), it'll be important that he spend some time in the normal blood sugar range, so his pancreas can heal. That 67 he saw on the Prime was a healing number, but definitely indicated the starting dose was too high. If you are shooting a drop dose now, you can just put "drop" in the units column of the spreadsheet.

One "trick" you might want to know, on Lantus, the +2 test is often a good indicator of how the rest of the cycle will go. If the +2 is about the same as the preshot, you'll have a typical Lantus cycle with some downward movement. A +2 that is quite a bit lower than preshot means more monitoring will be needed, or you'll need to leave out higher carb food to keep Buster safe. A higher +2 means a quieter cycle and a good night's sleep.

On the spreadsheet, some housekeeping notes. Since everyone here is on different time zones with different shot times, we talk in terms of "+" hours. Saying you do fluids at 2 PM doesn't mean anything to the rest of us, but fluids at +8 does. I also notice you are testing a lot at +6. Just wanted to let you know that the "typical nadir" doesn't mean that's the nadir for all cats, and cats can change their nadir from cycle to cycle a bit. It's better to mix the test times up, maybe somewhere from +4 to +7 to start.
 
Marisa, Hi and welcome to FDMB. Wendy mentioned putting Buster's pertinent info into your signature and I wasn't sure you have had time to find out how to do that. Just FYI

Setting up your signature (light grey text under a post). Here's how:
click on your name in the upper right corner of this page
click on "signature" in the menu that drops down
type the following in the box that opens: kitty's name/age/date of diabetes diagnosis/insulin you're using and dosage amount /glucose meter you're using/what (s)he eats/any other meds or health issues (s)he has. You can add your name, and a geographic location (sometimes the country/time zone matters) Be sure to SAVE when you are finished.

You can copy the link to your spreadsheet and include that in your signature, so it is always available too, whenever you post.

To save space in the signature, you can type Buster's SS, highlight it, copy the link to your spreadsheet and then use the link icon to insert the link to the highlighted text. If you have any problems, there are members who can help out.
 
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