Caninsulin to Lantus Switch

[GypSeaGrandma]

Hey everyone, first time posting! My Zephyr has been 9n Caninsulin seen end of December 2021 and currently on 4.5 units 2x per day. His BG numbers rarely fall below 20 mmol and Monday night I had to rush him to the emergency animal hospital for DKA, didn't think he'd make it but he did and back home getting better! He'd also on 3 antibiotics for infection and meds for elevated liver enzymes.
That said, I am ready to make the switch to Lantus and super anxious. Was going to start him at 1 unit, any advice and recommendations would be very greatly appreciated!

 

[Wendy&Neko]

Hi there. My girl switched from Caninsulin to Lantus too. I think both of you will like it better. However 1 unit may be way too little, but I can't tell without seeing any data on how Zephyr was doing on Caninsulin. Were you home testing his blood sugars? My girl was on 5 unit of Caninsulin and we went back to 1 units of Lantus, but ended up on more than 5 units of Caninsulin. The fact that Zephyr was DKA on 4.5 units of Caninsulin tells me going back to 1 unit would be a real mistake, possibly dangerously so.

This posts describes some things we suggest to help us help you better, including setting up a spreadsheet of his blood sugar numbers. The last two weeks are the most important.
New? How You Can Help Us Help You! If you can get a spreadsheet going, we'll be able to help you with dosing suggestions. If you cannot do the spreadsheet for technical reasons, we have people who can help, just let us know.

 

[Christie & Maverick]

Hi there and welcome to you and Zephyr. It looks like this is your first post; we usually ask that new members start with a post in the main health forum first, to get you better acquainted with some of the basics since there is a lot of information and many people will be happy to help you with any questions.

A good starting point is this post:

New? How You Can Help Us Help You

As part of that info post, we ask that member start a spreadsheet: How to Create a Spreadsheet

If you have test data of how Zephyr was doing on Vetsulin, over the last few weeks, please enter in the data you have into the spreadsheet. We need to see how Zephyr was doing since we we would take that into consideration in suggesting a starting dose when you switch to Lantus. It may be that 1u of Lantus is too low of a starting dose, if you are currently giving 4.5u of Vetsulin, but if you can get your data in, that would help greatly in confirming the best starting dose. I would be concerned about starting too low with recent DKA in the picture.

You will also need to get different insulin needles - please make sure you have the U100 insulin syringes, and ones with 1/2u marking, since we typically make dose adjustments in 0.25u increments. Vetsulin is a U40 insulin, so put those syringes away, you'd be giving more Lantus than you think if you mistakenly use those. With Lantus, it is important to note that we don't roll or mix the insulin before using it. Another difference between Lantus and Vetsulin is with Lantus, we test, feed, and shoot all within about 10-15 minutes.

I see that one of the moderators has moved you over to main health - I wondered why I was getting an error when I tried to post my reply