care of lantus, feeding schedule q's

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julie & punkin (ga)

julie & punkin (ga)

Member Since 2011
1. I was just rereading the basic info on lantus, and it says never to roll Lantus and not to inject air into the bottle. argh. i've been doing both! this bottle is 15 days old - do i need to worry about the quality of the insulin?

2. help me understand the relationship between the timing of the insulin and feeding the cat. the info on Lantus says "frequent small meals" but i see on people's sig lines that most everyone seems to feed in the first 3 hours after the shots. if the insulin is long-lasting and suitable for free-feeding cats, why do people feed right after the shots? what i'm asking is, is your experience better with that instead of feeding frequent small meals?

Thanks so much for all the help!!!!
 
Julie said:
1. I was just rereading the basic info on lantus, and it says never to roll Lantus and not to inject air into the bottle. argh. i've been doing both! this bottle is 15 days old - do i need to worry about the quality of the insulin?
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How you can handle Lantus is a little different depending on whether you're using a vial or a pen, the reason being that they are packaged differently. Regardless of the packaging, you do not need to roll Lantus. Lantus is a solution. Many other types of insulin are suspensions. As a result, when they are sitting in the refrigerator, you will see them separate into layers that need to be re-mixed. This is not the case for Lantus. It is also relatively fragile so you don't want to agitate it.

If you have a vial, it's OK to have injected air. If you're using a pen, it's not a good idea. The pens have no air in them to begin with and are packaged under a slight pressure gradient. This is not the case with the vials.

I would continue to use the open Lantus. If numbers start getting really weird or you see "floaties," then you need new insulin.

2. help me understand the relationship between the timing of the insulin and feeding the cat. the info on Lantus says "frequent small meals" but i see on people's sig lines that most everyone seems to feed in the first 3 hours after the shots. if the insulin is long-lasting and suitable for free-feeding cats, why do people feed right after the shots? what i'm asking is, is your experience better with that instead of feeding frequent small meals?
Click to expand...
Feeding after the nadir means that your cat is eating at a time when the effective period of your insulin is on the decline. As a result, the addition of food, especially if your cat's pancreas can't produce endogenous insulin, will cause numbers to rise even faster. That's why we discourage feeding during the latter half of the cycle. If your cat is used to free feeding, I might pick up the food by +8 and certainly no later than +9.

There can be a number of reasons that people load the front end of the cycle. Gabby is a good example. She's prone to fast, early drops in her numbers. By spreading her food out over a shorter period (pre-shot to +3 vs. to +6), the food helps to slow down the drops.
 
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