Caretaker with tricky work schedule (caninsulin): advice?

[Steph & Quintus & L & O]

Posting as proxy for one of the members of the francophone group, Laetitia, and her cat Blacky.

Here is Blacky's spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...EHjFKY19_lRFIQqNVZ8ld4LDY/edit#gid=2021830955

Laetitia works two different shifts. Her schedule changes each week-end.

1. away from home 5.15am-3pm; sleep 10pm-4am; injection time 4.30
   
2. away from home 1.15pm-10.45pm; sleep 1am-9am (approx); injection time 11.00

So far Laetitia has been shifting from one timetable to the other during the week-end, moving each shot up by an hour to catch up. This means that Blacky gets 11-hour cycles one week-end, and 13-hour cycles the other.

I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to simply skip a shot each week-end to hop on the new schedule.

Do we have any experience with this kind of scenario?

(Setting aside the wild sliding doses, we're working on getting Blacky on a stable dose right now.)

Also: I'm wondering if her schedule changes could work with Lantus/Levemir or if they rule out an insulin change.

Thanks for any advice, opinions, or experiences you can share!

 

[Veronica & Babu-chiri]

I think you could post this consult on the caninsulin forum they may know more about it, I think caninsulin does give a little bit of slack on the schedule but I'll live the advice to the experts. With her schedule using Lantus/Levemir may be a little bit complicated because changing schedules requires 15 minutes changes every shoot or half hour change every 24 hours so it may be difficult to adapt every weekend

 

[Amanda and a Loudogg]

Hiya Stephanie! One of my absolute favorite things about Vetsulin (Caninsulin) was its ability to be accommodating to shifting schedules. I had to work a double once a week in the beginning and I'd be gone 12-13 hours a day. I'd dose as usual in the morning, and then give him his dose when I got home, which was usually 2-2.5 hours late. I'd then go back to his regular dose time the next morning. He never had problems, and since Caninsulin is an in-and-out insulin, I could lower the dose if I was home later than normal (which I was 3 hours late one day). So I think Caninsulin can certainly work for Laetitia's schedule with little fuss. She just may need to be willing to tweak the dose here and there as needed when switching from one schedule to the other.

 

[Steph & Quintus & L & O]

Would Prozinc also be accommodating in a similar way?

 

[Amanda and a Loudogg]

Would Prozinc also be accommodating in a similar way?

Conceivably, yes, since it's another in-and-out insulin. However, I have no direct knowledge of this. It may not be quite as forgiving since it's slower acting and has a later nadir, but I imagine it could still be done. In my situation, I was well aware how Lou processed his Vetsulin. Although Vetsulin was supposed to last 4-6 hours, his lasted 6-8 (which may have been because of the IAA, in hindsight). Even if his AMPS was slightly lower than I thought, I knew he'd have time before the bulk of the insulin kicked in. There was a lot of trial and error of dosing, including me being cautious to start, and eventually we figured out how far I could take pushing times around. Although I know it's not the best solution in this FD dance, it was a life-saver for us!

 

[Larry and Kitties]

I would say the Vetsulin/Caninsulin would be more amendable to a varied dosing schedule than ProZinc since while both are in-out insulins Vetsulin only lasts 8-10 yours while ProZinc lasts 10-12 hours.
A couple of year ago I was on a 8/16 hour schedule on the weekends. I used Lantus and all was OK.