Kitty was diagnosed on 2/24/21. He didn’t have any ketones in his urine. He has always ate wet ff pate with dry food. We recently tried cutting out the dry food ( purina one plus indoor advantage) but he acted like he was starving even after 2 cans of wet food. I don’t know how much food I should be feeding him. He was on vetsulin but changed to prozinc on 12/28/21 we started at 2 units but now we are doing 4 units. His levels have always been really high at the vet in the 600s. He stayed over night at the vets and they never got it below 450. Tbh they aren’t very helpful. We just started home testing on 4/5. He has his insulin at 11am and 11pm. Today Before his morning shot his BG was 484 and at 5pm his BG was 635. I don’t know what to do about his level idk if we need to go up go down change insulins or what. His stomach is bloated looking and he’s really gassy idk if any of this has to do with the diabetes. I just need help and guidance on what to do to get his levels down. they started him on 1 units when he started taking the vetsulin but every time we went back to get his levels checked it was still so high so they went up a unit. We did that until he was up to 4 units that’s when we decided to switch to prozinc. They said since he was on 4 units of the other they told us to do 2 units of the new. Should we not have done it like that? We just started keeping a log.
When you switched to ProZinc, you started back at 2U but have gone up to 4U now (and you went from 2 to 3 to 4?)
OK...It's possible you bypassed what would have been a better dose but it's also possible that he is just a higher dose cat. It's also possible he has acromegaly or IAA but we don't suggest testing for that until he's on over 6U. I would go up to 4.5U and get at least 1 other test on the PM cycle other than the PMPS. Most cats go lower at night (I don't think Kitty is doing this but the PM cycle is just as important as the AM cycle) Try to get tests at various different points in the AM cycle if you can...maybe one day +2, +5, +8, another day +3, +6, +9 plus at least 1-2 extra tests on the PM cycle and let's see what's going on in a few days. Do you have ketone test strips?
Thank you, Chris! Hannah, now that you have the spreadsheet, it's going to be a great tool for dialing in the right dose.
Another tip....the ProZinc forum can be slow. It's fine to post here, but if you need a quick answer, you should also post in the Main Health forum. You can put the link to your post here into your post on the Health forum. It's much busier so you're more likely to get quicker answers. Can you also fill out your "Signature"? In the same place you put his spreadsheet link you can add information so we don't have to ask the same questions all the time. Info like: Your name/Cats name, age, sex, date of diagnosis, type of insulin, type of meter, type of food, any other health problems or meds? and at the end, the link to your spreadsheet.
Okay we've only been on 4 unit for about a week. If we've bypassed his correct dose we wouldn't know since we just started home testing I'm worried about giving him more than 4. Could it be more harmful than good?
Hes been getting a handful of dry cat food the purina and then a whole can of wet food 3 oz before his shots. then he has a couple snacks of just wet food. No we dont have ketone strips. He does have accidents outside of his litterbox. He will pee right infront of the litterbox and
If he's still running this high, going to 4.5 isn't going to hurt. At this point, I really don't see anything that screams at me that he's getting too much insulin which is why I asked for the extra testing. Stay at the 4U while you get the kibble out of his diet My gut feeling is he's either a high dose cat or has a high dose condition like acromegaly or IAA (but I could be totally wrong. In your FB post, it sounded like you had already gotten the kibble out of his diet) I just changed my mind about him possibly being a high dose cat (but he still may be) but you need to get that kibble completely out of his diet! That's enough to be keeping his numbers that high. Some of those Purina kibbles are close to 40% carbs (The Purina One Indoor Advantage is 34% carbs. We have seen cats eat as few as 3-5 pieces of kibble and it raised their glucose 200 points. It depends on how carb sensitive your cat is on how much the kibble is affecting him but no matter what, it's not helping) To figure out how much to feed him, take his "ideal" weight x 20 (so if his ideal weight is 13lbs, you'd start at 260 calories per day). Weigh once a week and adjust as needed. You can use a plain bathroom scale if you don't want to buy a baby scale. Just weigh yourself, pick him up, weigh again and do the math.
So should i just give his regular dose and do more testing after it and just see where to go from there?
Yes, for now. I would throw the kibble away or put it out for the raccoons. It won't take long to know if the kibble has been the problem. Within 36-48 hours of nothing but low carb canned, we'll know a lot more.
Try to get several tests between shots during the day, and at least one at night between the shots before you go to bed if there's time after the evening shot. That will give enough data to see how the 4U dose is working with no high carb kibble in his diet.
Well I like pink better than red or black but it's still too high. If you can, get at least one more test...+2 or +3
It's time for me to get some sleep so hopefully everything goes well for you tonight! If @Bron and Sheba (GA) is around, maybe she'll stop in just to make sure you're doing OK
I don’t usually look in in the Prozinc page but am happy to do so. Just to make sure where you are up to……PMPS is 389and you are giving 4 units.? And only going to feed wet food now?
Kitty ran outside when I let the dogs out and wouldn’t come back in till around 1230 ♀️ I didn’t want to give him his shot that late but did test and he was 394. I hope I didn’t mess everything up
So you skipped? If that is the case, if you need to change the timing of the schedule, this is your chance. So if you need to bring the schedule to an earlier time, you can do it now, if you skipped the shot. Can you put in the SS where you would usually put the dose……skipped dose? Thanks.
Yes I did skip. 11 am and pm are the best times for us. Our whole house are night owls so we normally go to bed pretty late and up late in the day. Okay I will do that. Do you think skipping the dose was ok?
It’s not ideal but these things happen. Kitty will get back on track. The main concern would be if there was a history of ketones. Make sure Kitty eats well during this cycle.
He has never had any in his urine every time he’s been checked. The vet seemed surprised about that considering his high levels. Thank y’all so much for helping me, I really appreciate everything
