Dosing advice

[Alysha & D'Argo]

I need advice please. D'Argo was diagnosed about 8 weeks ago and put on 2 units of Caninsulin. Took him to the vet for a curve 3 weeks later and the vet said his #'s were still on the high side, i think the lowest was 15.9, that meant absolutely nothing to me at the time. Was told to up the insulin to 2.5 and book for another curve in 2 months. He got so lethargic with that increase I put him down to 1.5 and started doing research and found this group. I have since gotten rid of kibble and have both cats on Friskies and Weruva bff and slowly upped the insulin back up to 2.5. I'm doing our 2nd at home curve and his numbers are the same as last weeks curve that was at 2 units. Are his numbers ok or do we need a different insulin?
All advice is welcome and thank you.

 

[Karen&Rocket]

Hello and congrats on testing at home (and setting up your spreadsheet)!

I'm not one of the experts here; I'm sure you'll get some better eyes on your data when more folks are online. But one thing you might want to do is get an overnight test or two, to try to find D'Argo's overnight low point, as many kitties go lower at night than they do during the day cycle. You may find he's going lower than you think. I don't know much about Caninsulin, but from what I've heard you may be better off with an insulin like ProZinc, which was formulated for cats specifically. There are other types of insulin too; hopefully others will give some more advice here.

Whatever you do -- don't look at my spreadsheet lol. Rocket has acromegaly (a pituitary tumor) which basically causes his diabetes among other things, and was recently treated with radiation therapy -- so his spreadsheet may be just a wee bit... frightening.

 

[Chris & China (GA)]

Caninsulin is a harsher insulin that's better for dogs than it is for cats (thus the "canin" prefix) but we have some cats that have done OK with it.

Here's our Beginners Guide to Caninsulin for you to read.

If you can get Lantus, Basaglar, Levemir or ProZinc, they're gentler and usually much better insulins for cats.

That being said, the 2.5U dose looks to be a pretty decent one for him. Generally we want to see a nadir that's about 1/2 the Pre-shot, so with your 300's Pre-shot, 150'ish is pretty good.

But, it's important for you to start testing before every shot. Cat's have the unique ability for their pancreas to heal and start working again, so you always want to make sure it's safe to give any type of insulin.

Then if you can, get at least 1 test somewhere around +4 to +7 on the AM cycle and at least a "before bed" test on the PM cycle. If you can't test mid-cycle during the day due to work, try to get a couple of tests on the PM cycle.