Feline Diabetes

Status
Not open for further replies.
Paula

Paula

Member Since 2014
My cat, Michael, has just been diganosed with diebetes. He is taking 1 CC of Lantus a dAY.The insulin syringes are Monoject 29 Gauge-3/10CC. Does the Lantus solstar pen take these needles? My vet has never used a pen on a cat and thought this would be easier for me. I am very new at this. 2 yrs ago, I had 3 brain aneurysms that left me me with poor eyesight. loss of hearing and a weak left side. I have no one to help me with this. My cat is very stressed and I don't want to lose
him. He is 13yrs old. Is there anyone in Riverside, Ca. that I can talk to. Maybe a support group.
Thanks,
Paula
 
Welcome to FDMB, Paula and Kitty Michael

What food are you feeding Michael? If it is prescription, there may be some over the counter, low carb foods that would be less expensive while helping control his glucose.

I think you mean 1 unit of Lantus - 1 cc, or 1mL has 100 units of insulin in it. Doses often start around 0.5 to 1.0 units twice a day for optimal control.

The pen isn't refined enough for dosing cats well, as we often dose in 0.25 increments by eyeballing it on the syringe.

What you do with the pen is take the cap off and treat it like a vial, drawing out the insulin with the syringe. You might need some magnifiers to help you see what you're doing. Your glasses are probably high prescription already and you can get some clip on magnifier lenses to add on to it. If you click our shopping link above, there's a spot to search Amazon USA. Enter Carson Clip and Flip then search. I like those the best - lightweight and come in about 4 different strengths.

For hands on help, you might see if the local high school guidance counselor can find a student interested in working with animals who could give you a hand for the experience (which could help get the student into a college program)
 
One of the things we strongly encourage is home glucose testing with an inexpensive human glucometer such as the WalMart ReliOn Confirm, Confirm Micro, or Prime, plus matching test strips, and 26 to 28 gauge lancets to minimally prick the outer edge of the ear near the tip and get a droplet of blood to test.

If you're willing to attempt it, we can give you instructions, plus there are You Tube videos out there showing the process. And if you can recruit some help, especially around the time the glucose is likely to be lowest (the 'nadir'), those numbers are how the insulin dose is adjusted.

Once you or some help are able to do home-testing, food changes to help control the diabetes are safer to do. Until then, you need to be very careful so you don't wind up with the glucose going too low - hypoglycemia can kill very quickly!
 
Hey there, I'm just down the freeway in Corona :smile:

I work in orange county thru the week but I'm available to get together on the weekends to go over things, answer questions, show you how to hometest, etc.....if you want. I've got two diabetics. Mousie was diagnosed back in 2006 and is my original and I adopted Antonio from a group by the name of DCIN a little while back

There's another gal in Riverside too. Her name is Misty. I sent her a message pointing her here to this thread. Her kitty went into remission some time back and is still in remission as far as I know.
 
Hello!!
My cat Bast is still OTJ it took me about 2 months to do it with help from this group. I still have lots of supplies- do you need a meter? I have an extra. I may have strips if they are not expired.
I can help show you how to do it if needed. I used Lantus on Bast. You pull it out of the pen so you don't need the pen needles.
It is very overwellming and not all the vets know the best way to handle it. What vet are you using?
Misty
 
We like to caution people that if they are already giving insulin, not to switch the food to a lower carb food UNLESS they are hometesting. A switch in carb content from a high carb dry to a low carb wet (like Fancy Feast pates, Friskies pates, Wellness grain free) can suddenly drop the BG (blood glucose) levels 100 points or more so you need to monitor closely during the switch, and also consider if you need to reduce the dose. Like cut the dose in half or more.

We want to help keep your kitty safe, so please be cautious with any food change.

It can make a HUGE difference. I switched my Wink from dry Hill's W/d (37% carbs) to Fancy Feast pates (3-6% carbs). It was a gradual switch over from dry to wet, so the drops were not as dramatic as some have seen. I kept dropping the dose, but not fast enough as Wink was eating more and more of the low carb food. I wish I had cut the dose down much quicker than I did. Everything turned out fine and Wink has been OTJ (Off-the juice, insulin being the juice) for 13 months now.

If you switch your cat to a lower carb food, you may get some excellent results and even be able to get your kitty diet controlled like I did with my Wink.

Vet Dr. Lisa Pierson has a good article on Feline Diabetes, where she also cautions on making a food change for a diabetic cat. You may want to read this article.

Here's a little bit of what she says.
Many cats that are in a diabetic state no longer need any insulin when they are finally fed an appropriate low-carbohydrate diet.

Others will always need some insulin but the amount necessary to maintain proper blood glucose levels is nearly always significantly reduced once the patient is on a low carbohydrate diet.

Please re-read the previous two paragraphs carefully.

If you change your diabetic cat's diet to one with lower carbohydrates, he will, in all probability, IMMEDIATELY (not days or weeks later) require a reduction in his insulin dosage. He may also immediately go into 'remission' and not need any insulin at all.

If this warning is ignored, you may very well end up with a cat in a hypoglycemic crisis (dangerously low blood sugar) which can result in death, or brain damage.
Click to expand...
 
You may want to modify your signature to note your vision issues as folks may forget that decent vision is key to dosing and testing. When they forget, they'll ask why you aren't ______ instead of understanding that you are working within some physical limitations. (Been there before I had the cataracts removed!)

If it turns out that you are unable to see the syringe well enough to accurately measure small doses and/or to home test, we will try to come up with some finagles to help you manage with what you can do. In my signature link Secondary Monitoring Tools, there are a variety of methods for getting data on how you cat is doing. Key ones for you might include volume of water drunk, size of pee clumps in the litter box, amount eaten, weight, and presence of ketones and glucose in the urine using KetoDiaStix (from the pharmacy - generic is OK, you may have to ask for them). There is an older protocol using these kinds of measures.

Keep us apprised of how you're doing and we'll do our best to help you work with this.
 
deb is correct- we need more info before a huge food switch
I changed mine over the course of about 1 1/2 weeks. However I was testing all the time.
I got a magnifier for the needles - it clips on and magnifies the lines and numbers. Would that help you?
M
 
I have a question.
What are the bg#'s range. If below 100 do I give shot. ? I am giving Michael 1 unit of Lantus 2xday.
Thanks,
Paula & kitty Michael
 
Normal BG ranges are 40-120 mg/dL.

It's probably safer to skip the insulin if you will not be home to monitor. Expect a bounce if you do skip.

We really can't give your good suggestions on dose because you never set up our color coded, handy dandy spreadsheet to track the BG readings. Here are the directions to set that up and link into your signature.

Without knowing what Michael's BG history has been, it's virtually impossible to say if the dose should be reduced or not.

At some point, you do need to gather that test data so you can "shoot low to stay low".

There is some insulin left in the depot so that will help keep the numbers low for a bit, but the BG levels will likely go back up high again.
 
It's good to see you posting Paula. :YMHUG:
I would advise you to skip the shot if Michael is below 100, for now.

If you can work on a spreadsheet for Michael, that would be great. The spreadsheet would help us to help you, and it would also help you to be able to look back and see what you did before and either do it the same way or try something new.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top