? Guy - Help switching from Vetsulin to Lantus

Kathy Samuelson

Member Since 2024
Guy is newly diagnosed 2/20/2024. He's been on Vetsulin. New vet ok'd and prescribed Lantus. I'm a little worried about the transition from Vetsulin to Lantus and am looking for help and guidance. The vet wants him to go without Vetsulin tonight and start Lantus in the morning. 2 units am and 2 units pm. I'm worried that may be too strong to start. He weighs a tad over 13lbs.
Also, is there info you can point me to about why we give Lantus every 12 hours in cats rather than every 24 hours? I come from the world of human Type 1 diabetic daughter and insulins such as Lantus are typically only given every 24 hours in humans so that insulin isn't being "stacked/overdosed."
This is my first post. Please forgive me if I've done it wrong or didn't supply all information needed.
Help is appreciated with dosing.
 
Guy is newly diagnosed 2/20/2024. He's been on Vetsulin. New vet ok'd and prescribed Lantus. I'm a little worried about the transition from Vetsulin to Lantus and am looking for help and guidance. The vet wants him to go without Vetsulin tonight and start Lantus in the morning. 2 units am and 2 units pm. I'm worried that may be too strong to start. He weighs a tad over 13lbs.
Also, is there info you can point me to about why we give Lantus every 12 hours in cats rather than every 24 hours? I come from the world of human Type 1 diabetic daughter and insulins such as Lantus are typically only given every 24 hours in humans so that insulin isn't being "stacked/overdosed."
This is my first post. Please forgive me if I've done it wrong or didn't supply all information needed.
Help is appreciated with dosing.

I'm no expert in this......but if I'm thinking correctly cats absorb/break down lantus quicker then humans do requiring 2xdaily dose. I'm a RN and also know of human diabetics that take Lantus twice a day. Guess it all depends on the person. There are more experienced people in this forum to answer your other questions. If you go back to your post and change title to have a prefix of a question mark it will be seen faster and I will tag some experienced members that I know of.
@tiffmaxee
@Wendy&Neko
 
Welcome to LLB. Do you have any dat other than the preshot tests for the last week or two? How low is he going? We generally start Lantus on the dose you were giving to your cat on Vetsulin or maybe .25 or .50 lower. Lantus works differently and is dosed based upon nadir. It will take 5-7 days to see if your starting dose is a good one. Starting a whole unit lower might be too low.

We ask new members to post an intro on the main/health forum. I will ask the mods to move this there.

What are you feeding? We have two dosing methods we suggest. If feeding a low carb wet or raw diet you can choose either one. If feeding any dry food you would start with our SLGS method is you are going to follow one of or methods.
 
First of all, you don't need to skip a dose of Vetsulin the night before going to Lantus.

As far as transitioning, we base the Lantus dose on how the Vetsulin is going, but we have no idea how low Vetsulin is taking him. Is it possible for you do do a curve with him on Vetsulin first before switching?
 
Hi. I have his Libre information from 2/21/24 - 3/5/24.
He started out on 2/21/24 with 2 units am and 1pm. On 2/26/24 he was increased to 3 units am and 2 units pm. On 3/5/24 he was increased to 3 to 3.5 units am depending on morning blood glucose and evening 2.5 to 3 units depending on blood glucose reading.
He is eating Fancy Feast Classics wet. Purina Pro Plan Veterinary Diet DM Dietetic Management dry/kibble. He is still on occasion eating some of his old dry/kibble. as we transition. And he will get into the dogs dry/kibble sometimes. At 14 years old switching him is a little struggle. We give him the wet food anytime we see him going for the kibble to try and fill him up on that.
 
Thank you for saying we don't need to skip Vetsulin tonight. I thought it was odd the vet said to do that. He was over 700 yesterday morning so I'd imagine he'd be very high if we skip tonight's dose.
 
Getting rid of all those high carb kibble options would be the best way to help him get regulated. I'm including the DM in that list, it's too high in carbs for a diabetic.


Tagging @Staci & Ivy who is a whizz at Libre stuff.
Hi Kathy, I see Wendy asked for my help on Libre reports.
While I also use a Libre 3 for Ivy, I’ve never uploaded any reports to this forum so I’m unsure how to guide you there.
What I do is take the data from the Libre and fill it in on my spreadsheet (I fill in all cells with data so I can track the trends for Ivy, my cat.)
You could fill in as much as you choose to from your Libre data. That would give our members data to be able to help guide you here.

Good luck and keep asking questions!! :)
 
Hi Kathy, I see Wendy asked for my help on Libre reports.
While I also use a Libre 3 for Ivy, I’ve never uploaded any reports to this forum so I’m unsure how to guide you there.
What I do is take the data from the Libre and fill it in on my spreadsheet (I fill in all cells with data so I can track the trends for Ivy, my cat.)
You could fill in as much as you choose to from your Libre data. That would give our members data to be able to help guide you here.

Good luck and keep asking questions!! :)
@Kathy Samuelson
another thing I do is on the spreadsheet I have added a tab titled Libre graphs and then on my phone I take a screenshot of the day's before graph and add it to my spreadsheet.
 
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