Harley and Me

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Rob & Harley (GA)

Rob & Harley (GA)

Member Since 2009
Hi all,

I'm hoping to get some opinions on Harley's ss.

Harley was dx 7/9/09 and started on Vetsulin. Sheila and Beau guided us to OTJ within 3 weeks, thank you. He was diet controled for almost a year until my now dreaded one and only business trip every year came up. A friend was going to take in the dog and Harley while I was gone but changed his mind about Harley, so he had to be boarded at the vet clinic #1. He stopped eating, peeing, pooing and came out of remission. I cut my trip short and came home and started him on Lantus (borrowed from a friend) I was convinced that this was transient and he would go back into remission right away, I made an appt with a new vet, recommended by another member. Vet #2 didn't use Lantus and was convinced that I was going to hypo him because it is such a long lasting insulin, she called me every day to make sure I hadn't killed him yet, until she had me so freaked out I switched to Prozinc.

I got him regulated and found a new vet who was supposed to be an FD expert. Vet #3 agreed that we were so close to getting him off insulin that he wanted to give Harley every chance so he put Harley on a diet, did a dental, Harley lost 3 teeth, and had me switch to a raw diet. Harley teased me with OTJ for months. Then we ran out of Prozinc so we switched to Lantus on June 3, the vet assistant chose my daily doses until the dreaded yearly business trip came up again. She was going to pet sit while I was gone, then cancelled the day before I was to leave, so once again he had to be boarded at the vet clinic #2. He stopped eating, he started bleeding from his nose (kitty herpies) and the vet was afraid he wouldn't make it, but he did.

Harley was dx as a kidney kitty the first of June, he's prone to bloody sinus infections because of the kitty herpies he was born with. He is getting Adequan for his arthritus, L-Lycine for when the sneezing starts and phospherous binders for his kidneys. I've started switching him off of the raw diet and back to the canned Wellness.

So since June 23 when I returned from my business trip I have been on my own and am still interviewing for vet #4. Harley's bg's have been creeping up and I'm not sure why.

Any advise will be greatly appreciated. I already know that I will be needing a PZI labodomy so don't hold back.

Many thanks,
Robin
 
Hi Robin,
I am assuming you're posting in the Lev ISG because Sheila helped you so well in the past? Just want to make sure you didn't mean to post in the Lantus ISG.

My observations are that Harley has been so well controlled on such a tiny bit of Lantus, that maybe lowering the dose would be more productive than raising it, especially because as you can see from the recent 300s, going up in dose seems to be making the BGs go up!

Even the .125U had better results than .4U. What do you think of trying that small amount again for a few cycles?

On Levemir we have seen mere drops of insulin make a difference for cats whose spreadsheets look like Harley's.

Otherwise, my other suggestion is to rule out any type of infection or issue going on such as teeth or UTI or URI because of the herpes.
 
Welcome Robin and Harley,

I've started switching him off of the raw diet and back to the canned Wellness.
Click to expand...
I'm wondering if Harley's higher numbers correlate to the switch back to canned??

There's a lot of great people and advice on this board. So happy you decided to post!
:YMHUG:
Marcy
 
Thanks Vicki, no I didn't mean to post in Lantus, I heard a rumor that rogue Lantus users might be welcome here. Yes, Sheila helped us so much, I'm not sure Harley would have made it without her, so I trust her knowledge and advise. I'm ok going back to .125u, PZI brain told me to increase when his bg's started going up and now I'm starting to wonder if he isn't doing a little rebounding.

His dental was last January, he's not sneezing right now and his nose and eyes are clear. He seems happy and playful.

Marcy, I just started the food switch back to Wellness this weekend so that isn't what started his bg's climbing but may contribute to it now. The Wellness is 4% carbs.

The other thing that might be contributing is that we have been stuck in that extreme heat and humidity wave for the last 2 weeks. Temps in the high 90's with heat index's in the 115 to 120 range and humidity at 80% it's been miserable. It finally moved out of here on Friday.

Oh, I for got to mention that last Sunday AMPS was my first ever fur shot.

Thanks for your replies.
 
Welcome Robin and Harley,

From one rogue Lantus user to another....lol.

Viva la revolution!!!

Can't help with the reprogramming the PZI brain, but I can say, Sheila and Vicki have helped Musette and I get on the right track. Well that and the magic charm that seems to be on Maxwell's old cartridge of Lantus. ohmygod_smile

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang.
 
Rob & Harley said:
Hi all,

I'm hoping to get some opinions on Harley's ss.

Harley was dx 7/9/09 and started on Vetsulin. Sheila and Beau guided us to OTJ within 3 weeks, thank you. He was diet controled for almost a year until my now dreaded one and only business trip every year came up. A friend was going to take in the dog and Harley while I was gone but changed his mind about Harley, so he had to be boarded at the vet clinic #1. He stopped eating, peeing, pooing and came out of remission. I cut my trip short and came home and started him on Lantus (borrowed from a friend) I was convinced that this was transient and he would go back into remission right away, I made an appt with a new vet, recommended by another member. Vet #2 didn't use Lantus and was convinced that I was going to hypo him because it is such a long lasting insulin, she called me every day to make sure I hadn't killed him yet, until she had me so freaked out I switched to Prozinc.

I got him regulated and found a new vet who was supposed to be an FD expert. Vet #3 agreed that we were so close to getting him off insulin that he wanted to give Harley every chance so he put Harley on a diet, did a dental, Harley lost 3 teeth, and had me switch to a raw diet. Harley teased me with OTJ for months. Then we ran out of Prozinc so we switched to Lantus on June 3, the vet assistant chose my daily doses until the dreaded yearly business trip came up again. She was going to pet sit while I was gone, then cancelled the day before I was to leave, so once again he had to be boarded at the vet clinic #2. He stopped eating, he started bleeding from his nose (kitty herpies) and the vet was afraid he wouldn't make it, but he did.

Harley was dx as a kidney kitty the first of June, he's prone to bloody sinus infections because of the kitty herpies he was born with. He is getting Adequan for his arthritus, L-Lycine for when the sneezing starts and phospherous binders for his kidneys. I've started switching him off of the raw diet and back to the canned Wellness.

So since June 23 when I returned from my business trip I have been on my own and am still interviewing for vet #4. Harley's bg's have been creeping up and I'm not sure why.

Any advise will be greatly appreciated. I already know that I will be needing a PZI labodomy so don't hold back.

Many thanks,
Robin
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Hi Robin, you should put this into a profile. Good write up - lots of good info and history here on your Harley.

I was just wondering why you decided to take him off the raw? Was he not eating it anymore? I looked it up and it sounds like a good product. You are lucky to have a store like that near you! I have to pay shipping to get my raw.

You said in your SS that you tried a different vial recently. So was it a new vial?

How old is Harley?

Yes, it has been hot and humid here too! But better lately.
 
Hi Pamela,

Since Harley was dx as a kidney kitty everyone has been saying not to feed the raw anymore to a kitty with a compromised immune system so I started switching him back to Wellness this weekend and they (the rest of the fur gang) are not happy about it, they love their raw. It is a high quality product that is freshly ground the day you pick it up. They get their free range chickens from the same place that the really high end grocery stores do.

The new vial/pen is the one I originally got through Venita but the Vet Asst. said she didn't trust the chain of custody during shipping and gave me her old vial of Lantus, but then she told me that she used to shoot the excess Lantus back into the vial which I know is a no no so I went back to my original pen. So yes it's new, I got it in May.

Harley and gang turned 15 April 26th, they are all littermates.
 
Hi Robin! Good to see you here, but sorry you are having trouble with Harley's regulation.

It does look like he is rebounding right now as you raise the dose. I found, with Beau, that the tiniest dose changes and amounts (actual dose itself) made a difference in his numbers. This was on lev, but I suspect that the same is true on lantus. I was dosing him at .1u for a while and then .05u. You can see how he progressed to OTJ in his SS looking at Sep '09.

One of the things that I found I had to do was to set a do not shoot number that would be considered high for these long lasting insulins. I have seen some folks on the lantus ISG dose full doses on cats that are in the 60s. Makes me faint every time I see it. I *know* that the idea is to "shoot low to stay low", but when I found that Beau dropped in the 30s if I shot his .05u dose below 130, well, I had to skip shots.

There is some good info on how to get what I call Ultra Micro doses linked in the Lev 101 sticky. The links are in the text between the Gandalf chart and the Big Mac chart. You may find that going to .1u from .125u will work after he has stabilized (settled) on that dose again and starts throwing some low numbers. The next dose decrease would be to .05u. With Beau, at least, it helped to shoot something on a consistent basis as long as I could. He didn't seem ready to skip shots off of .1u, but ECID, as they say.

As for the raw diet, I think that not feeding a high protein diet to a cat in the early stages of renal insufficiency is "old" thinking. There is probably some info on that in Dr. Lia's site (catinfo.org) and maybe someone has the link to it? It isn't the protein, per se, that is the problem, but the phosphorus. Even that isn't a real problem until things have progressed a ways. There are phosphorus binders that can be added to the food to cut down on the amount he would absorb. You might consider mixing Wellness and raw, but it might be fine to feed all raw.

You should also look into subcutaneous fluids if you haven't already. Vicky uses them with Gandalf and it seems like a very small amount daily is very helpful. It also seems to lower BGs when she uses it. I don't know that Harley needs them yet, but it is good to know about them before you need to.

You have my sympathies for the weather. Minnesota got is a lot worse than we did here - and for longer. I hope it is over. I can't stand the hot humid weather!
 
Glad to know I'm not the only one that wants to faint everytime I see cats being dosed when they are in the 60s. :-D

And I'll take all the recipes you want to throw at me....need more pictures too. Right now I have more recipes than I do pictures :sad:

Robin, throwing my two cents in here, the vet tech college that I'm attending actually suggests a raw diet for kidney kitties as long as it doesn't contain fish, or fishy by-products...It phosphorus you need to watch...and yep there are binders that you can add to the food to keep it down.
In fact my mother was just dxed with kidney problems and she is a diabetic as well...they want her on a high protein diet.

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang.
 
Thanks Sheila,

I will drop him back to .125u tonight. I have already printed out the micro dose pictures and have them displayed on the fridge next to my granddaughters drawings. :-D I looked at Beau's ss and hope that Harley's will look like that someday.

I know, watching them shoot full doses into low numbers took my breath away too, that's why I can't post there, I work full time and cannot test during the weekdays. I would be too worried.

I'm releived to be hearing some positive feed back about feeding the raw diet. I've been mixing in a tiny bit of Wellness into the raw this weekend and they are eating it but not eating all of it like they did with the raw. There is nothing else in the raw, they grind the free range chickens whole, bones & organs included. They do add suppliments though. Here is the link to where I buy it. http://www.woodyspetdeli.com/ We are very lucky to have a place like this. I have been thinking about trying to make Dr. Lisa's recipe, maybe someday.

Harley is already getting phospherous binders now daily. The vet didn't think that he needed fluids yet but we know that they are in our future.

I hate the heat and humidity too. It was miserable, no AC in my car so I was getting crankier by the day.

Hey Mel, that picture I sent you for the cook book was one I took the day I first brought home the tub of raw food, I took the lid off and immediately had 2 kitties jump on the counter (huge no no) to eat it out of the tub. I'll try for more pictures.

Thanks everyone.
Robin
 
I just can't play well with them over on the Lantus ISG, I'm not going to poke my cat 200 times a day, everyday, and I'm not going to shoot a full dose into a cat that doesn't need insulin to begin with...Call me a rebel....lol. Plus I have a brain, I need guidance every now and then to figure out what to do at certain points, but I have a life that doesn't including running to the computer every hour to report my cat's newest BG number. And then have a so-called 'expert' tell me what to do next, advice sure, but I don't play well with God-complexes...lol

So we will just be rogue Lantus users together over here where the real thinking people come to play. :-D

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang.
 
Robin, just out of curiosity, what were Harley's last BUN and Creatinine values?

I have not seen an increase in Gandalf's creatinine value in 3 years now, we began fluid administration in summer of '08. His Creatinine stays just above normal and he is considered renal insufficient, his kidneys are also small on ultrasound, another indication of kidney disease. His BUN fluctuates more. I don't give him fluids every day now, as his insulin needs have decreased and it concerns me to give him fluids when his BG is below 200.

A diabetic cat which is not well regulated is chronically dehydrated because of the excess urination. So a cat which is in CRF and diabetic needs fluid supplementation IMO, even if they are better regulated. From what I have read, phosphorus binders are for later stage kidney disease. Fluids are a necessary part of kidney function and more important than the binders, again in my opinion. It would depend on Harley's phosphorus numbers of course, so that may be why your vet has him on binders.

Just thought I'd explain my reason for usage of fluids, since Sheila mentioned it. We were started on them by a University of IL teaching veterinary hospital vet. I believe they have helped Gandalf maintain a better level of health given his various issues. When he developed severe pancreatitis in fall of '09, I was very grateful to not have to learn the skill of admin-ing fluids on the fly!
 
MommaOfMuse said:
I just can't play well with them over on the Lantus ISG, I'm not going to poke my cat 200 times a day, everyday, and I'm not going to shoot a full dose into a cat that doesn't need insulin to begin with...Call me a rebel....lol. Plus I have a brain, I need guidance every now and then to figure out what to do at certain points, but I have a life that doesn't including running to the computer every hour to report my cat's newest BG number. And then have a so-called 'expert' tell me what to do next, advice sure, but I don't play well with God-complexes...lol

So we will just be rogue Lantus users together over here where the real thinking people come to play. :-D

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang.
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I'm with you there sistah. I washed out of LL within 2 weeks a year ago, that's why I went to Prozinc and wasted a whole year. The ss police were on my a$$ every day about testing and not "earning" dose decreases. I don't have to earn anything. I'm really glad we found our way here.
 
You gals crack me up! :lol:

Harley is dehydrated. A BUN of 66 is pretty high, but his creatinine is like Gandalf's, just above normal. His phosphorus is still within the normal range. Now, I am comparing those values to my paperwork and some range scales may be different, but the actual measurement should correspond. The scale on our paperwork for phosphorus levels is that normal is up to 7.5mg/dl. 4.9 would be in the normal range.

The following is from the regular Wikipedia page on BUN
A greatly elevated BUN (>60 mg/dL) generally indicates a moderate-to-severe degree of renal failure. Impaired renal excretion of urea may be due to temporary conditions such as dehydration or shock, or may be due to either acute or chronic disease of the kidneys themselves.
An elevated BUN in the setting of a relatively normal creatinine may reflect a physiological response to a relative decrease of blood flow to the kidney (as seen in heart failure or dehydration) without indicating any true injury to the kidney. However, an isolated elevation of BUN may also reflect excessive formation of urea without any compromise to the kidneys.
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Consider speaking to your vet about beginning fluid administration. It's not anymore difficult than hometesting and giving insulin as far as I can tell. The hardest thing is probably getting over sticking a huge needle in your cat, but they don't even notice!

Wondering how much research on CRF you've read? There are several excellent feline CRF sites. Here is Holly & Spader's CRF post from the old board. http://www.felinediabetes.com/phorum5/read.php?8,1791304,1791304#msg-1791304 The links should all still work. Just like with FD, CRF is very info-intensive and it's best to read all you can and join any email lists or forums where you can find others experiencing CRF with their cats.
 
Hi Robin and Harley,
Last I had heard, Harley was still flirting with remission. I'm sorry to hear that his numbers are creeping up again. I hope things settle down for you both soon!
 
Hi Peggy, it's nice to see you again and a picture of your handsome Mickey.

Hi Claudia, yes he teased me for months on and off insulin, I finally made the switch to see if we could get him off with Lantus. Congrats on your new baby boy.
 
MommaOfMuse said:
I just can't play well with them over on the Lantus ISG, I'm not going to poke my cat 200 times a day, everyday, and I'm not going to shoot a full dose into a cat that doesn't need insulin to begin with...Call me a rebel....lol. Plus I have a brain, I need guidance every now and then to figure out what to do at certain points, but I have a life that doesn't including running to the computer every hour to report my cat's newest BG number. And then have a so-called 'expert' tell me what to do next, advice sure, but I don't play well with God-complexes...lol

So we will just be rogue Lantus users together over here where the real thinking people come to play. :-D

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang.
Click to expand...


Hi there,
I'm just a regular old member, but I'd like to point out the terms of using the fdmb:

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Mel, that is a very rude and hurtful post.
I'm actually shocked that you would write this.
I take this very personally as a long time meber of that group.
Shame on you.
 
Ronnie & Luna said:
You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated, rude (see the Terms of Etiquette once you register) or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country,
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What I posted was not abusive, or threatening or rude...I threatened no one, I singled no one out, nor was it rude, again it was not aimed at anyone in general and was only a statement of personal reasons for why I choose to come over to the Levermir ISG. And it would only be slanderous if it wasn't true, but it is true in my humble opinion. Now it would have been Rude if I had stayed over on the Lantus board, and interferred with the way they do things over there by making a fuss about what I didn't like about their way of doing things....Trust me, if I want to be Rude I can be, I choose to take the high ground and seek advice elsewhere. But seemingly those that took to flaming me originally in PMs must follow me over here and read things that were not spoken to or directed at them.

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang.
 
I don't like this whole thread at all...excluding Rob's original call for assistance.

To me we are all under the same umbrella here. There is no 'we' versus 'them'. I know there are differences of opinion between the different protocols, but really, to bash another forum within the FDMB network of forums is just wrong.

I know I get a lot of good information from the Lantus forum. I copy/paste their stickies to members here all the time.

If you were a member there and you weren't happy with the advice you were getting, then you are welcome to post here, but keep your opinions to yourself.

I can't imagine the wars that we would have if we allowed that kind of exchange. We have been there, done that, before the ISG's were even around.
This is not good.
 
There are 22 posts in this thread - only 5 of them (including this one) are not on the topic of Haley's regulation, so lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

What is most important here is that Musette and Harley will get help because their 'parent' has found a place to post that they are comfortable with.
 
OK, we are starting to get really off-topic and feelings are getting hurt. It is not in keeping with the FDMB etiquette and rules to make insulting comments about a group of people. And it is very rude to publicly call a forum group brainless and as having god-complexes. Just uncalled for.

The Insulin Specialty Group forums are SPECIALIZED protocols, that is why they were set up. No one has to follow a particular protocol, but those who are interested in analysis and close monitoring are the ones the Lantus forum was made for. I've tried to make this clear over and over. Please no insulting a group of people who have chosen a specific way to treat feline diabetes. If you don't like a particular specialty group, just don't use that forum.

Do we need a casual or non-intensive Lantus forum? I really don't want anymore forums, so let's find a way to work this out respectfully.

I'm closing this thread. Let's start a new topic about HARLEY.

_Rebecca
 
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