Hi! Newbie trying my best to get the hang of this

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Simon'sMommy

Simon'sMommy

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My kitty Simon is 9 years old and was just diagnosed with FD a little over a week ago. I jumped right in with both feet when I found this site and decided to test his BG at home. I already had the Bayer Contour since my Dad is a diabetic and I bought a meter to have here for when he visits me. Since I was already familiar with giving him insulin (he has dementia and can't give himself shots) and how to fill a syringe, I guess you could say my learning curve for this part was a little less steep than someone who has no familiarity with diabetes. That is where my comfort level ends though.

If you would take a look at Simon's spreadsheet, you can see I have not had any luck regulating him yet but I know I am being impatient. I want to see lovely numbers yesterday cause I worry about my baby having high sugar like this. I did test for ketones as did my vet and none were found thankfully. Vet said I likely caught the diabetes early as all of his other functions were perfect. No neuropathy either. Noticed he was losing weight, drinking a lot of water and endlessly hungry so took him in for blood work as soon as I put two and two together.

Sooo, since Simon was still high when he went for his one week post insulin checkup, the vet upped his dose from 2 u bid to 3 u bid. I gave him that dose once and he spiked high numbers all day. In the evening, I lowered it after advice from people on the main board to 2.25 units so I can "start low and go slow" and not overshoot a good amount of insulin for him.

That is my story and I hope that with your help and a little luck, we can have my sweet sugar baby OTJ some day!

Just did his evening pre shot which was 314. Will give him 2.25 units at 815 and then tomorrow will be going to 7:15 as I am trying to get back on schedule after being 3 hours late due to the vet visit and no insulin prior to his appointment per the instructions. So, was at 9:15 yesterday, 8:15 today and will do 7:15 tomorrow so I can be back at my normal 6:30 am schedule by Monday before work. Hoping this is ok to do.

Feel free to look at his SS and let me know what you think!
Joyce and Simon
 
Hi and welcome to our PZI group Joyce and Simon,

Ours is a small group but everyone here is using or has used your insulin.

Your numbers look pretty good.

Technically the "Start Low" refers to starting at 1/2 unit or 1 unit twice a day. The Prozinc website suggests starting at 1 unit. But we have had so many Prozinc kitties on very low doses that we have started suggesting starting at .5u and slowely increasing by .25 unit at a time to make sure you havn't jumped over a good dose by increasing/starting at too high a dose. Just something to think about.

You are off to a good start.

Ask whatever questions you have as they come up, we will walk you through this the best we can.

Robin
 
Hi Joyce,

Glad you made your way over here. As I said, it is a small forum so if you need a quick answer, post on Health.

It might help if you checked out the spreadsheets of other ProZinc users. Although Every Cat is Different, you can see the issues they have, the answers we ponder over and how they are dosing.
 
Hi Robin,
Are you suggesting that I lower Simon's dose under the 2 units the vet initially prescribed to see how he does on less? At first (and you can see this in one of my first posts here) I was very surprised he began him on such a high dose as I had already read lots of posts and things about feline diabetes here before we went for our first visit after the blood tests came back. I knew Simon was diabetic for two days before we went to get his insulin and learn all about dosing etc.

The on-call Vet was even surprised as he was the one who showed me how to give the shot etc and was the one there at my first post diagnosis visit. He showed me how to draw the insulin to the 1 unit mark on the syringe and I said "Dr K wants me to give him 2 units" and I could tell by his face that he thought that was too much to start with because he fumbled for words and said "Oh, I am just used to starting my patients on 1 unit to see how they do first but if Dr. K wants 2 units, then that is what you should give him." so that spoke volumes to me.

Anyway, my vet UPPED the 2 units to 3 units BID when Simon's BG (fasting BG btw) was in the high 400's at the one week recheck. So, they told me to up to 3 units BID and to feed ONLY Purina DM wet (or dry my choice which told me a lot too) and I told them I don't want to use the Purina cause Simon did not care for it and he does like the FF! The witchy vet tech (there are 3 of them and only one I don't care for and we got her that day)said "Dr. said you should feed him the DM and if you don't, the numbers will likely be higher cause the DM is lower in carbs than FF. I told her I am only feeding the classics and that they are low in carbs similar to the DM and a lot less money. Anyway, they want Simon back in for another BG check next Friday morning (no food no insulin first and the appointment is not until 8:15!) to check and see how he is doing. Since stress causes blood sugar to rise, it will likely be a high reading again and then what? 4 units? 5? So, I am going to do what we think is best for Simon and not listen to what the vet wants in terms of the insulin amount and feeding DM. I am hoping that when he sees the spreadsheet, he will agree with me. I did give him a copy of last weeks this past Friday and the witchy vet tech said "Human meters are not good for accurate numbers for cats so it is not really showing you what his true BS is" :roll:

So, should I lower his insulin? I did decide to give less than 3 units and had the best numbers since starting this other than one day he did go into the blue on 2 units, but in terms of recently, all yellow except his PMPS which was low 300's on 2.25 units.
 
Hi Joyce,

I'm glad you are open to the idea of lowering the dose because some vets will continue to up the dose by whole units, we have had more than one person arrive here shooting 8 or 9 units.

Since you are just starting out it would be a great time to start over with 1 unit and go from there. That way even if you get back up to a higher dose you will know for sure that you didn't miss a good dose along the way.

You will want to test for ketones daily when you lower the dose (you should be testing for them anyway on a regular basis). Are you doing that already? If not you can pick up some Ketostix at any pharmacy for around $15, sometimes they are behing the counter so you have to ask for them.

As for the human meters vs Alpha Track, the human meters are good enough for our needs. We are looking for trends not specific numbers, human meters will show you how the insulin is working when doing a curve. We know that the human meters run about 30 points less then the pet meters and can take that into consideration.

Simon is one lucky guy having you taking care of him.

Robin
 
Not sure if I want to go all the way down to 1 unit yet but will start high and go low (opposite of the other one) by backing down slowly. Tonight I will shoot 2 units instead of 2.25 since I am already lots under where the vet wants him and then wait a few days and go to 1.5 and then 1.25 and then 1 to see how he does.

Since I am getting good numbers (for him) on 2.25, I hesitate to just drop his dose by that much too quickly although I am willing to drop it slowly to see how he does.

As for ketones, I am testing for them already as well as sugar in the urine and ketones were negative and sugar was not bad either at the mid cycle check time (about 2 pm for him yesterday) and plan to do another one today.
 
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Simon's reading at +6 was 127 which was the lowest reading since I started testing him. Wahooo! :-D :-D :-D :-D

I know that this is not the best reading ever posted, but for Simon, it is really good. He is eating his second can of FF right now and he is acting super playful and happy which does my heart good.

It really does pay to test your kitty at home. Thanks to all of you!!!
 
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