High numbers but happy kitty - Switch insulin to Pro Zinc or Lantus?

[Monica & Josie]

Hello everyone, I need some advice please on what to do right now as I am really not sure..
I posted this on the main forum as well but thought maybe I get more eyes and feedback if posting here as well..
Josie is 13 years old, we've been doing the sugar-dance since April 2017 plus she was diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis 5 weeks ago.
Started on 1 unit of Caninsulin but gradually reduced her dosage as she seemed to be responding well plus had a couple of hypos that made me very cautious.
She has occasional pancreatitis flare-ups that pushes her numbers up or down, in her most recent one she hardly ate anything for a week so had to reduce her insulin.
Lately she's not happy for us to test her at times ( but very chilled and purring at other times..?) which is quite frustrating as I can't get reliable data.. so I apologise for the lack of readings, whatever we manage to get we consider ourselves lucky as sometimes it takes several attempts and test strips with tears..

Would like to get her BG numbers down obviously as I know it's not good for her long term if staying where she is but Im not sure at this point which way to go.

We are considering switching her insulin to a less drastic one which she might respond better to and maybe even out her numbers more as surprisingly they just seem to be all over the place at the moment..
We were thinking of Lantus but the vet suggested Pro Zinc as it's licensed to cats although she's happy to go ahead with Lantus if we want to..

On the other hand my DH pointed out and I have to agree that although she's been running on higher numbers Josie seems very happy lately, she is eating very well, very sociable, playful, bouncy, no signs of illness and she's not drinking excessively like before. She can jump with ease these days as well. Considering I actually thought she was going to die a few weeks ago she certainly bounced back well!
So her overall happy behaviour is contradicting her high numbers and gets me thinking if we should poke the bear with some drastic changes..?

An insulin change would be risky but might just be the right solution? I really don't know.
Any thoughts and suggestions from your experience would be much appreciated!
Thank you for taking the time to read my post, hope you are all having a nice day!

 

[Rachel]

Hi Monica! Prozinc and Lantus are both great insulins that work well for cats. There are some differences in how they work...Prozinc is an in and out insulin like Caninsulin, but MUCH less harsh. It usually lasts about 12 hours in cats. The good thing about Prozinc is that you can change the dose day by day if needed (though we really think consistency works best in dosing) since the insulin is all out of the cat by the end of the cycle.

Lantus is a depot insulin, which I can't explain well since I never used it...but I'm sure you've posted on Lantus too and they'll be able to explain it better than I ever could! It has advantages as well as it helps flatten cats cycles out and you can shoot on lower numbers.

I'm not much help, but I would say that EITHER would be fine. See what they say on Lantus and on Main and maybe read the stickies here and on Lantus and see which one you think would work best. If it doesn't work, you can always switch again, but really...I think you'll get better responses on either.

 

[Monica & Josie]

Hi Monica! Prozinc and Lantus are both great insulins that work well for cats. There are some differences in how they work...Prozinc is an in and out insulin like Caninsulin, but MUCH less harsh. It usually lasts about 12 hours in cats. The good thing about Prozinc is that you can change the dose day by day if needed (though we really think consistency works best in dosing) since the insulin is all out of the cat by the end of the cycle.

Lantus is a depot insulin, which I can't explain well since I never used it...but I'm sure you've posted on Lantus too and they'll be able to explain it better than I ever could! It has advantages as well as it helps flatten cats cycles out and you can shoot on lower numbers.

I'm not much help, but I would say that EITHER would be fine. See what they say on Lantus and on Main and maybe read the stickies here and on Lantus and see which one you think would work best. If it doesn't work, you can always switch again, but really...I think you'll get better responses on either.

Thank you very much Rachel, very helpful response, much appreciated!