Honey - Lantus amount set to 1 per day - ok?

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Denise & Honey

Denise & Honey

Member Since 2012
so, rang the vet and good and bad news.

He's agreed to me doing a curve at home :razz: and says I should wait a full week.

I double checked on how many times I should give her Lantus per day - he confirmed once. (She gets 1 unit).
He said its best to start on a low dose, some cats only need 1 per day and to see again after the curve.

I gave him the BG numbers I have so far (only 3) and he didn't seem concerned.
(I did try to test on +2 but couldn't get any blood)
 
Re: Honey - Lantus amount

HI Denise-
That's good news that your vet will support you in home testing and doing the curve. Honey will thank you as well as being at home is SOOOO much better than the vets! I noticed you were able to get the ReliOn meter so you are set to go. Make sure your lancet is about 26-28 gauge. The bigger numbers (30-31) are just too fine and you won't be able to get blood.

I know many more experienced people will chime in on this, but Lantus is based on twice a day dosing. Cats have a higher metabolism and it is crucial to dose 12 hours apart otherwise you will not experience the effectiveness of it. Since you are doing 8am then you would also need to dose at 8pm. If it were me, I would be tempted to just ignore the vets suggestion and do the dosing at it is supposed to be done.

We also like to post only one link per day and then link the previous days condo. It helps others when reviewing all your information to have it in one spot. Here's yours from 10/12.
Previous Condo

The next time you post, open your previous condo in a separate tab. Go into the browser window and copy the URL.Go to the new condo you're opening.

In there, type the following:

Previous Condo

(If you want the link to have a specfic name, instead of "Previous Condo" you can type the name you want.)

Hit "Preview" - that will tell you whether you did it right.

You are doing great. Keep asking questions as there are so many helpful volunteers on this site.

Karen
 
Re: Honey - Lantus amount

thanks Karen.

I wasn't sure about giving her the 2nd shot - from what I've read on these pages, it seems I should. Now I'm testing, that should guide what I do rather than the vet's generic advice.

Honey was overweight and has been on Hills R/D for about 5 years. I now know how bad dry food is (my other 2 cats are now on canned only too) but could this particular brand have played a big contribution to her having diabetes? Wondering if it has extra fiber to fill them up??
 
For information on why dry food of any kind is not good for cats, please read Dr. Lisa's website. www.catinfo.org

She can explain it better than anyone else.

And because cats metabolize faster than humans, we recommend giving insulin 2 times a day in 12 hour increments. By only giving insulin once a day, there will be 12 hours when the cat doesn't have insulin and the BG's can go up and crazy during that time. It will make the cat feel really horrible with bg's swinging like that.

Please visit the lantus page and read the information on about lantus, its use, handling, dosing etc.
 
Lantus is definitely dosed twice a day for most cats. Perhaps your vet should read Dr. Rand's study: http://www.uq.edu.au/ccah/docs/diabetesinfo/link4.pdf

If you want, you could give 0.5 units twice a day for a total of 1 unit of insulin daily. 0.5 units is a very low safe dose to start with.

Don't bother with a curve right now. Just learn how to test :smile: It takes Lantus a couple of days to "build a shed" for it it really work on bgs. You can do a random bg check or two if you want. Maybe in a week (after you decided on how much insulin to start with and once a day dosing vs twice a day dosing), attempt to do a curve.

Denise & Honey said:
Honey was overweight and has been on Hills R/D for about 5 years. I now know how bad dry food is (my other 2 cats are now on canned only too) but could this particular brand have played a big contribution to her having diabetes? Wondering if it has extra fiber to fill them up??
Click to expand...

According to Binky's dry food chart, R/D has 35% carbs per cup, way way too much for any cat to have :shock: A long term carb heavy diet puts a huge strain on the pancrease which causes many cats to become diabetic. Cats don't have much of a use for carbs in their diet. Diabetic cats should be limited to no more than 10% carbs.

Catinfo.org has more info about proper nutrition and how to help overweight cats lose weight safely.
 
Hi Denise-
You are welcome. I had a lot of help when I just first got set up.

My Fur Ball was about 24 pounds and was a dry IAMS boy. We thought we were doing good w/ his food but I truly believe his diet was a huge contributor to his diabetes. Especially since we've been doing this since Sept 5 and have already gotten him on the OTJ trial (woohoo!). We transitioned him to raw and its been amazing for him. And boy is he soft now, plus no more dandruff.

In the past couple months he started losing weight, drinking lots of water and peeing excessively!!! Hence the clues that something was wrong. A visit to the vet said he weighed 18 pounds. Right now our main focus has been getting his diabetes stabilized. We don't have a baby scale but after we finish his OTJ trial we plan to go back to the vet for a blood work up and the weigh in. Then we will focus on stabilizing his weight and getting him to a safe weight.

You are doing great. As the insulin gets into honey's system you will then need to be testing more. Depending on your schedule, most of us do curves on the weekend as its really important to do day and evening. Many BGs are lower in the evening.

Keep asking questions. Did you shot the PM?
karen
Oh yeah. Dr Lisa's website is just amazing.
 
I posted this on your other thread:

Ry & Scooter said:
A cat's metabolism is about twice as fast as a humans so 24hr insulins like Lantus only last 12hrs or so in a cat. You want to be giving the shots twice a day, as close to 12 hrs apart as possible...

If you only shoot once a day, she will have 12 hrs of nice regulated numbers from insulin... and when it wears off her bg will start climbing higher and higher. It's an awful roller coaster ride that will make her feel terrible and impossible to regulate.

I left my boyfriend alone to take care of Scooter for a week and he did only about 1 shot a day because he was "too busy". If you look at my SS you can see his numbers are all over the place. For example on 10/07 he was at 286 for his morning shot of 1.25u. He probably got down to the 100's at the nadir, and then my bf skipped his PM shot. By the next morning he had gone all the way up to 416. :shock: Reds are very rare for my Scooter. Then he was given another 1.25u and 6 hrs later went down to 121! See what I mean about a roller coaster ride? :lol:
Click to expand...
 
Thanks again for all the advice.

I tested Honey this evening - 12 hours after am shot - 355.
I decided that as it was going up from the previous test, I would give her the 2nd shot of 1 unit.

I was going to test again in 2 hours to check she's ok - or should I wait a little longer if she looks ok?
 
Last post of the day.
Tested Honey +3 PMPS - 295.

Got a lot of blood - she wasn't happy, particularly after 2 goes. I squeezed ear until blood stopped - she wasn't happy with that either.

I assume this is safe enough for me to go to bed?
I'd love to test her during the night but I need to get up for work and kids to school at 6am so I'll have to wait until AMPS at 7:30am
 
I just want to point out that these first few days on Lantus are "building the shed" so you may not see a lot of action. Lantus is an insulin that works with a store and the first few days to a week of insulin the body may focus more on building that before using any of the insulin you are putting in. Some cats start to move immediately, some don't until their body has built up that shed. After that, you may see more movement happening. Just didn't want you to start wondering why you might not be seeing big movements in the first few days of shots, that is often normal with Lantus. Some cats are very senstive and they move quickly regardless of shed activity, but some aren't and are going to be more like getting a semi truck to turn.
 
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