honeymoon over--overwhelmed--start Lantus?

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Cynthia and Sara

Member Since 2010
Hello to those in Lantus Land,

hoping for your advice, I cross-posted from health...:

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=26525

I'd wanted to start her on Lantus, but feel overwhelmed at the idea of learning a new system, and the time needed to see results/ get it in place as I have to leave in 3 weeks for a trip....

I've read teh excellent stickies and Lantus protocol! thanks for this! But as her BG without insulin is 250-290, I'm wondering if I shouldn't just go back to caninsulin which is what I 'know' with my kitty, get her numbers down a bit, then can switch to Lantus later if that doesnt get her back into remission quickly?

thanks for your help on this--I feel lost and my vet isnt familiar with lantus...
 
I'm so sorry to hear that Sara (?) is out of remission. Caninsulin has been recalled , I'm not sure you can go back to it.
 
i think it's not an actual recall but rather an advisory about it but if the price is comparable i'd still advise a switch to lantus. what's great about lantus is that you have a written protocol so it's actually pretty easy to follow. i'd get a starting dose from the people here and expect that you'd stick to it for the first 7 to 10 days. so that part is pretty easy (obviously you'd drop the dose if you're seeing very low numbers).

it's not as hard as you might think. if you're super busy all it really takes is about 3 tests a day (one each shot time and one sometime in the middle of one of the cycles or right before you go to bed). that's not too bad, right? i think some people have given the impression that we're all major testaholics over here. of course it's great to get more spot checks but not everyone can. over time you'll get a better idea of nadir, onset, duration.

just do it! don't be scared -- you've been thru this before and your cat went into remission. you're in a great position to start again. we'll help you thru this...
 
Hi Chris/Cleo--

thanks for the words of encouragement!

I dont mind the testing, I work at home and my cat is a superstar about testing (automatically goes to the spot before getting her food!). and the price isnt too much of a problem, except that I dont want to order 5 pens of Lantus and then have it all go to waste if she goes into remission--but not complaining! :)

It's more the worry about what to dose, when to change, what the numbers mean--I have a hard time with decisions generally, and when there's so much at stake, the pressure is enormous. last time, I started smoking!....

Just spoke with the vet--she wants to try caninsulin first, hoping that maybe Sara's just been thrown off remission by her dental, since we know it and it's easy to get here in europe. then if it doesnt improve in a week or so, seeing that's she's really back on the juice for awhile, get on lantus. that's give us a week to read up on it, while getting her numbers down ASAP, as she's not feeling so hot at the moment....

thanks, I;ll keep you posted :)
 
Good morning Cynthia. Sounds like you got a plan there, and it sounds like a good one. I would definately suggest either Lantus or Lev for future insulin if it comes to that, but I've never used anything but N and Lev, and I am partial to the Lev because Spot does so well on it.
Either way, I wish you luck and I hop that Sara is just having a little set back due to her toofie issues and she's be back OTJ in no time!
 
I wouldn't be overly concerned about getting acclimated to using Lantus. There are people here who will provide you with the support and practical information you need to make the dosing decisions. Having a dosing protocol really does help and the Board members here can help you make sense of your kitty's response. The good news is that you have a good baseline understanding of feline diabetes. That will help. There is a big difference in how you approach dosing with Lantus vs. Caninsulin but once you get used to not basing doses on pre-shot tests, you'll be fine.

I'd tweek what Chris said -- we generally encourage a minimum of 4 tests per day -- one at each pre-shot time and at least one test per cycle. Do let us know if we can help.
 
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