insulin change from vetsulin to PZI per vet

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buddybean

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Hey all,
My buddy had been diagnosed with diabetes 3 yrs ago. My vet put him on vetsulin after he had his teeth cleaned and told me the dreaded news. He told me that the food I was feeding him was great. Which come to find out after many google searches and binky and janets food list for good cat food was the crappiest food to feed him. He and all my other 7 cats had to change foods. They are all now on EVO and Wellness Core. I learned how to home test and have been for 3 yrs and still giving buddy shot according to the reading which have all be high 300 and above.I have questioned my vet on several times when i took in my other cats for teeth cleaning that vetsulin is not working. NOW they tell me it is not working and they switching to PZI. DUH.. had to drag buddy in for a testing which I could have told them they would not get a true reading of his sugar cuz he was stressed. but everyone way says listen to your vet. He is now on 2 units bid (twice a day) since Oct 18th. They told me not to ck his sugar until he had been on it for 7 days. cked it 7 days later and it was still high over 300. HIs lowest sugar has been 246 since he has been on PZI which I got with vetsulin. Called my vet Monday to tell them that and they said he needs a 6hr post. I did that and called them with results 257 Monday eve. and they said sounds like he needs a units increase but will call you back when I talk to the vet. Have never heard from them. SO... I gave an extra unit this morning and tonight. will ck his sugar tomorrow. hate to self diagnose but my vet is really pissing me off.
any words of wisdom?
Jan
PS.. Buddy has the living room all to himself. I monitor his food an water intake. He gets 1/4 cup of EVO every morning and a can of fancy feast every night before I go to work. When he begs to lets out .. my other cats miss him.. I cannot account for his intake of food. happens rarely.
 
Hi Jan and welcome.

Good for you for home testing!!

Let's get those test results into a spreadsheet then linked in your signature. The instructions for this can be found in the stickies at the top of the tech support forum. Also while you are doing that a profile helps to which is accomplished is nearly the same way. This will help us help you better.

You need to test at least before every shot. For beginners, if your kitty has a PS [pre-shot] level between 125-200 you either need to not shoot [the normal advice around here] or drastically cut back on the dose [to 1/3 or less of what it was] and report back here. If below 125 definitely do not shoot.

There are some things that I notice that I will comment on here and I cannot underscore their importance. At lest during the beginning while you are trying to get your cat regulated it is important to remove all possibility of having extraneous causes effect the blood sugar. The right diet is critical to your success.

We would like to get rid of the dry food. Also we would like to ensure Buddy is on a 100% low carb [9% or less carb as % Kacl] wet food only diet [including treats]. Good for you for finding Janet & Binky's list! If you need help transitioning to wet food only please ask for the various tips and tricks.

Also since Buddy evidently goes outside, is it possible that Buddy can sneak naughty fud from neighbors [including dog food]? Sugar kitties tend to be carb addicts and are little carb sneaking missiles. Especially since you notice you cat is eating rarely then I'm even more suspicious that he's getting it from elsewhere.

And, if you haven't already to read the PZI Sticky at the top of this forum.

Hopefully we can get Buddy whipped into fightin' shape here. :-D

Also the squeaky wheel get the grease in here [in PZI Land], so don't be afraid to post questions or just how things are going as you move along.
 
Thanks Gator for your advice..saying that Buddy gets "outside" means that he gets out in the house. all my kids are inside cats. They have never walked on grass. they see squirrels from screens.. birds from far away. I feed my 7 1 can of friskies 2 times a day. My Lou has nutin to do with it. she is a diva. another story. They all eat EVO and wellness core, Buddy kept blowing up the living room which he has his own litter box on wet food. I started feeding him cooked chicken w/ chicken broth and the "outcome" got better. my vet once again with words of wisdom told me to crush up 2 antibioic pills every day for 5 days every month to curb his gum disease.. his is missing two front fangs from the last cleaning. wet food seems to make him stink alot. since have started with the cooked chicken and sprinkle it with EVO the litter box has not evacuated the house.
 
Hi Jan and buddy!
Welcone to pzi. I just wanted to touch on a couple of things. Usually on pzi, we do increases in smaller amounts than full units. The theory is that pzi gives may kitties (don't look at my ss for an example of this, though) good results in tiny incremental doses. Many users use u-100 syringes with a conversion chart in order to do micro-dosing in .1 or .2 unit increments. Gator has a good guideline for how kitties can increase their doses. I'm sure he'll be back, or you can pm (private message) him.
My vet also advised that I not test charlie's bg until he's been on a dose for 5 days. I never felt comfortable with that, though. If my child was diabetic I'd test before every shot, which is how I do it with Charlie. I also get as many mid-cycle tests as I can in order to locate his nadir. Remember that vets are generalists, not specialists, and they probably only have screw diabetic pets in their care. They don't use their knowledge of it very often, and are often behind in new treatment techniques. I hope we see more of you as you and buddy work out the kinks!
 
Hi and welcome! Glad you found us. Great that you home test! Gator is giving you lots of good advice. Keep posting and asking questions---this is a very friendly group.
 
Hi Jan and Buddy,

Great that you are home testing, that's the hardest part. Come back and ask any and all questions you may have and someone here should be able to find an answer.

Welcome to PZIsland.
 
Hi there & welcome! Just wanted to mention a couple things, sorry if I am duplicating what others have said:

1) I wasn't clear if the Evo & Core are dry or wet? If you are feeding dry and can eliminate it, be sure to reduce the dose accordingly, as the change can be dramatic. Even dry with a low-carb # will tend to give them much higher BGs than low-carb canned. For reference, my cat needed around 4.5 units on the lower carb dry foods (m/d, DM, and EVO), and more like 1.5 units on LC canned (Wellness). The more you can test during any food change, the better job you can do of getting good results w/o getting into dangerous lows by accident. If you can't test a lot and are reducing carbs, it's probably best to pre-emptively reduce the dose (assuming there is no ketone history, if there are ketones in the picture, that can change your approach.)

2) I would recommend dose increases of no more than 0.5u, and you may well want to go with smaller increments. Often we have seen cats that respond dramatically to very small changes in dose on PZI. 1 unit increases are sometimes recommended by vets, but IMO are not appropriate for the vast majority of cats.

Good for you for looking into what you can do to help Buddy. I struggled a lot at first with the idea of going against "vets orders" but ultimately have found that I'm much more tuned into the finer points of my cat's BGs, etc., than my vet is. Just reality, given how many patients they see each day, and that the typical vet is not a diabetes specialist.

There are several of us here who also switched from Vetsulin. It takes a little getting used to the differences - I've been much happier with PZI.
 
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