? Is my cat experiencing "bouncing" ?

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Alexandra M

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I am considering switching to Lantus because my cat's numbers are all over the place on ProZinc. She is on a high quality low carb canned diet, I weigh her food out and have been very consistent. She has only been on insulin for a month. I am not sure what to do next as I can't get any consistency in her numbers.
 
Yes, she definitely does seem to bounce. Unfortunately bouncy cats bounce until they stop. There's not usually much you can do. One of our ProZin kitties (Cassie) bounced for 2 years before he finally settled in and eventually went off the juice. You have gotten some nice numbers, just bounces up to higher preshots. And some of her pre shots have been in good ranges. I wonder about reducing the dose a little bit and seeing if that flattens her out a bit.



Lantus might give you flatter cycles; she might bounce on it also. No way to know. I know it is discouraging but you haven't been on insulin all that long. She doesn't look that bad - there are certainly some good levels in there.
 
Sue and Oliver,

I just increased her dose from 1.25 u to 1.5 the other day, yesterday she received 1.25 u in the evening due to 17.9 evening number but she did not eat very well yesterday so i did not want to risk giving her 1.5 u. Should I be holding doses for longer despite the numbers, currently I am adjusting them based on her pre shot numbers. I am very uncomfortable with the high pre shot numbers especially for the passed 2 days, I was told that with Lantus I wouldn't be experiencing such high figures. Would you please explain what bouncing is exactly and why it happens.
 
In non scientific terms. when a cat's body perceives a blood glucose level lower than it is used to, it dumps more glucose in the system. So there is extra glucose which usually means the next preshot will be higher. With some cats, a bounce lasts a few hours. With others, a full cycle; with some several cycles. Sometimes with ProZinc, it works best to shoot a lower dose into a pre shot that represents bouncing (because it is sort of an artificial number) Sometimes it works fine to give the dose that number would normally require. Unfortunately there is no answer that fits all cats - it varies. Some ProZinc kitties who went to Lantus continued to bounce; some did better. Again, no way to know. She does drop a lot, from 27 to 8.5 is a huge drop. It might be that Lantus would give you a flatter cycle.
 
At the same time has enough time gone by for me to consider switching? Lantus seems to have a higher remission rate which is obviously tempting.
 
It won't hurt to switch. Do be sure to read the stickies on the Lantus forum to be sure it will work for your schedule/life style. It is not as flexible as ProZinc. They do have a Start Low, Go Slow protocol that is more flexible than the Tight Regulation protocol.
 
Is it a bad thing that she is dropping, i thought that was the point of administering insulin and to have the numbers as close as possible to the normal range at the nadir.
 
Dropping shows the insulin is doing its job. It's just that drops that big sometimes can make the cat feel crummy (just like people do when they move from highs to lows) and cause bounces. We generally like to see a drop somewhere in the 50% range. From a 27 to a 9 is quite a drop. Her nadirs are good - just a bit of a roller coaster from high to low.

Have you seen the protocol we put together for ProZinc? It might help. It's in blue in my signature.
 
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