Just started cat on Prozinc

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laura & piedmont

Member Since 2014
Hello , i'm Laura and my 9 yr old male cat was just diagnosed and was at vet for 3 days to due to figure out insulin needs, he came home last night and I have switched him to this site's recommended fancy feast food, i have been monitoring his bg and it was 165 at 5 this morning, then at 9 he ate and his bg was 288 & i gave him his prozinc 1u then at 2 pm bg was 388 at 4 pm 375. Im worried maybe i somehow "missed" with the insulin injection,is it safe for me bump up the injection time and give to him now? Is it probably my error or has anyone else had this experience with their on prozinc? Please give me any opinions you have! Thanks!
 
Welcome to FDMB.

Better too high for a day than too low for a moment. That is for safety reasons. You have more time to intervene for high glucose and almost none for low glucose.

When we list glucose tests, we do so in reference to how long it has been since the shot because we're all in different time zones. The data you gave is roughly like this:
+8 ~ 165 (5 am) if previous shot was around 9 pm
amps ~ 288 (9 am), ProZinc 1u
+7 ~ 388 (2 pm)
+9 ~ 375 (4 pm)
It can take a while for the cat to become accustomed to an insulin dose. You want to give it a couple of days to settle in.
 
Hi Laura and welcome to you and your sugardude to the message board. Would you tell us your cats name please?
 
Thank you for the advice! I've definitely gotten better giving injections, but I've been avoiding scuff of neck since I read somewhere absorption may not be as good there as around belly and hips and twice now I've gone completely through skin and pricked myself, so I think neck/shoulder area would be easier, anyone have an opinion about this?

My cat's name is Piedmont & he's been handling it all (except long vet stay) amazingly and seems to be getting back to his old wild self.
Thanks again and I'm going to check out PZI board now!
 
I shoot around the shoulders, myself. Slower absorption may actually work better with ProZinc, as sometimes, it wears off before 12 hours are up.
 
Okay thanks BJM, I'll try that. also I've been feeding him this sites recommended fancy feast low carb varieties. Ivebeen giving him one can about every 6 hrs (my vet only wanted him fed twice a day right before insulin, but she also wanted him on hills dm dry food) but he still acting very hungry, he had lost a lot of weight but I can see in just the past 5 days he's gained some back, do you feed your cats as frequently as me and do you feed until satisfied? Piedmont has a tendency to be heavy especially when he's kept indoors as he now will be, but he really seems hungry and he's still down a couple pounds. I just want to make sure I'm not making things worse by over feeding.
 
I'm feeding 15 cats four 13 oz cans of Friskies twice a day which is mostly gone by the next feeding, except crumbs.

(4*13*2)/15 = about 7 oz per cat per day, or roughly 3.5 oz per meal

An unregulated diabetic can't use the food well, so feeding up to 50% more spread out across the 10 hours after a shot can be helpful. Many folks use a timed feeder such as the Pet Safe 5 to do that.
 
Hi sugarkitty Piedmont! Your mommabean Laura is taking very good care of you. Hope you get better soon.

I feed my 3 kitties 4 times a day. I have to meal feed because my 3 civies (civilians, non-diabetic cats) are really fast about making the food disappear. Sometimes, I swear it's a magic act! :o :shock: :o

Spreading out the meals helps to take some of the load off the pancreas and give it time to heal, if it doesn't have to process so much food at one time.

The Fancy Feast pates are what I feed my sugardude Wink. There are lots of other choices on this food chartby Vet Dr. Lisa Pierson.

The switch from dry food to wet food helped my Wink immensely. He used to have frequent UTI's, but with the extra water in the wet food, he hasn't had one for about a year now. Wet food diets are so much better for our diabetic kitties since they help to keep them hydrated with all that excess urine output and the extra water helps to dilute the urine.

With the excess sugar in the urine when our kitties are over renal threshold (180-240), it's a nutrient rich environment for bacteria to grow. So, anything we can do to help with that is a good idea, IMHO. In fact, I add some extra water to Wink's food and stir it up until it's about applesauce consistency.
 
Thank you both for the input! It makes sense to me to spread out feedings but I am uneasy that my vet, who has been very compassionate and professional, and I are not on the same page and his blood sugar levels are still higher than I would like, I know it hasn't been long but I was hoping to see a big improvement with the diet change to low carb wet food and I am really hoping he can improve enough to not need insulin forever.
Piedmont actually started having very bloody urine the 2nd night he was home from the vet, where they fed him hills dry food, and I brought him back the next day and he is better now thanks to the antibiotics. I have been adding water to wet food too, but was wondering if hyponatremia is ever a problem with all the water these sugarcats are consuming?
 
Food change may result in about 100 mg/dL drop in the glucose level.

Ask the vet whether hyponatremia (low sodium) can become a problem. Blood work, possibly urinalysis, might indicate this kind of problem.
 
We'd really love to see a spreadsheet set up for Piedmont and linked to your signature so that we can see what is going on with his BG levels and maybe make a few suggestions. We have a standard color coded form that is a google doc and easy to copy. Just so you don't have ot reinvent the wheel.

Here are the directions for setting that up, from over in our Tech Support forum. The one step that was left out of the instructions, was to change the Share options of the google doc to "anyone with the link". That gives us read only access. You are still the only one that can update it from within your google drive.
 
hello,
thank you again for the advice, i haven't posted in a while because I've been reading others posts on the PZI forum hoping it would apply to Piedmont but I still can't get him under control! I brought him back to the vet about 2 wks ago now because his BG was in the 400s a couple hours after his 1U shot, i saw a different vet and he immediately incr his dose to 3u, i thought this helped initially but now see a worsening trend. I increased his dose again by about .3 u a few days ago but I don't think this has helped either. I use u100 syringes and convert so instead of filling it to the 7.5 line for 3 u i filled it to 8.5. I (hopefully) have my spreadsheet of the last few days in my signature. Please if someone can make sense of this, tell me what to do! I called the vet yesterday hoping she would agree to try lantus but instead said i could bring him in for them to do another curve with insulin N, I think this means novolin N, which i've read on this site is a poor choice, so I declined. I want to bring him to another vet, but I'm afraid it's going to be starting all over again and i feel there's a lot more knowledge about cats like Piedmont here than any one vet has.
Please note I gave him 2u 4 hours before his scheduled PM dose because he was so high at +7 and haven't given him his usual PM dose yet today. Please advise when I should dose him again and with what dose?
Thank you all in advance!
 
With a U-100 syringe, each 0.5 unit mark equals 0.2 units of ProZinc. That's because ProZinc has 40 units per mL, rather than 100 units per mL, ie, its 40% of the indicated units (0.5 * 0.4 = 0.2)
So, if your sryinge is at 8 * 0.2 = 1.6 units is what you are shooting.

My smart phone is not letting me see your spreadsheet and my laptop is having technical difficulties, so I can't see your spreadsheet that way, either.

So, here's a stab in the dark:

1) Better too high for a day, than too low for a moment.

2) Too much insulin can look like too little insulin because it will trigger compensatory hormones which released stored glycogen that then converts to glucose.

3) Stick to the 12 hour schedule as consistently as possible, ie, there is no need to panic at high numbers UNLESS you test for urine ketones and find more than a trace level. Just ride it out, stick to your schedule. Patience is the key. Diabetes didn't happen overnight; it won't get controlled overnight.

4) The lowest point between shots is around 5-6 hours after a shot of ProZinc. Getting tests then help determine dose adjustments when you've been on the same dose for a couple of days.
 
Thank you BJM, I've reread you post a few times over the past days to keep calm and stick to the schedule and lower dose for a few days to see what happens. I'm trying to get as complete a ss as possible, but i know i have some big gaps. Thanks again and any more insight would be appreciated!
 
I am not a pzi user but so far this 2.5 dose looks good. Although I wonder if he dropped even lower than the 88 today. Next time you see green I would test more often to see how low he goes, and reduce dose if it's under 50.

Maybe go on the pzi board and ask their thoughts?

Also try and get a spot check later at night just in case he is dropping low then too..
 
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