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JoannH

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I was a member of the forum quite a few years ago when my cat was first diagnosed. This forum was life saver! It saved me tons of unnecessary vet bills by teaching me just about everything I needed to know to help stabilize my little cat.

Alley, my cat, has been doing well until recently. Her BG is now pretty continuously over 400! My brother has been taking care of her for some time and gives her 5 units twice a day of Humulin N.

She is going to the vet soon, but the problem is money! I am very underemployed and cannot afford to even go to the doctor myself. Paying for the vet appointment itself is going to be a stretch. I'm worried about the vet asking for all kinds of tests that I can't have done. Any ideas? If I should post somewhere else on the forum please let me know.

My cat is about 16 1/2 years old.

Thanks!
Joann
 
Hi and welcome back to FDMB.

One suggestion is to consider switching insulins. Humulin is a short acting insulin. Even though the initial cost would be more, I suggest that you ask your vet to switch to either Lantus, Levemir or PZI. The first two are human insulins you can get at any pharmacy. PZI is a pet insulin and your vet can order the first vial for free from http://www.bcpvetpharm.com/products_bovine.htm. All three are long acting insulins and cats respond well to them. You also will want to start over at a low dose, 1 unit and gradually (over several weeks) increase the dose if needed. Most cats only need 1 or 2 units of these insulins.

Diet also plays a huge role in controlling BG levels. If you are not already doing so, you should be feeding Alley a low carb/high protein canned or raw food diet. All dry foods are higher in carbs. However, if you do need to change diets, please also reduce your current insulin does also. Diet change can significantly drop BG levels and you do not want this to cause hypoglycemia.
 
If you must stick with Humulin N, you may get better results with TID (every 8 hours) dosing. Humulin only lasts 6-8 hours in a cat. You take the total daily dose and divide by 3, giving 1/3 of the daily amout for each shot.

A very likely problem is dental infection - if she hasn't had her teeth cleaned in a while, dental infection (any infection) can raise the glucose levels.

Check this stickie post on a resource.
 
We have free testing kits available on the top of the page. Testing at home will save you vet visits and help you figure out what is happening with the insulin.

Humulin is difficult to regulate with but does work for some cats. But the only way to do that is to track the doses/numbers and adjust as needed. I can appreciate that is less expensive than the other insulins that are easier to regulate with.

There are cheaper low carb diets that can really help. But do not change until you are testing at home. Oliver went down 100 points whence changed from dry to wet. If we hadn't been testing and given his usual dose, he would have hypoed.
 
I am testing Alley at home, but the test strips are a few years old. Can that make a difference? I will look into the prices of the other insulins today. Also, she did have an oral infection. She is currently on antibiotics. I go back to the vet in about a week to check on the infection. I think she has really improved with that. She also had a skin infection. The vet said it could have been because of the diabetes. I never heard of that.

thanks for the input. I will implement the approaches today, beginning with the food and insulin three times a day.

Joann and Alley
 
I hope you read the warnings about Not changing the food until you have numbers. And no, 3 year old strips aten't likely to work. There are expiration dates on the box.

If BJ thinks dosing 3X a day is wise, I hope you two can have lots of conversations about how to do this before you attempt it. It should not be done without constant monitoring, an understanding of how the insulin works and strips that work. Please get some advice before you attempt this.
 
5 units bid of Humulin N is pretty high but I don't know what your feeding her. If she's eating low carb and her numbers are continuously over 400, I would want to suspect that she may be experiencing 'rebound'. And Humulin N is such a fast acting insulin, it will poop out and not have the longer, gentler effect that Lantus and PZI have (those are the two I used after switching Blondie from Humulin N the first week or two he started insulin).

So I would tend to check that situation too to find out why her numbers are what they are now.

Edited to add... I would do a curve on her right now as this insulin regime is still in place and then see what the numbers are doing. That will give you a window into exactly what the Humulin N is really doing.

I also reread your post and using strips that are a few years old or expired will most likely give you scewed numbers. Time to get some fresh strips and see what her numbers are. V
 
I went out and bought a new meter and test strips. I got the walmart brand because it was less expensive than buying new strips for my one touch. Tomorrow I will do a curve. Thanks for the input. I won't change anything except the food until I see the vet next week. I have a feeling I may need to switch insulin.

Joann (PA)
 
I would do the curve with her eating what you give her now so you'll know what the 5u bid of Humulin N is doing in relation to the type of food she's eating.

Being that she's getting 5 units, if you cut the carbs way down, she may be get too much insulin in her without the carbs as a buffer (that's if she is eating a carb rich diet) and have an adverse effect. I hope I'm making sense here for ya. V
 
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