lantus and 12/12

[hawkeyeal]

At a suggestion the other day, I am posting about the 12/12 schedule for Lantus. We have been using it for over 3 months now and it seems like we are getting Tuffy somewhat regulated but not near low enough. As he is an office cat, he gets his AM shot at 6:30 and PM at 4:30 before we leave. So he is on a 10/14 schedule. It was suggested that PZI use is not as critical for the 12/12 as Lantus is. Anyone familiar with this?

Al

 

[Nicole & Baby]

Hi, Al. Tuffy is on Lantus correct? I just looked at your SS & have a few questions, are you shooting consistently & the same dose? Lantus works best with a consistent dose & shot. I couldn't tell from your SS.

 

[hawkeyeal]

We were up to 6.0 and it shows in the ss but seemed to be too much as his numbers were bouncing pretty good. We backed it off to 4.0 and they became more regular but still too high so recently upped to 4.5. I only change the ss for the amount we are giving when we have changed it. Going to check the reading at+4 shortly and are plannig to stay at the 4.5 level through the weekend and discussing going to 5.0 the 1st of the week.

Al

 

[Nicole & Baby]

Ok, now I understand - I cannot really give advice because I have only been around for about a year & for 8 months of that my kitty was off the juice, but I do know that shooting 12/12 is recommended & to hold a dose for a certain amount of cycles before increasing, if kitty drops below 50 or so than an immediate decrease is called for. I know I am repeating myself here.. but try to keep the dose for the recommended # of cycles & keep the shot schedule.. Lantus magically seems to kick in when we least expect it :mrgreen: I do know dependant upon schedules some people have had to shoot 12/11, 12/10 & if you can monitor & know how it affects your kitty it is best.. but they don't recommend it, in the end - you do what you can with your schedule..we all do our best :mrgreen: hopefully someone else can come by & give you concrete answers you are looking for.

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

A suggestion -- you might want to change your subject line to get some former PZI users to stop by. Maybe changing it to PZI vs. Lantus?

A couple of thoughts for your consideration...
I think no matter which insulin you ultimately decide is the right insulin for Tuffy, you need to think about your goals. With the situation of Tuffy living at your office and the limitations regarding monitoring, safety becomes a very real concern. We advocate in favor of a fair amount of testing and from the look of Tuffy's SS, this doesn't seem possible. One thought is to see if there is someone who can take Tuffy home with them evenings and weekends since from what I recall, your dogs would not welcome a cat at your home.

If that's not a reasonable solution, tight regulation or remission may not be feasible given that you would need to run Tuffy's numbers in lower ranges, monitor far more frequently, and use food to bring low numbers up. If your goal is to keep Tuffy's numbers in the 200 range, that may be possible with limited testing. (I say "may" because a lot depends on the cat and they typically do not communicate their intentions terribly well - or not in a language we humans understand!)

I'm not intimately familiar with the use of PZI and I don't want to provide you with misinformation. However, what may be easier and potentially safer for Tuffy, is that dosing is based on pre-shot numbers whereas with Lantus, dosing is based on the nadir. I suspect you still need to get in some mid-cycle tests with PZI, but it may not be quite as essential as it is with Lantus. I do know that ProZinc, the current iteration of PZI, is a longer acting type of insulin but I do not know if the shooting schedule is as inflexible as Lantus.