Lantus dose increased and symptoms also increased?

Status
Not open for further replies.
monty_dweezil (GA)

monty_dweezil (GA)

Member Since 2014
Dweezil has been on his new dose of 2 units for two full days and today we have noticed he is drinking more and peeing more again, after two weeks of being good. Sigh.

This afternoon there was a thunder storm and they always scare him so he gets stressed. He hides for an hour after the thunder has finished and is very timid and subdued.

Nothing else has changed.

I managed to get a pee sample and he is right between 500 and 1000 (or olive green and pale brown). Sigh.
 
You didn't specify if it was glucose or ketones on the urine test.

Stress will raise glucose.

It is possible something else is going on, such as an infection.
 
When my cat was increasing his doses, I noticed that he was hungrier after the dose increases likely due to the increased insulin. This caused him to eat more, and increase the BS slightly for a day or two. I had to control the amount of food (no free-feeding, as he will eat and eat and eat). Also, if symptoms are still present, it means the BS is not well controlled.

It would help to understand what is happening with your cat if there was at least a daily BS reading, if not more often. It's hard to speculate based on symptoms alone.
 
I know...i will be trying from tomorrow onwards to get a daily reading. I know it's so hard to be flying blind with how he's doing.

Oh, and no, no ketones. He has always been ketone free, thank goodness! The reading was glucose.

This morning his pee glucose reading was bang on olive green (500). And he drank much less water overnight.
 
I did want to try only going up to 1.50 but it is hard when your partner insists on following the vet and she does the morning injections. :(

If the dose is too high, does it flood the body permanently or only temporarily? He seems good and back to normal today.
 
Lantus wears off a bit after 12 hours. An overdose can kill the cat very quickly; you might run that by your partner (sorry - I get grumpy when folks don't put their brains in gear and think things through all the way!).
 
No need for sorry. I have told her and she knows that clearly. I think because Dweezy was on 2 units to begin with, and his urine glucose levels are still consistently moderate (lower than when he was on 1 unit but not low or even in the middle range yet) and we are mostly around between 5-7 hours after to make sure he's ok, she is not as "paranoid" as me (though she IS nervous about it). I think she also places a bit of reassurance in the fact Dweez has never shown even a slight sign of a hypo...

Sigh.
 
Show her Martha and Lolly's condos in Lantus/Levemir for the past few days. Martha has stayed up much of the night testing and feeding Lolly to keep her safe, because Lolly was racing down the dosing scale.

Had a thought: since you're not getting blood tests, how about noting the urine tests on the side of the spreadsheet, as well as any other of the Secondary Monitoring Tools in my signature link. Intake, output, and dehydration checks would be good.
 
Yes, I will do that! Thank you so much!

I plan to try and test him on Wednesday, in the afternoon, before his shot and again 5-6 hours after.

Last night 6 hours after the injection, Dweezy's urine glucose was still 500 (olive green). This morning 1 hour after his injection, it was back up to 1000 or light brown. So...he seems not to be going too low at any stage at all.
 
monty_dweezil said:
... I think because Dweezy was on 2 units to begin with, and his urine glucose levels are still consistently moderate (lower than when he was on 1 unit but not low or even in the middle range yet) and we are mostly around between 5-7 hours after to make sure he's ok, she is not as "paranoid" as me (though she IS nervous about it). I think she also places a bit of reassurance in the fact Dweez has never shown even a slight sign of a hypo...
Click to expand...

For information, it is possible for cats to have non-symptomatic hypos on Lantus.
 
I'm not familiar with the urinalysis strips you're using.

I posted my last reply because, like you, when I first started Saoirse on Lantus I was working on the principle that I would possibly be able to see some clinical signs if she were to go low unexpectedly. I must admit that I got a bit of a land when I read here that I might not be able to spot a hypo as quickly as I had previously thought. I would have preferred to have had a heads-up sooner, so I was just sharing the information with you so that as Dweezil's numbers improve you'll be aware in the way I wasn't. The only way I knew any time Saoirse was at low numbers was because I was home testing her BG very regularly.
 
Wow. That is scary. So they can literally go from appearing normal to going into a coma with no other signs???

I use the Keto-Diastix I think they're called. I thought they were widely used! Not another anomaly for Australia. :(

On the urine glucose colour chart, it's got colour squares for no glucose, very low glucose, low glucose, moderate glucose, then above average glucose of 500 (or 0.5%), then high at 1000 (or 1%) and then extra high (as high as it goes, at 2000 or 2% and above). Dweezy has come down from that highest one to the next one or two.
 
I don't know what the stages might be, or how quickly a cat might become distressed. Perhaps more experienced members can comment, please?

Saoirse did have a couple of biochemical hypos on Lantus (blood glucose <3.9 on an Alphatrak,) and she had no clinical signs of low blood sugar; she wasn't even particularly hungry. By comparison, she went down to 3.9 when on Caninsulin and became absolutely ravenous. Because I was keeping Saoirse tightly regulated on Lantus and I was able to monitor her blood glucose levels very closely I picked up the lows in the course of her normal testing. I would not have aimed for tight regulation without the ability to home test BG. I needed to know I could keep Saoirse safe.

I use Bayer Multistix for urinalysis. Ketodiastix are used by a lot of people here, so definitely not an Aussie anomaly! :) FWIW, the Multistix strips have a single square for glucose level (plus single squares for other tests). The square changes colour dependent on the amount of glucose in the urine, and they provide a colour chart to compare it against to get the level.
 
Yes, they sound the same as the Ketodiastix. The ketone square thankfully has never changed colour. The glucose square always goes up to the 2nd highest or 3rd highest level, each and every pee. Surely this MUST mean he isn't going too low!
 
The problem with the urine sticks is that maybe the cat might pee every 6 hours and the urine that was from the high BS mixes from the urine a few hours later from when he was low, and you would see HIGH on your test. What you are not seeing is the possibility that he started at 400 and went down to 40. It's impossible to know if he was low from urine tests.
 
God, I HOPE so!!! Dweezy is a beautiful boy but he is NOT overly placid much of the time. The afternoons are easier as he's relaxed and a bit sleepy. The evenings are more difficult, especially later towards my bed time (and his nadir), as whenever I get up off the couch, he jumps up and does not settle again (whether or not he gets any food).

When he was a kitten, you couldn't often even touch or stroke him without getting clawed. He has mellowed over the years, but is still a very feisty fellow. He has a long memory too and not a HUGE motivation for treats. Each time I do his ear, I would have to wait a few days before being able to do it again. He wouldn't let anyone anywhere near his ear any earlier than that, treats or not.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top