Lantus - Feeding within 2 hours of shot time Question

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Nicole & Baby

Nicole & Baby

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Is the only reason not to feed within 2 hours of shot time because an accurate BG Reading is not assured - due to a possible food spike? Or are there other negatives?
 
Who told you not to feed within 2 hours?
I've never heard this (keep in mind that I am fairly new, but Odie is on Lantus too).
 
I never heard of the two-hour "rule". Feeding two hours before shot would be OK if tested at shot time. One of the major keys to regulation is consistency. If you do the feeding and shooting consistently, it really should not matter. If you feed two hours early one day and feed at shot time another day you will probably have difficulty seeing a pattern and getting to the optimum dose.
 
This is excellent information - I have always been told in Lantus Land to make sure & not feed within 2 hours of shot time due to food spikes & inaccurate BG Readings -- however, I have always been lax in that - I do feed - because if she wants food - I give it -- because she is not overweight & she does not understand. I have thought it makes more sense to feed - because one would want to regulate based on the reality & not skewing the #s based on a controlled setting. Thanks!
 
NIcole - I was always told that too in LL but only because of the possible food spike. But now that you mention it --Lantus dosing is not based on PS numbers so...hmm...I think as long as you are consistant is what matters. And if the food it low carb it should cause a huge spike right?
 
My understanding behind the concept is that the food spike could distort the BG number and you could be shooting at a lower number than you think. Since Lantus doesn't start the drop in BG for 2-3 hours, your kitty to be coming down off of a food spike and start that insulin drop at a lot lower number than you'd want and had you not fed and had a food spike, you might have seen a number where you'd have chosen to not dose or BCS dose. You would then also be looking at a cat that might need to eat to stay out of hypo and you just fed them twice within a short period before that and might not be as willing to eat.

Of couse I could be totally missing the boat, but that's what I took from that advice.
 
Nicole & Baby said:
This is excellent information - I have always been told in Lantus Land to make sure & not feed within 2 hours of shot time due to food spikes & inaccurate BG Readings -- however, I have always been lax in that - I do feed - because if she wants food - I give it -- because she is not overweight & she does not understand. I have thought it makes more sense to feed - because one would want to regulate based on the reality & not skewing the #s based on a controlled setting. Thanks!
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hi nicole. yes, in LL we recommend lantus and levemir users NOT feed within 2 hours of shot time. the reason is we shoot on low numbers... numbers in the 50 - 100 range. some kitties have bigger food spikes than others (as much as 100 points or more). let me give you an example: say kitty ate at +10 or +11, BG was 50 (and you didn't know it), and has a food spike of 100 points. shot time comes. you test, get a 150, and shoot a full dose. when the insulin begins to kick in at +2... the food spike is gone and the full dose is actually working on a 50. if you were home and monitoring, you might catch the low. if you were at work... you'd have no idea and kitty *could* dip dangerously low. make sense?

if baby is "that" hungry before shot time, a safer way to go about this would be to give her a small snack to tide her over.


ps - withholding food 2 hours prior to shot time: we've been suggesting this practice in LL for at least a year... probably closer to two years. unlike other insulins, lantus and levemir users who are practicing tight regulation shoot on double digits all the time. we don't like to shoot on preshot numbers which could be artificially inflated by food. yes, this practice does matter... for reasons of safety.
 
My 2 pennies.. (Canadian, and the exchange rate isn't great, so take that into consideration :) )

It's not a Lantus specific rule.. the cat won't explode if you feed them within 2 hours of testing/shooting.. however.. often people end up here with cats on too high of doses (some vets increase too fast, or too much, or base dosing on stressed bgs at the clinic, don't understand rebound, etc, etc).. or the person learns about the importance of a LC diet and makes the switch..

Feeding before the PS test can easily cover that up, especially for new people who don't tend to test much at first, or people who can't test during the day. A "clean" PS number at least gives a guess at where the cat has been and where they might go.. no you don't dose on the PS.. but with a long acting insulin it does provide a lot of information.

I have a pretty good idea what Nova does, and can handle it when she decides to do something different ;) .. I could feed her pre-pre-shot and the sky wouldn't fall.. however, I put up with the howling simply out of respect. Respect for all of those who work tirelessly to help other random peoples cats each day. I know that they are forced to make some REALLY big and tough dosing calls for scared moms and dads who end up here with sometimes very sick cats. And I know a clean PS test makes that a little bit easier. So I follow the (not exactly a rule) "rule".. so that new people follow it too.
 
I used to keep some really low carb moist food around for if Yittle was claiming he'd die of starvation if he had to wait the full 2 hours. Ususally it was something fish based - Fancy Feast had a couple that were 0-2% calories from carbs. A few bites of that would tide him over and didn't seem to cause more then 10-20 points difference in his blood sugar, if that.
 
Thanks, everyone!! Jill.. as always.. I really apprediate you educating me. I am going to try my best not to feed Baby.. just give a small snack if needed ;-)
 
Very relieved when I saw Jills post!

The lower carb the snack the less impact on bg (fresh boiled chicken will be negligible and hopefully keep those hunger pangs away)

I thought the not feed within 2 hours is stated somewhere in the stickies, if not, everyone gets that info as it's a well supported isg.
 
Still new (3 weeks into insulin - Lantus, 1 unit x/day) and just read this. This is the 1st I have heard about this 2 hour rule. My cats get fed at about 9am and then around 5:30-6pm. (only one has diabetes). Kyndra then does not get her 2nd shot until 8:30-9:pm so my vet said to make sure she DOES have a little bit of food in her so I give her about a tablespoon of canned (I never really paid attention to which one but she mainly gets DM or a FF).

I have not consistently been testing at home (still getting the hang of it), but she is at vet today for a curve and to test my monitor against theirs to check accuracy. I don't plan on testing her pre-shot daily b/c I don't want to stress her or make a mess of her ears if I don't have to and was going to do check her mid-day instead every couple days.

Is my practice of the little food just before evening shot OK> In the morning she gets it right after her meal.

thanks,
 
Bonny - preshot feeding isn't the problem, its the pretest feeding. Are you giving the spoonful of food right before the test or right before the shot? I think its recommended that you feed before the shot, test->feed->shoot.

You really should be testing preshot and then getting a few spot checks thoughout the day to really understand whats going on and make informed dosing decisions. The cat will adjust to the testing and their ears shouldn't get all torn up. There are a lot of kitties on here that are tested numerous times thoughout the day that are just fine. The first week my Smokey's ears got sore and she hid every time she saw me. Now (usually, haha) I hold the meter out for her to see, she rubs her chin on it and then runs for the ziploc bag that she has chosen to be her testing spot with me. For my husband, he pats the counter and says "come-on Smok, get up here" and she jumps up. Once they figure out treats or food comes after the testing, they usually welcome it. Just to help heal faster, I rub neosporin on her ears once or twice a year and got another salve made for cats and dogs (that someone recommended on here) and use that once or twice a week.
 
Melanie and Smokey said:
Bonny - preshot feeding isn't the problem, its the pretest feeding. Are you giving the spoonful of food right before the test or right before the shot? I think its recommended that you feed before the shot, test->feed->shoot.

but the subject of this thread is "Lantus - Feeding within 2 hours of shot time Question" and that seems to be the run of the thread as well...
I feed then give her the shot, but just a snack as I said in previous post and do not test often (see post for details)
Click to expand...
 
Kitty would be better having more than a snack at shot time. Your trying to balance your insulin dose with the amount of food kitty is getting.

Not feeding 2 hours before shot is because you could see an inflated bg number at shot time and think it is ok to give usual dose, when in fact 20 mins later, food wears off and bg drops bigtime. Insulin then working on an even lower number. If your in numbers less than 180 this could put kitty in trouble.

I know the thread is about the 2 hours q, but melanie has rightly raised the importance of always getting a pre shot number.
If you have a look through some of the ss's in LL group, you'll see where out of nowhere a cat has thrown 100+'s regularly at am preshot and then suddenly throws a 54.
You would not automatically give the usual dose. In doing so your keeping kitty safe.
 
The vet had said to give her just a small amount of food since she is getting her full meal a few hours earlier her, I suppose so that she is not getting 3 meals a day. I am not testing her everyday - neither she nor I am up for it. She has only been on insulin for 3 weeks and her numbers were b/t 70-200 for her curve yesterday (done at vet's office) and vet said to keep her at same dose and all was OK for now. So I guess I will just stick with what I am doing for now until I begin doing regular pre-tests and have something to base it on.

thanks for the explanations :)
 
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