Hello, I just got the diagnosis for my kitty about a month ago. Oh boy how things have changed in this house! I have converted her to a 100% wet food diet and have her on Lantus currently. I am very successful at home testing and she is even purring during the tests at this point. All sounds like roses so far, but... As of now, she is on a rollercoaster ride in her BG levels. At first diagnosis, my vet prescribed 3 U of Lantus BID 12 hours. Ok, I didn't know anything at that point and did it. No problem. Then I start perfecting my home testing and reading more about dosing and learn that her BG is going way too low. I tell the vet, we decrease her to 1.5 U. Still to low. I decrease her to 1 U. I have been doing readings between 4 and 5 hours after dose and she is sometimes as low as 20! Today, she went from 400s, down to 29, then back up to 450 in a 12 hour period. I gave her 1 U of Lantus for the dose. I do not know what to do at this point! She is not anywhere near the sweet spot of BG, just all around it like a fly trying to get out of an open window! So frustrating! Any Lantus users have any advice?
Lantus kitty newly diagnosed
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Donna & Shiloh (GA)
Active Member
Wow. Sounds like your dose is too high and you are getting rebound. Switching to an all wet diet sometimes brings cats into remission to be diet controlled. Your starting dose was too high. Start low and go slow. 20 is dangerously low. Make sure you have your hypo kit on hand. Read all you can. I personally would shoot 1 unit and see what the sugars do. Great you can test. Donna
MauiGuppy
Very Active Member
First, welcome! You're doing a terrific job so far...home testing, switching to wet food, etc.
But wow -- those are some wonky-a$$ numbers! I'm not a dosing expert and I've seen cats in the 300-400 have big swings, but not as big as yours. Within my little realm of experience, I do know that a cat is safe if they're above 50. A cat could hypo when they dip down to 20's.
Do you know where she's at right now? I"ll hang out here till I hear from you and will help you out the best I can.
But wow -- those are some wonky-a$$ numbers! I'm not a dosing expert and I've seen cats in the 300-400 have big swings, but not as big as yours. Within my little realm of experience, I do know that a cat is safe if they're above 50. A cat could hypo when they dip down to 20's.
Do you know where she's at right now? I"ll hang out here till I hear from you and will help you out the best I can.
julie & punkin (ga)
Very Active Member
oh wow, you definitely got to the right place before you had a serious crisis with your little one! we can help you get things evened out.
when lantus doses get changed the cat's BG numbers go wonky for up to 3 days. that's probably some of the high numbers you're seeing.
there's also a phenomenon that is a cat survival response - if a cat's BG goes too low, their liver will release a hormone and stored glucose to "save" the cat and the cat's numbers will soar.
you probably are seeing a combination of those factors because the dose is moving around and it sounds like it's too high.
take a look here on how to get started. http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=18139
you need a spreadsheet set up as soon as you can, but in the meantime, come over to the Lantus Insulin Support Group and post. http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewforum.php?f=9 See where it says "new topic"? Click and post there. There are a lot of experienced people on early in the morning, possibly even can suggest on dose, depending on how much info you provide. Tell everything you know in your post and we'll help you get going, quickly and safely for your kitter!
when lantus doses get changed the cat's BG numbers go wonky for up to 3 days. that's probably some of the high numbers you're seeing.
there's also a phenomenon that is a cat survival response - if a cat's BG goes too low, their liver will release a hormone and stored glucose to "save" the cat and the cat's numbers will soar.
you probably are seeing a combination of those factors because the dose is moving around and it sounds like it's too high.
take a look here on how to get started. http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=18139
you need a spreadsheet set up as soon as you can, but in the meantime, come over to the Lantus Insulin Support Group and post. http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewforum.php?f=9 See where it says "new topic"? Click and post there. There are a lot of experienced people on early in the morning, possibly even can suggest on dose, depending on how much info you provide. Tell everything you know in your post and we'll help you get going, quickly and safely for your kitter!
MauiGuppy
Very Active Member
Hi again,
Just wanted to let you know I'm going to bed. Someone has posted on the Lantus forum about you so hopefully there will be folks like Julie (who is GREAT by the way) on the west coast popping in.
The 1u looks like it's too much for her and I'd venture and say that we'd want to cut it down to .5u. Before you shoot tomorrow, please post on the Lantus group for help in dosage. Someone with more experience than me will be able to help you.
A few more things before I go:
1) You may want to test her earlier to see if she's heading below 50. She may be hitting 40 by the 2nd or 3rd hour (what we call +2 and +3) and we want to catch it before it gets worse.
2) Please have a hypo kit ready and know what symptoms to look for.
3) If she starts heading below 50, please post for help on the Lantus forum. Lots more eyes who are experienced in Lantus over there.
Happy to meet you and you're in great hands with the folks here on FDMB!
Bonnie
Just wanted to let you know I'm going to bed. Someone has posted on the Lantus forum about you so hopefully there will be folks like Julie (who is GREAT by the way) on the west coast popping in.
The 1u looks like it's too much for her and I'd venture and say that we'd want to cut it down to .5u. Before you shoot tomorrow, please post on the Lantus group for help in dosage. Someone with more experience than me will be able to help you.
A few more things before I go:
1) You may want to test her earlier to see if she's heading below 50. She may be hitting 40 by the 2nd or 3rd hour (what we call +2 and +3) and we want to catch it before it gets worse.
2) Please have a hypo kit ready and know what symptoms to look for.
3) If she starts heading below 50, please post for help on the Lantus forum. Lots more eyes who are experienced in Lantus over there.
Happy to meet you and you're in great hands with the folks here on FDMB!
Bonnie
Thank you for all the responses! I tested her this morning and she was at 324. I lowered her dose last night to .5 U so I guess I should expect some crazy numbers for the next 3 days if I keep her on the .5 dose... Her next shot is due around noon, so I will go home from work and take care of it. I hope her numbers are not too high then. What I really want to know is what her BG will be at 5:00 when I get home, that's the scary time, 5 hours after... I'll go to the Lantus support group today. Right now I am tracking her info on a BG app on my cell phone called glucose buddy. It charts everything in graphs for me. If I post info about her on here, I don't know if I could use that though so I may have to work up an Excel spreadsheet for that.
MommaOfMuse
Very Active Member
Hi and welcome!
Without seeing the exact numbers you are getting but just from reading what you have posted I'm going to strictly speak from my personal experience with my newly adopted diabetic cat Musette. If you look at her spreadsheet, in my signature you can see she too was having some wild swings in BGs. As it turns out 1u was too much for her, From the time she was rescued on June 4th until I got her transported to me on the 25th, she was on a rollercoaster ride, when I got her I basically decided to start over with her for a couple of reasons. 1) I was home with her so I could test often, 2) because her diet was changing yet again to come inline with what the rest of my cats were eating. (slightly higher carb content than before).
1u sent her from the 400s crashing into the basement. So I reduced her to 1/2u twice a day, which right now she is doing very well on except for over the 4th of July weekend when she was highly stressed from all the fireworks (my neighborhood sounded like a warzone) and the recent move. As she had recently lost her only home after 11 years which she shared with only one other cat, she now shares a home with 11 other cats and one large dog. So lot of changes for a little girl to take in. She also threw me a curve ball yesterday but I found the cause of that one....the dog had decided to share one of his cookies with her. (Bad dog too many carbs for the sugarkitty...lol). But other than those little glitches Musette is doing great on .5u. So you may also need to reduce your dose down to half a unit twice a day, hold it for a few days and see where that gets her numbers. If that proves not to be enough, then slowly raise her dose by .25u, if still too high then do the reverse reduce the dose to .25u.
But again that is just from what I have personally gone through with Musette and every cat is different. There is a wonderful forum here if you haven't found it yet for just Lantus users and they have some wonderful folks that are far more experienced in dosing help than I am. I would suggest posting over there and asking the experts
But just wanted to let you know that it is possible that 1u can be too much for some kitties.
Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang
Without seeing the exact numbers you are getting but just from reading what you have posted I'm going to strictly speak from my personal experience with my newly adopted diabetic cat Musette. If you look at her spreadsheet, in my signature you can see she too was having some wild swings in BGs. As it turns out 1u was too much for her, From the time she was rescued on June 4th until I got her transported to me on the 25th, she was on a rollercoaster ride, when I got her I basically decided to start over with her for a couple of reasons. 1) I was home with her so I could test often, 2) because her diet was changing yet again to come inline with what the rest of my cats were eating. (slightly higher carb content than before).
1u sent her from the 400s crashing into the basement. So I reduced her to 1/2u twice a day, which right now she is doing very well on except for over the 4th of July weekend when she was highly stressed from all the fireworks (my neighborhood sounded like a warzone) and the recent move. As she had recently lost her only home after 11 years which she shared with only one other cat, she now shares a home with 11 other cats and one large dog. So lot of changes for a little girl to take in. She also threw me a curve ball yesterday but I found the cause of that one....the dog had decided to share one of his cookies with her. (Bad dog too many carbs for the sugarkitty...lol). But other than those little glitches Musette is doing great on .5u. So you may also need to reduce your dose down to half a unit twice a day, hold it for a few days and see where that gets her numbers. If that proves not to be enough, then slowly raise her dose by .25u, if still too high then do the reverse reduce the dose to .25u.
But again that is just from what I have personally gone through with Musette and every cat is different. There is a wonderful forum here if you haven't found it yet for just Lantus users and they have some wonderful folks that are far more experienced in dosing help than I am. I would suggest posting over there and asking the experts
But just wanted to let you know that it is possible that 1u can be too much for some kitties.Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang
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