Lantus to Levemir..anyone ever regret it?

[Purrberry]

I'm just on the brink of asking my vet if we can switch Fred to Levemir. When I mentioned the possibility last week, she said she's never had a cat on it; only one dog. I'm afraid she's not going to want to do it, as I have a virtual IM visit in June, and she's already said that a switch is "a good question for the IM vet". But that appointment is a month away, and at this point, I wouldn't want to wait that long. As each day goes by, I see a little less of the cat Fred was.

So as to the question above...has anyone switched and then switched back? I've been happy to see that most feel Levemir was a very beneficial change for their cat, so just wondering if anyone experienced anything to the contrary?

Thank you for your input!

 

[Liz & Minnie]

I'm just on the brink of asking my vet if we can switch Fred to Levemir. When I mentioned the possibility last week, she said she's never had a cat on it; only one dog. I'm afraid she's not going to want to do it, as I have a virtual IM visit in June, and she's already said that a switch is "a good question for the IM vet". But that appointment is a month away, and at this point, I wouldn't want to wait that long. As each day goes by, I see a little less of the cat Fred was.

So as to the question above...has anyone switched and then switched back? I've been happy to see that most feel Levemir was a very beneficial change for their cat, so just wondering if anyone experienced anything to the contrary?

Thank you for your input!

Full disclosure, I am not answering your question but I was in a similar situation. It was the IM who proposed Levemir, my own vet had never used it...mind you, this was after the 2nd hospital stay so my own vet had quite willingly transitioned the diabetes supervision to the IM. Will June be the first IM visit, or a follow up? I ask because perhaps you could contact them ahead of the appointment and explain your predicament and desire to switch. Maybe if you explain your proposed transition plan (I think it's 70% of the Lantus dose?) and the fact that you home monitor, the IM would write the prescription before the appointment. Also gives a good few weeks of monitoring ahead of the appointment.

 

[Wendy&Neko]

I have seen a couple members switch. The first lived in Turkey, his local pharmacy ran out of Levemir for his high dose cat. So he switched back to Lantus, then back to Levemir as soon as supply came back in. The second was a smaller dose cat, thought Levemir was the cure all for bouncing, so switched to Lev. Unfortunately, Lev is not a magic bullet though it does help most cats and I recall she switched back to Lantus, and was still unhappy. The one down side to Levemir is the later nadir, typically around +8, which can be tricky for night time testing. For me it was actually better. Neko's nadir was between +9 and +12 a large part of the time. So I was always home for preshot. The morning +9 test worked really well with my workout routine as a good number of days I was up then anyway.

Dogs react quite differently to Levemir from cats.