Lente / Lantis / levemir...anyone have their glucose curves?

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tomkitten

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I have tried everthing currently on the market (Lantis, Levemir, PZI, vetsulin ect) and still have poor blood sugar control in my cat. Both lantis and levemir give me a similar blood sugar curve which i am not impressed with.

I get about a 10 hr duration and my blood sugar curves look like a profile of the grand canyon. Cat will start out at 350, within 45 minutes will be at 100, duration about 9 hrs and then will spike from 100 to 350 in about 45 minutes. Kind of like turning on a light switch either it is working or it isnt.

Unfortunately, my cat is still urinating sugar. This is exactly what happened to my last cat when he was switched to lantus!

Is there something i am doing wrong??

Can anyone provide me with blood sugar curves when there feline is using lantis??
 
Re: Lente / Lantis / levemir...anyone have their glucose cur

more than likely, yes. unfortunately lantus/levemir is often dosed wrong and adjustments made incorrectly by alot of people in the industry because they don't deal with it enough to truly understand it very well.

what i would suggest is go over to the lantus insulin support group and do some reading. viewforum.php?f=9 there's info at the top of the forum about lantus and proper use/dosing, etc.....and you will find hundreds of curves there. read some of the posts and at the bottom of everyone's posts, they have links to spreadsheets where they keep their data.

i would also suggest when you get a chance, to put your data into a spreadsheet so others can see it too and help with suggestions, etc.....
 
Re: Lente / Lantis / levemir...anyone have their glucose cur

Tomkitten,

Are you dosing bid? And, what is your cat eating?

We can help more if you create a spreadsheet. I'm kind of conservative in my dosing of Lantus, and all of my guys (diabetic or not) eat low carb wet food (non-prescription). But, several of my fosters have gone into remission using Lantus. It really does work once the shed is built up.

Claudia
 
Re: Lente / Lantis / levemir...anyone have their glucose cur

What you describe sounds like Somogyi rebound, which is caused by too much insulin. It is very easy to give too much insulin when using Lantus or Levemir as both are longer acting and take some time to begin operating efficiently, therefore many people think the cat isn't responding to the insulin. As a result, the dose is raised which may not throw them completely in to hypoglycemia if only a little too much, rather the body responds with a defensive mechanism, called rebound.

You can read about it here - does the curve graph look familiar?

http://petdiabetes.wikia.com/wiki/Rebound

Lantus and Levemir, although not recognized by the FDA for use in cats, are excellent insulins for cats and have high rates of remission, but dosing can be a challenge. The standard method is the Tilly protocol, which many have used with great success.

http://www.tillydiabetes.net/en_6_protocol2.htm
 
Re: Lente / Lantis / levemir...anyone have their glucose cur

It could be the kitty and not you. I have been working on my Bailey for about seven years and he still has terrible BGs. Some days he will stay in the 300s all day and some times he will drop and be in the two digits in the evening. On the other hand I am not keeping Thunder and Smokey under 120 all day. All those are on Lantus. I can also keep Twigie under 130 all day using N.
 
Re: Lente / Lantis / levemir...anyone have their glucose cur

There are links in my signature to my kitties' spreadsheets if you want to take a look. A lot of people in the lantus isg are data driven and test a lot. I try to find a happy median and test more when I need to worry about my kitty's safety. On Oscar's spreadsheet you will have to scroll down a bit to get to the lantus portion. I have the dates I switched his insulins in my signature to help you find the right portion of the spreadsheet.

I recently switched my Oscar to Levemir almost a week ago. He was on Lantus for 8 months. While lantus gave us much better control of his blood glucose than prozinc, he was still bouncing between double digits and over 200. So far, the levemir seems to be working well, we just need to find the correct dose for him and let his body even out. You will notice over the past few days the ultra high am pre shot numbers. Those numbers are bounces from probably going too low over night and his liver panicked and sent out glycogen stores in an effort to protect his body from hypoglycemia. Those sorts of numbers will eventually even out once we find the right dose and he gets a few days on it for his body to get used to it. Going between low-decent numbers to ultra high very quickly is text-book indicative of the symogi rebound I just described.
 
Re: Lente / Lantis / levemir...anyone have their glucose cur

My angel kitty Taco was on Levemir for the last 2 years of his life (he passed from cancer). He'd been diabetic x 6 yrs. Finally got him regulated nicely on Humulin L but then they stopped making it so I had to make the switch, which I'd dreaded. I opted for Levemir and for him, it was a Godsend. I remember getting nice curves..but not even really a curve....more like a flat line. For instance, his pre-shot morning BG would often be about 100 and I'd give his dose of 1.5 and consistently throughout the day he'd be running around that...so no drastic drop......just even keel....and pre-shot BG in evening was about 100 as well. It was so consistent that as I became more trusting and period spot-checks of his BG showed how he was ....it got to the point where I never did spot checks...just pre-shot BGs and they were always good. I think the key with him being so successful on the Levemir was that I'd gotten him to the point where he'd been so well regulated on the Humulin L.....that when i first started the Levemir, from that first day.....we were starting out with a pre-shot BG of a really nice number, like say 100-120......had he been not as well regulated, it might have been more difficult. Come to think of it, over time I found that I was able to give less than 1.5 units BID.....got him down to just a hair over 1 unit BID. And there were several times that his pre-shot BG was like 50 or 60 and I'd skip a dose of insulin, sometimes a whole 2 days worth. I'd always get excited when this happened, praying for a Honeymoon but that never happened but maybe could have had he lived longer? :( The way levemir works (and I spent a lot of time researching lantus vs levemir when I had to make the switch) by keeping a nice flat BG level........and that's what attracted me to it. I followed a lot of the folks here who'd been using it, and a guy named Steve (his cat named Jock)....his anecdotal experiences with his cat (I believe he was the first to try this insulin).....and that's what convinced me to try it. At the time I'd read alot more positive things about Levemir than I had Lantus. And for Taco, it truly did keep his BG nice and even.......no big peak, no risk of hypo.
 
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