NEW, 3/8 Max, AMPS 531...questions

[Mindy & Max]

I think I have the spreadsheet set up right...but I'm sure someone will let me know if I don't. :smile:

So we've only been on Lantus for 48 hours. When should I start seeing his numbers come down? I know about the "shed"...just don't know when I should start seeing some improvement.

And how many times a day should I test him? I've tried both evenings this weekend, but either haven't gotten enough blood, or was too much of a clutz and got error messages, and he didn't want to sit anymore so I gave up. His ears are getting sensitive--he's starting to flinch a bit when I prick him, which he didn't on Saturday.

I have to say, tho, that I'm impressed that he'll let me test him at all, and seems to have no reaction when I give him his shots...I thought for sure this first few weeks would feel like torture to him. Although this morning he wasn't too happy about me fishing him out from under the bed, but he settled as soon as I had him in my lap and gave him some love.

Oh, and when do I feed him in relation to testing and giving the shots? Does it matter with Lantus? I've been feeding him before the test, but sometimes I can test right after he's done eating, and others, like this morning, it didn't happen for almost an hour (which I'm sure in part is reflected in the super high number).

For those who haven't seen my earlier posts, Max has been switched to low-carb, all canned. Aaahhh shoot, and I just looked at my food list...he had a "high" carb breakfast at 12%. Guess we won't be feeding those flavors anymore. When I picked them out, I was trying a wide variety of flavors just to see what they would eat. Most of the high protein/low carb foods are seafood...is that a problem to continually feed them seafood?

 

[Ronnie & Luna]

Hi there
welcome back!

yup spreadsheet works.

you can use neosporin or polysporin ointment cream for the ears, helps heal them. alternating ears helps too
a little treat after testing works well.

with Lantus its usually, test, feed, shoot and eventually you can get that done all withing 15 minutes and even 5min.
some people are able to shoot while kitty is eating too, I finally got a handle on that after a while.

also, very important, with Lantus you dont want to feed within the last two hours before a shot is due, or you will have a food induced preshot number. so if you wanna feed, give food or have food available before +10, in both cycles.

testing: have a look at the NEW TO THE GROUP stickie up above, it has a chart on a typical curve...dont worry - you dont have to test every hour, but the chart does give you an idea of how Lantus is working for your cat.
The times I recommend are +3, +6, +9 and +11...depending on your schedule, try to test when ever you can.

If you look around at other kitties spreadsheets, you'll get an idea of key times people are testing, again, dont get freaked out if you open a spreadsheet that has a lot of testing (those people are testaholics - me included, was one :lol: ) but again, the more spotchecks you get in, the easier it is for others to provide feedback in regards to your dose.

12% is prob around a MC (medium carb) is my best guess...typically anything with some gravy, grilled, sliced, flaked, is gonna be a HC (higher carb) choice.
It is recommened fish flavours not be fed more than 2-3 times a week, it is also addictive, ,,for example, some kitties wont touch anything else but fish, so makes it hard to ween them off it, plus not very good to eat too much of it.
Some kitties do have allergens to fish to, or develop it, like mine did.

Others will be along to offer their help, so check back often and continue reading the stickies, other threads and spreadsheets.
It gets easier and better!

 

[Mindy & Max]

Thank you for the test/feed/shoot protocol. Somehow I missed that (clearly!) before. I'm sure that will make a big difference in his numbers!

So what are my options for feeding then? For 10% carbs or less, there aren't many options in canned food that aren't seafood or high fat (there is some pancreatitis suspicion, so I want to keep the fat low if possible). We're on a budget, and I have massive time constraints--I have a 2.5yo daughter and a 5mo son, and I work a 9-hr day with a 40-min commute each way. I'm really not home much, and when I am it's a bit on the crazy side. I'm honestly not sure we'll be able to consistently handle the 12/12 dosing with his insulin if he doesn't go on a honeymoon (and yes, if we get to that point, where he looks like he'll be a lifer and we can't do it, I'll try to find him a new home). I'd like to say that eventually I'll be able to handle making food or doing a raw food diet, but it's just not realistic right now. Ugh. I guess I'm just feeling a bit frazzled and overwhelmed still...thought I was getting that under better control.

 

[Randi & Max (GA)]

Hi Mindy
Welcome to Lantus.
I have an 8 year old Max too.
There are many food choices you can make that could fit in your budget. Many of the friskie flavours are good, FF as well. I believe people do feed sohistacat and authority. I don't have a petsmart where I live so those are not options for me.
Go thorugh the Janet and Binky food list and you shoud be able to find some choices.
Buy a few different kinds for Max to try.
We all have been overwhelmed at the beginning and it does get easier although I can understand with your 2 young children and work, for sure that is extra stress.
Just take a deep breath and you will do the best you can do for your Max.

 

[Blue]

Here's what I did with the food thing.
I took a copy of the Binky's two lists, old and new, with me to the places where I would be normally buying Shadoe's food.
I marked the ones that were carried in the stores, and bought mostly LC, some MC, and just a couple cans of HC. Remember that there may be a time when Max decides he is playing along and he earns himself a decrease by going low. Some kitties drop really low, so you need to have a couple cans of that HC to rip open and give a bit of the gravy to bring kitty up.
And that's the reason that Ronnie said no food for the 2 hours before the shot times. Some kitties have their numbers go up with the foods; others not so much but to be safe, you want to know what Max's real number is, just before the shot, and not some number that's the result of the naughty foods ;-)

Next, when I got home with all those foods, I thought ohmygod_smile which is which. Geez, what a dummy I am! Wait!
I got out the lists and a big felt marker, then I wrote the carb number on the can! I now have 3 baskets of foods: LC, MC and HC. The HC basket is way far from the other baskets because I did not want to take a chance of grabbing the wrong kind. For LC or MC, well OK, not so bad an oops, but the HC would be a big oops.

On your ss, you can mark which flavors you fed and if Max liked them or gave you dirty looks for weeks cuz it was crap. A word of advice about favorite foods - as soon as you catch on to a flavor being favorite, you know what happens next! Yup, it goes to the top of Max's crap list :lol: It is one way to track the food though; you may well find one that Max just loves and that's the one that you pull out if he seems a wee bit 'off' his food - that does happen from time to time.

I know the importance of water, and Shadoe had one bad p-titis attack in January, and that's when I started to add water to all of her food. She did not eat much, but she was OK to lap up the soupy slop I was giving her. Now, I am trained to put water in all of her foods, or she gives me funny looks like "How do you expect me to eat this?" I can't tell you how many times I have to add more water cuz she laps up what is soupy then walks away. I add water and she comes back! See how well trained I am!

For snacks, I just get chicken breasts, steam them, then dice them into little cubes and freeze about 1/4c in little containers. Every few days, I take out a container and that's what I give to Shadoe in those 2 hours before shots. Some days, she is just hungry hungry hungry, so a couple cubes seem to tide her over for a little bit and don't really interfere with her numbers at shot time. The only other snack I get are bags of Pure Snacks or Pure Bites dog treats at Walmart. They are only the one ingredient - dried fish, dried liver, or dried chicken. Shadoe has me trained to give her a few pieces immediately after we do a test. There are some times when she is hiding/asleep and all I need to do is rattle that bag. She comes out, goes to the test spot, then right to the treat feeding spot. :lol:

Having a couple young children, I totally know I don't need to talk about organizing your time to get the most out of every minute.
What I can tell you is that in very short order, you will easily be able to slip in Max's needs and it is not as time consuming as you feel it may be.

I don't know how you are feeding now, but I got an auto feeder with 5 sections. I prepare Shadoe's food at nite, dividing into portions for the 5 sections, putting them into the freezer and then in the morn, I take them out, drop them into the sections, test, shoot, then put a breakfast bowl of some fresh out. That's it and I am out the door to work. I am away from amps to pmps most weekdays, so I don't do any testing till the evenings. My one way travel is min 1hr each way, so I too, am cutting it close many days. There are many others around here that have limitations in their time schedules, so you can always ask others how they get around it all. Plenty of people work 10 or even 12hr shifts, which make it tough, but there is always something that can be done.

I promise you that before you know it, it will be like telling the kids to go and brush their teeth while you are putting the dishes into the sink. It will get like breathing. Automatic.
Easy peasy!

I think that's all I can think of at the moment for food and time, but the others will have lots more suggestions for you.

 

[Mindy & Max]

My issue with the canned food is trying to keep it lower in fat in addition to lower in carbs. Sure, there are lots of Friskies flavors that are low carb...but they're 63% fat or something similarly high like that. If he does indeed have pancreatitis (won't know for sure until we get the sugar under control, but he was on steroids for a month--been off for two weeks now--because of suspicion for either IBD or pancreatitis...he was vomiting at least once a week, more like twice a week before the steroids, now he's not vomitting at all), that much fat isn't going to help him. The only flavors I can find where the protein level is actually higher than the fat level are generally seafood.

As far as him eating is concerned, so far he's eaten every flavor I've put out without complaint. He and his brother wolf it down as soon as my hand is off the plate. And Max did eat some raw chicken last night while I was making dinner, but Truman wouldn't touch it. For snacks I have some freeze-dried salmon, and eventually I'll get around to cutting up some chicken and freezing in small portions, but I haven't been grocery shopping in a few weeks so we're running low on everything. They're being fed about every 12 hours and always have been, tho with the dry food they would graze all day. They can't seem to resist the canned food and rarely leave anything out to graze on.

As for the time commitment...it's not the time to test/shoot, but rather the ability to actually be at home on the weekends to do it. Our families are not nearby (40 min away, minimum), so family gatherings tend to be half day events, usually late afternoon and evening because of little kids' nap schedules. There are just some weekends when we're not going to be home at dinner time. We live in the middle of nowhere, so when we go out, we're gone for long periods of time. Weekdays aren't an issue once we get the routine down, because generally we're home after work. And again, I'm working around nap schedules for trying to plan family time and outings...it's just HARD, and I know I'm whining, but well, I just need to let it out. I don't like having to consider finding him a new home as I've had him longer than I've had my husband, but we could really be in a pickle if we're on insulin for the long term.

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

Mindy:

Don't expect to see much changing for a few days - it takes about 5 - 7 days for a shed to build. Patience is a virtue that if you don't already have, you will develop with Lantus. Please do not increase Max's dose for now despite his numbers. It can be easy to miss an optimal dose and, you want to be able to work up to a dose vs. have Max be on too much insulin due to aggressively increasing.

If you are concerned about the fat content, raw is not that hard to do at home. There are pre-mixes that contain all of the nutrients that are essential for a cat's diet. I use one from Felines Future called Instincts TC that was recommended on Dr. Lisa Pierson's website. I use a KitchenAid mixer with a grinder attachment to grind boneless chicken, although I suspect a Cuisinart or other method for chopping would work, too. Alternatively, you can buy ground chicken or turkey. I grind my own so I'm assured of freshness. It probably takes me all of 10 minutes, if that, to grind 4 lbs of chicken. I package it in patties and then freeze. Although, you could keep a small quantity in bulk and freeze some in bulk, as well. The prep time is really minimal. I spend more time packing things into patties than preparing the food.

What I would say is that the beginning of this process is overwhelming. The learning curve is huge and it often feels like you keep making missteps. It gets better and it gets a lot easier. I don't know if this is an option, but many of the people here will travel with their kitty. It takes the pressure off. As long as Max travels fairly well, it may be a consideration. One member, Stu's mom, is bringing him along for a trip to NYC and there is another member who's kitty spends the evening along when she visits friends.