New Article on Feline DM

[KPassa]

I took Mikey to the vet today for his annual checkup and to get my vet to write out a prescription for Levemir (detemir) to try on him. My vet did some reading up on the Levemir before our visit and found this great peer-reviewed article in Today's Veterinary Practice from July/August 2013 on Feline Diabetes Mellitus Updates on Diagnosis & Treatment.

It's worth a read-through and gives good information on the various insulin types used in cats. Only one downside is that they say that human glucometers can "lead to inaccurate readings and falsely low blood glucose values when used in dogs and cats" and recommend the AlphaTrak instead. Otherwise, they're pretty spot-on with most everything else (low carb diet, long acting insulin, home-testing) and used Roomp and Rand for many of their references.

 

[BJM]

We just need to publish an article with norms for using them.

Its like reading temperature in Celsius vs Fahrenheit.

 

[Wendy&Tiggy(GA)]

Let me know how you get on with levemir, I plan to try it once this pack of lantus is done.

 

[IloveLarry]

may i ask why either/both of u r switching, or wanting to switch, to levemir?
why is/would it be better? possibly?

 

[KPassa]

In my case, Mikey has been diabetic for a year and a half now and has been proving very hard for me to keep him regulated. A lot of people have had success with Levemir for long-term (over a year) diabetics and for cats who have had trouble regulating on Lantus and/or PZI/ProZinc. The best insulin is the one that works for your cat. It might be the Lantus is as good as it gets for us or he might do better on Levemir. Or he might not. There's also PZI/ProZinc for me to consider in the future or a few tweaks I could make with bolus or even perhaps another insulin is still out there that has yet to be used in cats. Only way to know is to try. ;-)

That and I ran out of discount prescriptions ($25 per pen) on my Lantus coupon. :lol:

 

[Laura & Heffernan]

I'm interested to see how Mikey does on Levemir. Heff's numbers are all over the place with Lantus. I thought maybe a new bottle of Lantus would do the trick, but I'm not seeing much difference.

 

[billr]

I'm also very interested in how Mikey does on Levemir. Gizmo's numbers are similar to Heff's and we've considered switching to Levemir, too, to see if that would help level him out.

 

[KPassa]

Just bought Mikey's new Levemir pen tonight at Walmart and the coupon worked like a charm! $25 per pen for 2 years or something crazy like that.

Now I just have to resist switching him till I finish off the last little bit of Lantus and will be around to monitor (probably Friday). It's like anticipating Christmas morning!

 

[Elizabeth and Bertie]

KPassa - we're keeping fingers and paws crossed here that the insulin change works well for you and Mikey. :thumbup