? New here! And a dosage question...

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che

che

Member Since 2022
I figured I'd actually introduce myself now that I so rudely asked this question before doing so in the Vetsulin forum: https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB...-ago-just-upped-to-4u-dosage-thoughts.265595/ Also hoping to gain a little more traction here in case this forum is checked more :p:cat:

My name is Che, my wife and I have a cat named Pockets. Not sure how old he is, guessing about 7 years. He was a street cat before. Took him to the vet twice for pretty severe injuries sustained from living outside, so bringing him in to heal just kinda turned into him being our cat. We have gotten some rude looks from vets for sure. And of course we got approval to steal her away and keep her indoors from our apartment complex cat lady, who is an angel walking the earth. We feel so blessed to have our cat!!

Probably has had diabetes for a while, we just didn't know since we adopted him about 3 years ago and just figured he was a big "pee"r... but who knows what he was eating out in the world when he was eating from ours and our neighbors' porches. Surprisingly no ketones when we went to the vet in spite of the likelihood of having had it for a while.

Anyways, thank you all, it's been a huge help and relief to read things here. I'm so happy to know I can keep the vetsulin past 42 days, and use a human meter (although I'm still using the alphatrak for now). I've learned so much and hope I can help out others like y'all do once I get better at this!

:rb_icon:Bless you all!:rb_icon:
 
Hello and welcome! I don’t know much about vetsulin but on your spreadsheet it looks like you are giving shots at different times every day - is that right? Generally I think sticking to the same times/12 hours apart is recommended.

Also, add your spreadsheet to your signature so folks that know more can give better advice!
 
Added, thank you! We only update the numbers in the computer like once a week.

Yes, we used to feed at 6am every day but since the diagnosis we've been trying to make it later. So when he wakes me up at 6, I give him a little Fancy Feast, go back to sleep and try to give a shot around 9. We do need to get more consistent with it. However with increasing the dosage, we're a little paranoid about hypo, so usually we feed him and try to wait until he eats about half his food, but sometimes it takes more than half an hour. But at the same time, the sugar is so high when we measure it pre-shot we could probably give it right when he starts eating anyway. But trying to find that happy medium so when the numbers get lower there will always be food in his stomach when we shoot. Thank you for replying!!
 
Hi Che I'm glad you attached your post from the vetsulin forum so members can read that
Can you please add to your signature when Pockets was diagnosed
Tap on your name above then tap on signature and add it then tap save

I don't think the spreadsheet you attached will be good for members to see what's happening, it's very confusing

If you can set up our SS that would be better
I'll give you the link it will also explain how it works
https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/how-to-create-a-spreadsheet.241706/
Take a look at mine it says Tyler's Spreadsheet at the end of my signature to see what it looks like , he is in remission knock on wood so you won't see much testing , go to the top of my SS tap on 2020 you will see more testing
AMPS means first test in the AM U - insulin dose. +2 means 2 hours after giving insulin and so on. PMPS first test in the PM and so on

With Vetsulin make sure you feed him then wait 30 minutes to give the insulin

Vetsulin isn't the best insulin for cats
Lantus ( or it's generic which is cheaper is better ) or even Prozinc
That is a very high dose of vetsulin you are giving
We adjust doses by 0.25 units at a time
Do you have the syringes with the half unit markings.
I will tag some members for you
If you have trouble setting up the SS just ask we have a member that will be happy to do it for you
You have to be consistent with dosing every 12 hours
You mentioned in your post on the vetsulin forum you are feeding Tiki Cat and Fancy Feast and it's becoming too expensive
Most of us feed Fancy Feast Classic Pate or Friskies
I'll give you our food chart , we like to feed 6% carbs or lower
https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/dr-pierson-new-food-chart.174147/

You also mentioned the Alpha Trak test strips are becoming too expensive, they sure are
You said you were going to buy a human meter that's what most of us use , our numbers are based on human meters anyway
If you have a Walmart by you and if not you can order on line from Walmart
The Relion Premier Classic Meter 9 dollars
17.88 form100 test strips
 
Last edited:
che said:
I figured I'd actually introduce myself now that I so rudely asked this question before doing so in the Vetsulin forum: https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB...-ago-just-upped-to-4u-dosage-thoughts.265595/ Also hoping to gain a little more traction here in case this forum is checked more :p:cat:

My name is Che, my wife and I have a cat named Pockets. Not sure how old he is, guessing about 7 years. He was a street cat before. Took him to the vet twice for pretty severe injuries sustained from living outside, so bringing him in to heal just kinda turned into him being our cat. We have gotten some rude looks from vets for sure. And of course we got approval to steal her away and keep her indoors from our apartment complex cat lady, who is an angel walking the earth. We feel so blessed to have our cat!!

Probably has had diabetes for a while, we just didn't know since we adopted him about 3 years ago and just figured he was a big "pee"r... but who knows what he was eating out in the world when he was eating from ours and our neighbors' porches. Surprisingly no ketones when we went to the vet in spite of the likelihood of having had it for a while.

Anyways, thank you all, it's been a huge help and relief to read things here. I'm so happy to know I can keep the vetsulin past 42 days, and use a human meter (although I'm still using the alphatrak for now). I've learned so much and hope I can help out others like y'all do once I get better at this!

:rb_icon:Bless you all!:rb_icon:
Click to expand...


Tagging
Melissa @FrostD who is familiar with Vetsulin
She will probably be on later tonight
I gave him some information Melissa :cat:
 
Diane Tyler's Mom said:
Hi Che I'm glad you attached your post from the vetsulin forum so members can read that
Can you please add to your signature when Pockets was diagnosed
Tap on your name above then tap on signature and add it then tap save

I don't think the spreadsheet you attached will be good for members to see what's happening, it's very confusing

If you can set up our SS that would be better
I'll give you the link it will also explain how it works
https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/how-to-create-a-spreadsheet.241706/
Take a look at mine it says Tyler's Spreadsheet at the end of my signature to see what it looks like , he is in remission knock on wood so you won't see much testing , go to the top of my SS tap on 2020 you will see more testing
AMPS means first test in the AM U - insulin dose. +2 means 2 hours after giving insulin and so on. PMPS first test in the PM and so on

With Vetsulin make sure you feed him then wait 30 minutes to give the insulin

Vetsulin isn't the best insulin for cats
Lantus ( or it's generic which is cheaper is better ) or even Prozinc
That is a very high dose of vetsulin you are giving
We adjust doses by 0.25 units at a time
Do you have the syringes with the half unit markings.
I will tag some members for you
If you have trouble setting up the SS just ask we have a member that will be happy to do it for you
You have to be consistent with dosing every 12 hours
You mentioned in your post on the vetsulin forum you are feeding Tiki Cat and Fancy Feast and it's becoming too expensive
Most of us feed Fancy Feast Classic Pate or Friskies
I'll give you our food chart , we like to feed 6% carbs or lower
https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/dr-pierson-new-food-chart.174147/

You also mentioned the Alpha Trak test strips are becoming too expensive, they sure are
You said you were going to buy a human meter that's what most of us use , our numbers are based on human meters anyway
If you have a Walmart by you and if not you can order on line from Walmart
The Relion Premier Classic Meter 9 dollars
17.88 form100 test strips
Click to expand...

Thanks for suggesting looking at your spreadsheet, super helpful. So glad your cat is in remission!! It is high but we have never seen numbers below 280, I believe. I only have syringes with full unit markings, and we bought a box of 100 when he was diagnosed, unfortunately...
 
Do you think you can estimate 0.5U? In his numbers it's not super critical to be able to accurately get 0.25U, but at some point it will matter.

Do.you have any data at all before the 2U? Or was that the dose he was started on? I assume vet raised the dose in whole units? I assume all curve data, including that from the vet, is in spreadsheet?

@Wendy&Neko @Sienne and Gabby (GA) what are your thoughts? I want to say go down to 3.5U and hold that for a week...but it's technically possible even that's too high with no data before 2U. But I know we're hesitant to completely reset as well.
 
Pasting from OPs Vetsulin forum post since there's more info:

Hi all!

Long time listener, first time caller. My cat Pockets was diagnosed about a month ago, had always peed a lot but we never thought much of it as we adopted him as an adult cat. He is neutered, was a stray cat before we took him in (he was too sweet for the streets and we kept taking him to the vet for gross injuries anyway). Super hungry, drinking a lot of water. We noticed the water intake a lot more once we bought a cat fountain.

Anyways, we test at least AMPS and PMPS, and have run a few glucose curves to make sure he's on track. I've attached a spreadsheet below, although it is not the FDMB one, I hope you will still look and find it readable (my wife works with spreadsheets all day and insisted on making it beautiful / make sense to her, lol). I've attached it below as xlsx and here's the published link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...sAQ7sBj8ASOGLJd32mzIYhnhQEB0dFBG12VMW/pubhtml BTW, we have been taking the readings with the AlphaTrak. I plan on buying a human meter today as upping the dosage makes me paranoid and the alpha strips are stupid expensive.

Anywho, they ran some blood tests at the vet in June and he had super high blood sugar, thought it'd be a fluke since he loses his mind at the vet, panting and all. But when we got to testing him, BG levels were always high. He also had lost a pound since the last time we took him to the vet. He was 14 lbs at the highest, and even then we could feel his ribs. He's just a weirdly large cat, pretty tall, but never overweight as far as we could tell. We always fed wet food until about March of this year, when we decided we need to save money (just bought a house) and switched to 1 meal of Costco kibble a day and one wet meal. We regret it now!!!!! At least they let me return half of the forty pound bag... been on all wet food, low carb again now since diagnosis on 6/12 (but we started insulin on 6/17, I wanted to see if food alone would make a significant difference. You should be able to see the pre-insulin readings this in the spreadsheet).

So we started at 2u/2x a day on Vetsulin. This came from a vet we didn't like much and didn't really tell us anything except "do this, here's the stuff." We switched to a better vet who actually showed us how to do injections, etc. and he analyses the glucose curves we send him and has upped the dosage twice. Pockets was on 3u for a week, we sent the curve, and I just started the 4u this morning. Do you think that was appropriate? I kind of want to go back down and see what happens, the readings were high on the latest curve but actually weirdly consistent based on what I've read about vetsulin. I also have this worry that we bought bad insulin at our old vet, like I said they didn't really seem to give a crap about anything and are always a little too busy to really talk to us. The doctor comes in for a second and then we get stuck with some nurses who don't know anything unfortunately. I think now the insulin is probably working, but it's just hard for me to really get these numbers since they stay high.

AMPS today is not on the spreadsheet yet but it was 433 (9am), and in my paranoia about the 4U I tested 45 minutes later and it was 510 (30 mins after the shot and 45 mins after eating about half her food).

The new vet also tested for ketones when we first went about 3 weeks ago, and there were none present. I have not done any home testing for it.

Symptoms still present, drinking a ton of water, peeing a lot. Ravished before meals. Not gaining weight.

We've changed the food a couple times. We were feeding Tiki but it's too expensive for 2 meals a day, so now we're doing Weruva and Fancy Feast mixed, however it winds up being almost as expensive since our cat is quite large (in a healthy way) and the Weruva has fewer calories. We have to fill the bowl to the brim to meet the cal requirements for a 13 lb cat.

Hope I've given sufficient context! Thank you so much if you read all this rambling. I was so happy to find this forum after the diagnosis, thank you all for keeping this up and being so helpful. It's been such a comfort to read other forum posts. But I wanted to make my own since a lot I had been reading were for much smaller cats, or large cats that were overweight.

Should I stick to 3u, or go up to 4 like our vet suggested after looking at the attached spreadsheet
 
The Vetsulin is definitely working, I can see it in a few curves. It's possible 2U was too high to start.

My recommendation at this point is to reduce to 3.5U, and try to get one extra test in each day and night, ideally around +5 or so. Do that for a week, just so we can see if dose is possibly too high (i.e., it's possible he's going too low with the gaps in testing, want to check).

As for food, a lot of us feed Fancy Feast or Friskiest, cheaper than Weruva for sure. If he's ideal weight then continue to manage the calories, but if he starts to get underweight you will need to let him eat more. Unregulated diabetics do not fully process food so often need more to maintain
 
FrostD said:
Do you think you can estimate 0.5U? In his numbers it's not super critical to be able to accurately get 0.25U, but at some point it will matter.

Do.you have any data at all before the 2U? Or was that the dose he was started on? I assume vet raised the dose in whole units? I assume all curve data, including that from the vet, is in spreadsheet?

@Wendy&Neko @Sienne and Gabby (GA) what are your thoughts? I want to say go down to 3.5U and hold that for a week...but it's technically possible even that's too high with no data before 2U. But I know we're hesitant to completely reset as well.
Click to expand...

Yes we could estimate half units w/ the syringes we have now! I took the BG at +4 today and it was still over 450, updated the spreadsheet in my signature for that.

I do have data before 2u, but it was before he even started on the insulin, we were just making sure he really had diabetes and it wasn't just a fluke at the vet. Our first doses were at 2U. You can look in my original non-FDMB spreadsheet if you're curious what it was before we started the insulin on 6/17. The vet did increase the dose twice in whole units. The curves were done at home (then we email the vet), we never did one at the office as we knew it would probably not be accurate, and he's got major fears of new people/places. The fullest curve is from 7/7, before that we sort of "curved" by testing about every two hours throughout the day.

If he gets hungry more than 2 hours before the next shot I'll let him eat, but within the two hours I don't so I can get the accurate BG before the shot. That being said I have not been super consistent with what time the shots are, but they've mostly been within 11-13 hours of each other, however I realize we need to be more consistent with them.

So if 2U was too high to start on 6/17, do you think many of the numbers are due to "bouncing"?
 
Some of the numbers may be due to bouncing. I suspect you'll have a better sense of whether this is the case if you're able to get at least one test every night during the PM cycle. We encourage you to get a "before bed" test daily. Many cats experience lower numbers at night. so you could be missing lower numbers. It's particularly important with the shorter acting insulins like Vetsulin to get at least one test each cycle in addition to your pre-shot test.

I agree with Melissa. You're beginning to see some movement in the numbers. I would not increase the dose by 1.0u. It's much safer to raise the dose slowly and systematically.
 
Sienne and Gabby (GA) said:
Some of the numbers may be due to bouncing. I suspect you'll have a better sense of whether this is the case if you're able to get at least one test every night during the PM cycle. We encourage you to get a "before bed" test daily. Many cats experience lower numbers at night. so you could be missing lower numbers. It's particularly important with the shorter acting insulins like Vetsulin to get at least one test each cycle in addition to your pre-shot test.

I agree with Melissa. You're beginning to see some movement in the numbers. I would not increase the dose by 1.0u. It's much safer to raise the dose slowly and systematically.
Click to expand...

Okay, that’s a good idea. gave her three units for PM and I’ll measure in a few hours. Maybe I’ll up a half unit tomorrow.

Thank you!!!!
 
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