New member from holland

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Bibi070

Bibi070

Member Since 2021
Hi there,

I'm Bibi and I live with my 3 cats (Harry, Lucky and Mini) in the Hague, holland. My cat Lucky was diagnosed with diabetics about 2 months ago.
I noticed that he was drinking a lot and also needed to clean the litter more often.
Lucky's brother Harry was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism a year earlier. He was allergic for all sorts of medication, and so he was treated with radioactive iodine in August the previous year.
Thrilled to say that he is all cured now and doing really good.
Because of the rollercoaster with Harry I was first afraid that Lucky also suffered hyperthyroidism. Because the symptoms of diabetic and hyperthyroidism are much alike.
But when I saw my vet with Lucky they're soon found out that it was diabetic this time.
Lucky's glucose level was 16 mmoll, and his fructosamine was 570.

The vet let me choose between ProZinc or Caninsulin. I had read something about Lantus, so I asked my vet about it. Unfortunately the vet don't give me a prescription for Lantus, so I choose ProZinc because I thought this was the best option.
It turned out that it works pretty well for Lucky.

So far so good you might say.
But a couple weeks ago Lucky started to get lethargic and not eating well. His blood sugar was not that high ( I test him at home with the FreeStyle lite). But even so I don't trusted his behavior anyway.
Fortunately I knew that checking ketones is very important with diabetic cats. Here in holland the vets think way to easy about the danger of ketones. But I bought an bloodketone meter anyway and tested Lucky.
His level was sky high, 4.4 mmoll.
In total panic I rushed to the vets emergency hospital with Lucky and they hospitalized him.
He'd a infuse and checked his blood, electrolytes and his urine.
It turned out that he was not DKA, but it was close.
The next day I picked him up and take him home.
The vets in the emergency hospital where surprised that I checked his ketones myself, it was not common that somebody tested ketones at home by there cats.
At home his ketones where still to high, but he was eating well and his BS where dropping down.
The vets thought there was no need to keep him hospitalized, because he was not suffered a DKA.
I was of course not reassured, so I watched Lucky 24/7 and called my own vet the next day to discuss the situation.
She said that all cats drop ketones when they're BS level are to high.
She also said that testing ketones are not important.
Well, maybe you understand that she's not my vet anymore.

With help from people of a dutch forum for diabetic cats I manages his ketones level. It is today 0.2 mmoll. Also his BS is now in much better numbers.
It's most of the time under the renal threshold, and Lucky only needs between 0.5 and 1 unit two times a day. I have to be careful for hypoglycemia because his BS drops so easy after his shot.

The reason I'm here is because the dutch forum doesn't work with ProZinc and TR. They're expertise with this method on ProZinc is not advance enough. They have experience with Lantus and Caninsulin with TR.
So I got the tip to look for other forums. And so I found this forum .

My question at you guys is for information about TR and ProZinc.
Are you familiar with that?
I hope so because I want to get my baby's BS even more under control because of the nasty ketones he's drops so easily.

Thanks for reading !
 
Wow, what a story! Lucky definitely earned his name when he found you for a caregiver! Ketones are really scary and really serious-- it's a good thing you did not just blindly follow your vet's advice.

Prozinc is a great insulin for cats, you've made an excellent choice. Ann has already sent you the link to the prozinc dosing methods. The closest equivalent to "TR" would be what we call the "Modified" prozinc dosing method; hopefully that will fit your needs.

We have definitely found that cats who have recently had DKA or a major ketone episode like Lucky just did tend to be more ketone-prone than usual for a while. I'm sure you already know this having nursed him through his first episode, but your best tools to help prevent them are food and insulin.

Despite what your first vet said, it's not all about the BG numbers, and with this:

Bibi070 said:
I have to be careful for hypoglycemia because his BS drops so easy after his shot.
Click to expand...

You may find that a good strategy is to feed higher carbs than usual for a while, so that you are able to safely shoot enough insulin to keep the ketones away. Again, it's not the higher BG itself that is necessarily the cause of ketones, it's more about not having enough insulin in the system. So you may have to play around with things a bit.

I don't use Prozinc myself, so I can't help too much on dosing. Also, for safety, anyone around here will ask, first, to see some BG data from Lucky before offering any opinions on dosing. We use a common spreadsheet template to enter and share our data: HOW TO CREATE A SPREADSHEET

That's already a lot, so I'll stop here. Welcome to you and the very lucky Lucky!
 
I belive EU has a rule that says cats must be treated with a drug designed for animals first. Here in Denmark it's called the cascade rule. Since you've tried prozinc now, it's legal for your vet to prescribe lantus or levemir, if you want to try TR with a depot insulin.

But with the two choices you had, prozinc is way better!
 
Thank you both so much for your reply.

There is a lot of information to read here, so I'm sure that it will be very helpful.

@Nan & Amber (GA) :
Thank you so much for the compliments. It's nice to read somebody saying that Lucky is lucky .
I read here that some cats drops ketones way to easy. Also read that it's not only insulin but also food(carbs).
I don't know if you know Hill's a/d recovery care? I think so because the words "recovery care" is not really dutch of course lol.
Lucky likes that very much, so I give him on top of his wet food some Hill's and also extra moisture.
Hill's a/d is 13% carbs, too high of course, but eliminate ketones is the most important thing now.

Lucky is also still overweight. He lost about 3 pounds (1.7 kg). But still he's a big cat with his 6.3 kg (13.89 pounds). His brother weights about 6 kilo's and I think that Lucky have to have the same weight as him.
Can the weight loss be a reason that he produce ketones so easily?

I have a spreadsheet btw. Maybe I can copied it to my account here? The tekst I wrote is in dutch but I can translate that. The numbers of his BS is in mmoll, but I hope that's oke for you to see how Lucky is doing so far?

It's very nice that you're familiar with ProZinc and TR.
I'm going to read all the information here with care.

Thanks again!

Your sincerely
 
If you download the spreadsheet from this site, the mmol automatically turns into US numbers. Look at my spreadsheet, I read in mmol too, but I have two tabs.
 
@SashaV,

Yes it's called the same here in holland.
First you have to try the 2 insulins that are registerd for cats (Caninsulin and ProZinc).
Only when they failed to work for your cat the vets can prescribe Lantus.
The vets I have be seeing with Lucky are not to familiar with Lantus. So ProZinc it is
Fortunately ProZinc works for him, and that's of course the most important thing.
 
I'll put Lucky's spreadsheet in my signature. I hope u can see it.

Because of the ketones I'll get help from the people of the dutch forum. They're make a list for me, so I know how much to give him everytime to eliminate the ketones as much as possible.
 
Bibi070 said:
Thank you both so much for your reply.

There is a lot of information to read here, so I'm sure that it will be very helpful.

@Nan & Amber (GA) :
Thank you so much for the compliments. It's nice to read somebody saying that Lucky is lucky .
I read here that some cats drops ketones way to easy. Also read that it's not only insulin but also food(carbs).
I don't know if you know Hill's a/d recovery care? I think so because the words "recovery care" is not really dutch of course lol.
Lucky likes that very much, so I give him on top of his wet food some Hill's and also extra moisture.
Hill's a/d is 13% carbs, too high of course, but eliminate ketones is the most important thing now.

Lucky is also still overweight. He lost about 3 pounds (1.7 kg). But still he's a big cat with his 6.3 kg (13.89 pounds). His brother weights about 6 kilo's and I think that Lucky have to have the same weight as him.
Can the weight loss be a reason that he produce ketones so easily?

I have a spreadsheet btw. Maybe I can copied it to my account here? The tekst I wrote is in dutch but I can translate that. The numbers of his BS is in mmoll, but I hope that's oke for you to see how Lucky is doing so far?

It's very nice that you're familiar with ProZinc and TR.
I'm going to read all the information here with care.

Thanks again!

Your sincerely
Click to expand...


When you set up the Spreadsheet using the link instruction for it here, as Nan per above. You have to chose the International World template first.
 
Bibi070 said:
@SashaV,

Yes it's called the same here in holland.
First you have to try the 2 insulins that are registerd for cats (Caninsulin and ProZinc).
Only when they failed to work for your cat the vets can prescribe Lantus.
The vets I have be seeing with Lucky are not to familiar with Lantus. So ProZinc it is
Fortunately ProZinc works for him, and that's of course the most important thing.
Click to expand...


Luckily for us in Sweden, in 2006, we never had to do anything of such. The Swedish Animal Hospital went to Lantus direct. Lantus was all brand new then in the World. But since 2007 we have had Lantus. Then came Levemir. :)
 
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