Hi Jennifer and Marc (and Mikey)!
Thank you so much for being willing to bring Mikey into your home.
At first, you might feel a little overwhelmed as you start treating a diabetic kitty, but soon it'll be just a routine part of your day.
Do you know if Mikey has been tested in the past, or if there are any "vet" numbers from recent history. Trying to get a picture of what his BG has been, and how the 3 unit dose was arrived at...
Lantus is intended to be given every twelve hours, so what you will need to think about is what time of the day would that most easily fit into your schedule. Once you start testing, you will need to test just prior to each shot, and ideally at least once in between shots, preferably at the "+6" (six hours after the shot) time. That would be what we call the "nadir" - the point where the insulin should be reaching peak effectiveness. Lantus dosing is determined by both the pre-shot numbers and the nadir number. So, think about "when in the day" all that will work for you all. Then we can figure out how to get you on that schedule.
If I can make just one suggestion? I would, just for safety's sake, drop that 3u dose down to 1u, just until you can start testing. Just in case the 3u is a little too much. If the plan is to start testing in the next couple of days, the reduction will provide more benefit than harm. That might also allow you to reduce the dry part of his diet without worrying about his BG going too low. Another thing we can try is to change his wet food to something even better for "sugarcats". A lot of vets prescribe "diabetic" food like M/D (mine prescribed the same thing in fact), when actually there are cheaper and grocery-store available brands that are better for diabetics. The important factor in food is how low the carb content is. M/D is about 13-14% if I remember correctly. And pretty expensive stuff. Click on the link in my sig titled "Binky's". It will take you to a page full of links to nutritional information. On that page, you'll see links to "canned food charts", two of them. Old and New. Look at both, and pay close attention to the "carbs" column. What you want to focus on are foods that have a carb value lower than M/D. There are tons of them. Preferably, you want to get food with a value of 7% or less. Friskees pates, Fancy Feast classics, Special Kitty from Walmart, Sophisticats from Petsmart..... all of them have many flavors that are under 7%, Flavors with "gravy", or "sliced", or "bits"? Stay away from those. Gravy is carb-heavy. For now, just look. Once you start testing, we can talk about switching to lower-carb food. Many times, a kitty's BG will drop 100 points or more just from the switch to low-carb.
OK, I'll let somebody else have a say! Again, thank you so much for taking Mikey in. Look at the whole site, including the "Lantus" forum under "Insulin Support Groups". You'll see "stickied" threads at the top of most index pages that are full of useful "need to know" info. Lantus has quite a few of them. Read a bunch, and don't hesitate to ask, ask, ask questions. There are a lot of very terrific people here who will be very happy to answer any questions you come up with. You are going to find this site an amazing place.
Carl in SC
