Hi all,
Hi Tanya and welcome to the board. You've come to the right place for suggestions and help along the way!
So my cat has just been diagnosed with diabetes. He is 10.5 years old. His blood glucose was 480mg/dl, everything else was fine. He was prescribed Hill's m/d and insulin glargine 1.5 U twice a day.
Generally, it's suggested that a starting dose of a max of 1 u, is a safe place to begin. Some cats really react to the insulin more quickly than others and it takes 7-10 days for lantus to "settle" when first starting out. That's a general suggestion, as I said, to see how the kitty reacts.
On the food, most of us have found that the dry prescription foods are not effective in helping our kitties with FD. We use low carb wet foods and a list of those can be found on Janet and Binky's food chart. You will find that info in the newcomer fact thread which is a sticky thread at the top of this forum. In fact, you'll find a lot of very helpful information there. You can take a look and ask questions about anything on which you need help.
On the food, when I switched Calliope to the Fancy Feast gluten free foods, she reacted very well. We started on 1u of lantus and never went up. We had to start reducing her dose because her blood glucose levels went down. Since you are already using insulin, a food switch should be done slowly and with monitoring by hometesting. Has your vet discussed home testing with you? There's information on that in the newcomer thread, as well.
I have to disagree with your vet's suggestion that kitty will be fine if no symptoms show up within a half hour. Without doing hometesting, there's just no way to know how your kitty is reacting to the insulin. Once you start hometesting, you can see patterns and collect a lot of information on what's going on.
One other thing about the numbers you got at the vet is that kitty's numbers could be elevated at the vet's office due to what we call "vet stress". For example, Calliope was at 500 on diagnosis. She didn't like going to the vet's office. My vet wanted me to start at 4u of lantus twice a day based on that number. I came here and was told to start at 1u. Good thing I did because with the food change and not being at the vet's office, her numbers were quite different here and that's even considering that she was not a cooperative kitty when it came to testing. Most cats do just fine, but Calliope was a tortie and she wanted no part of it. She was a drama queen. :lol:
From hearing and reading all the information, my main concern is of course hypoglycemia. The vet told me that if 30 minutes after the shot he appears normal (no hypo symptoms) then I don't have to worry about it. But after reading about the insulin glargine this doesn't make sense to me. Since its a "long acting" insulin, and the nadirs occur several hours after a shot.
As I suggested above, hometesting is going to arm you with a lot of information and help you keep your kitty safe. Lantus is a gentle insulin, but until you test, you don't know how kitty will react. Another good thing about lantus is that many kitties go into remission when FD is caught early and lantus is used, along with the change to low carb wet foods. Doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen. Calliope was off the insulin after 18 days.
My main concern is that, say I give him his shots 9AM and 9PM daily. Say after the morning shot, I hang around and leave my house at 10-11AM, then what if at 3-4PM he has low blood sugar and I am not home.
Many folks here work and are away from home during the day. We have a lot of people here who can help you get a schedule that works for you. They will have many suggestions.
In your experience with this insulin, if your cat went into hypo when was this in relation to the shot?
Again, this is where hometesting comes in and it's invaluable.
Thanks,
TanyaK
