New to Diabetes & ProZinc

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MustLoveCats

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I've heard ProZinc is alot like PZI. My cat was just diagnosed this month with diabetes; he is currently on ProZinc. We're trying to get his numbers down. It seems like it may not be lasting the full 12 hours. I've done one curve at home so far. He dropped quite a bit within a few hours after the shot but then it started climbing up again. He's on 2 units twice per day but my vet wanted to increase him to 3 units twice per day. I've been told by others on this website that that is too much of an immediate increase. I've dropped him back down to 2 units a day. For some reason when I gave him 3 units, his blood glucose was in the high 400s and even 500s. After dropping it back down, now he is in the 300s. Should I try to increase him to 2.5 units twice a day? What do you guys think and what have you experienced with this insulin? I would really like to see him at least in the low 200s on a regular basis and then hopefully get to the normal range.
 
Welcome! I think several of us responded to you on Health. This forum is not as busy as Health; it tends to be busiest in the evening. Be sure to come back for responses.

Yes, ProZinc is similar to PZI. Most people here are using it; we just abbreviate with PZI. Have you seen the PZI document? It will give you lots of info.

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=32799

You might also look at some of the other threads and spreadsheets. It will give you an idea of how people are dosing and how their cats respond. Every cat is different, but it is good to see what others are doing.

Can we help you set up a spreadsheet? It will really help you see what is going on with the insulin. It is a good tool for your vet and when you want dosing advice, gives us a quick picture of your dosing history. If you would like some help, I'd be glad to help you. It is really hard for us to give advice without having some idea of where he started and how the insulin worked and when increases were done and how that changed things. If we can't get together to do the ss, you could give us some numbers in this format:

Amps (morning number before food and shot) #insulin given
+6 (for example, this would be a number 6 hours after the morning shot)
Pmps (night number before food and shot) # insulin given


Sometimes, if they get better numbers at lower doses, it means the higher doses are causing them to rebound. It is hard to understand, but the basic idea is that when the cat gets too much insulin, he drops suddenly low. Then his body releases extra glucose and his levels bounce back up.

Once we can see a history of your doses and his numbers, we would be able to give you some advice on doses. But for right now, I think you are wise to question going up one full unit. There really is no reason to increase by that much. If you increase by .25 or .50 units, you can see how his body responds and then raise if needed. If you skip over his "ideal dose" he can start rebounding again.
 
Hi and Welcome to PZI!
I have not read any of the posts on health, but one most important thing is diet
which I am sure was covered.
It is great that you are tessting
We recommend testing before every shot.
Sue is our Spreadsheet Queen so she can help you with that if you need help
but the SS will help us see what kind of numbers you are getting
We always suggest starting at one unit and slowly increaseing from there, ususally by .2 of a unit
Good luck and I look forward to getting to know you!
Denise and Shakes
 
Bumping this thread, as I see you got your spreadsheet up, with Sue's help (Thank you Sue!).
I know we talked late yesterday morning, and it looks like you are getting better numbers now. Talking away the dry food might just push you over. Keep working on it and updating your spsh (which I need to do to my own - used Cedric's One touch yesterday).
 
The last three cycles are very interesting. It looks like he could have gone down low overnight and then bounced for the amps. We suggest that you don't shoot a bounce (shoot a higher amount into a higher number that may be rebounding because of a low number the night before.) The other thing to be careful of is not to shooting a number that is going down. Both of the past two nights, we can't be sure that blue number was rising. When you get a number like that, wait 20 minutes without feeding and retest. You want to make sure it is going up, not down. I think I would lower the dose to one unit overall and see if I could get two good preshot numbers 12 hours apart. And get any midcycle numbers that you can, especially around that +6 time. It may be that you need a dose a little higher than that - like 1.25 or 1.5 but lowering it will help you see that without putting him into any danger.

He is responding well. It looks like a lower dose agrees with him.
 
I don't know what Sue means by shooting a bounce? Are you saying no matter what his numbers are, I should stay with the 1.25 or 1.5 units? Are you sure, even if he goes to the 400s or 500s? He's been getting into the high 100s so I only give him .5 units at those times. But, I am still new at this so don't really know what I'm doing. I am so happy that I can get him to 200s and 100s and one day he was even at 96.

I am taking all the advice in, so please keep it coming.
 
I'll try to explain the whole shooting into a bounce thing.

Sebastian's body, over the time he's been diabetic, has gotten used to BG numbers that are way above normal. When you shoot insulin, it pushes the BG down like it is supposed to. His body has built-in self-preservation systems in place to protect him from BG numbers that are too low. Now, these numbers don't have to be "hypoglycemia-like" too low. They are just much lower than he's become used to.
What happens is that his pancreas and his liver sense a falling BG, and they produce "sugar" in simple terms, that goes into the blood and makes the numbers rise. Because his systems are so messed up, due to the diabetes, sometimes they overreact, and we call this "bouncing". The numbers go fairly high within the next few hours.
What you end up seeing is a high number at shot time, but it is primarily caused by this "bouncing" process, and we tell people not to react by shooting the bounce. In other words, don't increase the dose just based on the high number, when it looks like the high number was caused by a low number from the previous 12 hour cycle.

In general, yes, we are saying that you should keep the dose the same, no matter what the PS number is, UNLESS you get a low pre-shot number like those blue numbers. In that case, you did the right thing by reducing the dose. His "normal" dose would be too much on a preshot number under 200.

The primary issue that I see on his spreadsheet is that you have been customizing his dose, based on the number you get at shot time. Eventually, that might make more sense to do, but until he is better regulated, it makes it very hard to figure out what his "correct" dose might be right now. We haven't been giving you enough dose advice, unfortunately, and we will need to pay closer attention to what is going on with Sebastian. The only thing we need you to do is "ask" by posting more often?

My thinking after looking at his spreadsheet is that the doses that are more than 1.5u have been too much insulin. They have either brought his numbers down to far, or made his cycles run too long (more than 12 hours). I think that is what caused the blue PMPS numbers the past two days. I am thinking that a good dose to try for now would be 1.0 or 1.5, nothing higher than that. If you can eyeball 1.25 that might be the best dose to try. Stick with that dose, continue to collect data, especially tests between the two shots, and we'll be able to see how low he goes in the middle. The nadir number is the key to figuring out if the doses are too high, too low, or just right.
Overall, his numbers don't look as bad as you might think they are, and you're doing a great job so far!
Carl
 
I did my second curve this weekend. Seems 1.5 units was a little low for Seb so I upped it to 1.75 unless he was normal at shot time or didn't require as much. I'm a little worried about him, he isn't eating much. I'm trying to convert him to canned food but he's been eating dry for 16 years so it isn't going to happen overnight. I need to make sure he's eating something. I only give him about 1/8th of a cup of DM everyday. I put canned food out for him and my Kiwi but lots of time they leave most of it.

If someone could look at his curve results, I would appreciate it. One time he was at 500, 5 hours later he was at 134? I guess I haven't posted the 134 yet, sorry. I don't understand the huge drop since he didn't get that much insulin. Maybe it was just because he didn't eat that much yesterday. It appears the ProZinc is not lasting the 12 hours either. When it's close to being done, I'll get him back to the vet and see if he can put him on a human insulin like Lantis.
 
He has had some nice numbers, especially at night at lower doses. The dry food can really make the numbers higher, even a few pieces, with any insulin. And so can not eating.

Have you tried different wet flavors? Some people buy one can of several flavors and try them out. Sometimes people have luck with sprinkling FortiFlora on top or Parmesan cheese or tuna juice.
 
The canned foods I have are Friskies and Fancy Feast. I give them the pate kind. I was also given a few cans of Wellness from a friend of mine (doombuggy). I have all different flavors to give them choices. Sometimes they eat it all up by the time I get home at night and sometimes it's just sitting there, mostly uneaten.

What is FlortiFlora?
 
FortiFlora is a probiotic that has the same animal digest that makes dry food so irresistible to cats. Some cats really like it sprinkled on wet food and it helps transition them. With some it doesn't help. Because it is a product made for animals, you either get it from your vet or on line.

So is it one food or two specific flavors that they eat or just that one day they will eat one flavor and the next day they won't eat that same one?

Another idea is to put some warm water in the pate styles to make a "gravy". Some cats like the texture more then.
 
Ok, I'll try to find the Fortiflora. One cat prefers more fishy tastes and the other prefers chicken, beef or turkey. I'll try the warm water also. Thank you.
 
Hey, I have some Fortiflora. I will email you to see if I can stop by tomorrow with a couple of packets for you to try. My vet sold them to me a couple of weeks ago when Dallas was having some intestinal issues. The box has 30 "sachets" in it. Try it first to see if it works. Are you putting out a frozen portion of canned food for them to eat during the day? I don't remember if the autofeeder you picked up had an ice pack (or maybe a space where you could put one you bought). In my catmate feeders, I insert the ice pack, put in the trays and put a frozen portion on one side with a "cold" portion on the other side overtop of an ice cube. The ice cube helps keep it cold for a little while at least and also adds water. I think Cedric eats more of it than Dallas does, but he was used to getting 4 meals a day for several months before Dallas came in to live with us.

I will email you to see if I can stop by tomorrow after work, since I get out earlier than you. JTS and SRT are out all week at the ERPA conference and I have nothing to do anyway.... :-D
 
Carl & Bob in SC said:
In general, yes, we are saying that you should keep the dose the same, no matter what the PS number is, UNLESS you get a low pre-shot number like those blue numbers. In that case, you did the right thing by reducing the dose. His "normal" dose would be too much on a preshot number under 200.

The primary issue that I see on his spreadsheet is that you have been customizing his dose, based on the number you get at shot time. Eventually, that might make more sense to do, but until he is better regulated, it makes it very hard to figure out what his "correct" dose might be right now. We haven't been giving you enough dose advic e, unfortunately, and we will need to pay closer attention to what is going on with Sebastian. The only thing we need you to do is "ask" by posting more often?

My thinking after looking at his spreadsheet is that the doses that are more than 1.5u have been too much insulin. They have either brought his numbers down to far, or made his cycles run too long (more than 12 hours). I think that is what caused the blue PMPS numbers the past two days. I am thinking that a good dose to try for now would be 1.0 or 1.5, nothing higher than that. If you can eyeball 1.25 that might be the best dose to try. Stick with that dose, continue to collect data, especially tests between the two shots, and we'll be able to see how low he goes in the middle. The nadir number is the key to figuring out if the doses are too high, too low, or just right.
Overall, his numbers don't look as bad as you might think they are, and you're doing a great job so far!
Carl
Click to expand...

MustLoveCats, I forgot to mention this earlier when I stopped over. What Carl means (at least I think) is that you might want to get into posting a daily "condo" here in this forum. i never got into doing that, as I was out of town for several days right after Cedric was dx'd and well, you know my work schedule.... :mrgreen: [i work 7 days a week for those who don't know me; 5 days at the office and 2 days at Disney]. Maybe our new friends here can explain the purpose of the condo posts.....and can help you get sebastian regulated and/or Off The Juice!
 
Hi and welcome. When we switched over to canned food 100% his BG dropped over 100pts. I had to use a little water from the tuna can's some days and/or sprinkle some freezed dried chicken snack on top. This always gets them to eat. Don't give up, it will work. I have one cat that is a dry food junkie and it was hard for him to come off the dry food, but finally had no choice. He is not FD, but switched him anyway because didn't want him to come down with FD too. One FD cat is enough.

Good luck!!

Lori and Copper
 
Well the FortiFlora and warm water didn't work. I guess my only option this weekend is to just remove all dry food and put their wet food where the dry normally is. I just don't want Sebastian getting mad at me and peeing on me again. That was unpleasant.
 
MustLoveCats, I forgot to mention this earlier when I stopped over. What Carl means (at least I think) is that you might want to get into posting a daily "condo" here in this forum. i never got into doing that, as I was out of town for several days right after Cedric was dx'd and well, you know my work schedule.... [i work 7 days a week for those who don't know me; 5 days at the office and 2 days at Disney]. Maybe our new friends here can explain the purpose of the condo posts.....and can help you get sebastian regulated and/or Off The Juice!
Click to expand...

Well, not so much a "daily condo" here in PZI. Some people do start a new post every day, but we don't have the traffic here as TR does for instance, so you don't have to start a new thread every day and link yesterday's to it like they do there. I understand the logic of their forum because they get 50 new threads a day. What I meant more specifically is that if you posted more often, whether in this thread or a new one, it would get "bumped to the top" so more people would see it more often. You can update your SS every day, but what happens is that eventually your thread drops to the bottom of the page or disappears to page 2, and nobody sees it. So we don't know or remember to look at your SS to see how you are doing with Sebastian. I just don't want anyone to fall through the cracks, so the more you post, the more people will help you out if you need any help.

Carl
 
I've tried a lower dose and a higher dose now I'm trying him on 2.25 units. So far he's responding well. But, I don't know what to do when I get a 188 reading. Do I continue to give him the 2.25 or should I lower it?
 
I would lower your dose. Anytime you get a number around 200 and lower at the end of a 12 hour cycle, it is a signal to lower the dose. Interesting that he was consistently in the reds and then suddenly a long cycle with a blue. Wonder what happened today?
 
I don't know what's going on with his numbers. They don't make any sense to me. Should I be feeding him four small meals a day? He's kind of getting 2 small meals a day right now. My friend suggested I get auto feeders with ice packs to get him more fresh canned food during the day. I have two cats eating together so I would need to buy two feeders. Anyone have any ideas? Could more food during the day help him get balanced? Seemed like he went higher with Fancy Feast and lower when I gave him Friskies pate. Other than that, everything else was the same.
 
I used to feed my cats out of separate bowls, knowing they each checked out the other's bowls. When I bought the timed feeder, I put enough in to feed them both. It works for us as Poopy is a snacker and Mia, my civvie, is a gulper but only eats what she wants (doesn't wipe out what is there). A 13oz. can will fill two compartments and will feed them both for a 12 hour cycle (initial feeding and then another 6 hours later). It's not uncommon for there to be a bit left in the two compartments. I time it to turn to an empty compartment 2 1/2 hours before pre-shot BG testing.

Different foods have different carb amounts. I now feed two flavors on a regular schedule, both having 4% carbs. I'll toss in a different flavor here and there, knowing there's a difference in carbs so I watch the BGs for changes.

Our sugar kitties will throw a different number at us at times. Sometimes I think they do it deliberately. Yesterday, for example, Poopy threw a 320 at me for PMPS. No reason I can find, just is what it is.

Hope that helps a bit. :smile:
 
I feed copper every 4hrs a small portion. He seems to do better on his numbers this way. Otherwise, he PIGS out and his numbers stay high. I also only use a 0%carb Fancy Feast Turkey Kitten and raw rabbit or chicken. He loves it and his numbers have gotten gradually better. It's taken a long time to get anywhere with him, but my cat is very complicated.

Good luck in figuring it all out. I also have started using the autofeeder once in awhile and it's worked good.

lori
 
Can you update your ss so we can see what is going on the past few days? Your blue at pmps looked very promising. What has happened since then?

Small frequent meals often help if there is a way for you to manage it. Freezing the food is an option; they can slowly graze as it thaws. I love my PetSafe5 - it's the only one that my cats haven't been able to break into. Easy to program and flexible programing. Little pricey to buy two but might work well. (Amazon seems to have the best price.)
 
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