Newbie and fustrated

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Lisa&Lucky

Lisa&Lucky

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Hi everyone, I'm so glad I found this board.
My cat Lucky was diagonosed 10/15/10, I decided to use Lantus because I've read alot of good things about it. We started him on 1u, but have worked up 2.5u. He's eating Fancy Feast (glutton free) cat food, his numbers have gone
down somewhat, but I think they should be better by now, am I just being impatient?
Lisa







Lucky's SS:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key ... y=CLa3t90K
 
hi there and welcome.

one quick question. the missing days on your spreadsheet, did you not put them in or you didn't test on those days?

in my personal opinion, and no, i'm not a vet :smile: , you need to test morning and night every day (both for knowledge and for safety) and possibly more here and there to get a good idea as to what the insulin is doing in the middle of the day or middle of the night type of stuff andddddd because the data isn't there to support it, i think the latter part of the dose increases is where the problem lies.

like, you were starting to see some improvement around the 1.25 unit dose but then the dose was increased, most likely based on the preshot number in the morning and that's just not a real accurate way of doing things when it comes to lantus.

have you seen the lantus insulin support group and/or some of the info about lantus at the top of the page there? just let us know and we'll get it for you as i know it's hard to navigate around when first starting out.
 
I didn't test on the days that I don't have down. I will try and do better on my testing times, sometimes lucky doesn't always hold very still, or I can't get a good enough poke to get blood. So you think maybe I should go back to the 1.25u dose and test more at that dose?
I have read the Lantus board and I will have to post on there too. These boards are a little confusing but I'll get the hang of it. Thanks for repling and giving me your opinion I'll take all the info I can get.
 
yeah, the kitties aren't always as cooperative as we'd like that's for sure. i have one that's giving me a problem these days as far as eating goes (diagnosed w/ colitis a little over a week ago) and we had to syringe feed her for several days and she seemed to get over it but yesterday she was hesitant to eat again and i told her if she didn't eat i was going to do it for her. i gave her half an hour to eat some food on her own but sure enough, i ended up syringe feeding her yesterday morning and she behaved last night and this morning and ate on her own :-) silly cats!

i'd go back to the lower dose myself but let me get some more lantus eyes for you and see what they say too
 
Hi I am new here so can't give any dose help but I strongly urge you to go to the home page and enter the Lantus Land site. Those who help us are wonderful but they have to look into many condos and the best way to get help is posting there. Everyone will help you just like they helped me. Please navigate there for the best help and welcome you came to the right place :smile:
 
Hi and Welcome! I'm not a Lantus user but just wanted to welcome you and Lucky. This is a great board with a wonderful group of people.

You are certainly off to a good start with diet and hometesting! The name of the game though is "patience" :-D
 
Hello, I am new here aswell but have learned so much from members and reading stickies.

My cat Shishi was in a similar situation to Lucky's. Worked up the dose from 1unit to 6units usually with no results, Shishi seemed to stayed in the 300-400 BG's.

The problem that I had was Shishi was eating prescription wet food, and also some Dry prescription kibbles which were both high carb food. After I ditched the vet food and all dry food, and switched to a low carb wet food (less than 10%) 4 days later Shishi started to respond to insulin. Take a look at my SS and you can see the dramatic change.

Shishi did not take the change very well and started to look for other sources of food, I had to close doors to the kitchen at all times and make sure that I did not leave food where she could access them. she was especially sad that I had to cut out dry treats aswell. I have since moved her to low carb treats, Freeze dried chicken.

What I am trying to say is if Lucky is on a strict diet of low carb foods, then just be patient and follow protocol. But if Lucky has dry food anywhere, it might be a good start to ditch all those high carb and dry food. Food is really important, and can be manipulated in many ways to keep the BG's in a good range.

Here is a link on Janet and Binkys food list and cat nutrition. These were especially helpful to me.
Janet and Binky's food list
Feeding Your Cat: Know The Basics of Feline Nutrition

Here's a link on how we usually use lantus. These are stickies on the top Lantus/Levemir group on this site
Tight regulation protocol
LANTUS & LEVEMIR – INSULIN DEPOT –AKA- STORAGE SHED
Lantus&Levemir – Data Ready to Shoot Low Numbers

If, Lucky is eating any dry or high carb food now, and its scrapped, there is a good chance that the BG's will come down. And you want to be prepared for if any HYPO (BG too low) symptoms occur.
List of Hypo symptoms
How to treat HYPOS – They can kill! Print this out!
Jojo’s HYPO TOOLKIT

Best of luck.
 
Welcome Lisa!

I agree with what Cindy has pointed out. It's important for safety reasons to get a pre-shot test. With Lantus, it's also important to get spot checks during BOTH the AM and PM cycles. Many cats have lower BG numbers during the PM cycle and it's possible that Lucky is getting lower numbers at night and what you're seeing during the day is a bounce into higher numbers. That's one possible scenario. However, without some tests at night, there's no way to know. If you could start to routinely get a before bed test, that will help to fill in some of the gaps and give you more data as to what's happening at night.

Lantus also likes consistency. Generally, you want to hold a dose for at least 3 days. You've made a couple of quick dose adjustments. If a dose doesn't have time to "settle," you can see a wonky response. I'd suggest familiarizing yourself with the tight regulation protocol that we use on the Lantus board. The protocol may help you get a feel for how and when to raise doses.
 
Hi!

Yeah, it's hard to say what's going on with all the missing data too. I don't know how other people feel, but I would recommend putting those missing dates in so it's a more complete picture (i.e., make your dates consecutive with your shot values...there would just be no test data to enter). At first quick glance, I didn't even notice the missing days, until I read Cindy's post asking about them (nice catch, Cindy!). It would be a more accurate visual if the dates ran consecutively. Is there a reason you're not testing at all at night? I can tell you, I was terrible at testing at first, but the more you do it, the easier it gets for both of you. I agree with Sienne, oftentimes, the AM and PM data look markedly different, so it would be nice to see what's happening in the evening. Are you sticking to a 12 hour shot schedule, or is there some variability related to shot times? That could also make your numbers wonky. I know it's easy to get frustrated when it doesn't look like there has been any progress. Hang in there. If you can stick to the protocol, things should start to fall into place. Testing is the key though.

Oh, with those high numbers, have you been testing for ketones? Just to be on the safe side...

Glad you're here on the board. There's so many knowledgeable people here, so please take advantage of their help...daily if at all possible. You don't have to do this alone! ;-)

s
 
What a great job you have done testing and getting your spreadsheet up. And it sounds like you are feeding the right stuff.

So that leaves the insulin. You really should post over on the Lantus Insulin Support group. They all use Lantus, and they have had lots of experience with different scenarios and doses. They can advise you best on doses. viewforum.php?f=9

You will get some people here who use Lantus, but everyone there does.
 
Thanks Sue,
I'm finally figuring this board out so I did post on the Lantus board. So now Hopefully I'll get a few more answers. This Message board is a blessing, so many helpful people. :-D
 
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