Newbie Help-Request

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lesean1977

Member Since 2012
Hello to all,

First let me say thank you to everyone who went above and beyond to put this site together. It is because of this site I was able to save my cat's life. My name is Kirstie and my dsh Lily was diagnosed at the beginning of April. The vet I use are very old school but very caring doctors. They started us on Prozinc insulin just 1u daily. three weeks ago I noticed lily getting very weak not eating barely able to walk but a few steps before lying back down. I took her to the vet and they did bloodwork wich really didnt show anything to crazy, her liver values and WBC were elevated some, put her on iv fluids for the day. Sent us home on antibiotics and I began force feeding. I did some research, found this site and immediately saw the articles on ketones. I called my vet and asked about this, I was told they didnt think ketones were a issue but I insisted we test and she was extremely high. We went through three days of insulin drips with fluids then dextrose and potassium to get her numbers back up. Finally got her back on her feet, we conferred with some specialist and made the switch to Glargine insuline, 1u BID to start. Her numbers went high and stayed high so they bumped her to 2u. This ended up sending her plummeting. So back on IV she went with dextrose to drive her numbers back up. We went back to 1u and we are staying there for now like we should have to begin with. The vets jumped the gun a little increasing it by a whole unit. It has been a rocky week the ketones came back but it was small, a relief vet looked over my chart and said we probably didnt treat long enough the first time and they just built back up. Im stil doing SQ fluids at home for the next few days even though this AM she was negative for ketones. Her appetite is back with a vengence(we are doing only canned food and just a tiny amount of MD) Today her numbers were the lowest they have ever been. The past couple of days, AM readings were so high they only read as HI on my meter. This AM's ps was 410 :-D for me that was great considering the numbers I was getting. It did get as high as 462 around +6 hours post-shot then started to decline. It hit 272 at +9 and pmps it was 514. For us these numbers werent bad at all. Its the first day her numbers werent affected by what was being pumped through her IV line. This is where my question comes in. I gave her the insulin at 4:30. When I pulled the syringe out I felt wet on my fingers, I managed to either shoot through or something. This hasnt happened before, I always make sure I see the needle going in and then I will lightly fluff her fur to make sure there is no liquid. What do I do now? Do I monitor numbers and give a extra 1/2 dose later this evening? Do I do nothing? I dont want to send her in the other direction either. Im sorry if this is all a jumbled mess, my learning curve has been extremely steep the past two weeks and Im still tring to wrap my head around all the information. If Ive missed any info that would be helpful just let me know. Thanks again for being here and available.

Kirstie
 
Welcom to the board!

Its called a fur shot and we've all done it. Some of us have even stuck ourselves instead of our cats!

No, don't give any more Lantus; wait to your regularly scheduled shot time. Lantus is given every 12 hours like clockwork, as it doesn't tend to work well on variable timings. Yes, she may go a bit high again, that is to be expected. It will level out over a couple of days.

Good for you to get started testing! Now, lets help you keep track of it so you can quickly see patterns - we have a spreadsheet that will color code your entries. Over time, it will help you see patterns and help you manage her care.
 
Wow thanks for the quick response! I'll sit tight then. One other thing, Is there a way to ease her injection time forward? This getting up at four in the morning is killing me lol.
 
Absolutely. We change time for Daylight Savings too.

In 1 day, you may move the time 30 minutes total. If you have a very sensitive cat, you adjust each shot 15 minutes later or earlier as needed. Otherwise, you can make one change of 30 minutes.

Import to understand:
Moving a shot earlier is like a dose INcrease.
Moving a shot later is like a dose DEcrease.
This will be more important when you've gotten to the optimal dose for your cat.
 
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