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she2chat

Member Since 2014
Hey, I'm a bit Overwhelmed.. I am a single mom with 2 special needs kids. My baby is Siam an 11 Y/o Poly who originally weighed 25 lbs. He is now down to 18.98 but has been a sick boy. He was diagnosed on Halloween. B/S was 450. Vet said Lantus. I said fine, until I called the pharmacy.. YIKES!! $240 and I will wind up throwing most of it out in 3 months.

Please tell me what you all do.. I asked the vet to change the prescription to ProZinc which he did reluctantly but he didn't change the directions.. Needless to say I didn't give him any insulin last night after picking up the RX. I did pick up a Glucometer, U100 Syringes (which is apparently wrong for the U40 Insulin. I have Test Strips and lancets for Testing. I have put Siam on a Strictly Canned food diet of Classic FF. He is acting better, but it doesn't have me fooled. I know that I have to get this under control for his health.

I'm hoping for tips, & guidelines from all of you. What is the cheapest, yet safest Insulin for my Kitty? By the way, we call him the dog... He doesn't know he's a cat. He acts just like a dog. Sits up and begs, needs constant attention. We love him dearly and my Autistic 16 y/o son thinks he is his cat brother.

Any Advice? I work full time, so Emails would be great.. I can't check the board through out the day, but I'll try when I can.

Thank you :-)
 
One suggestion to save money on Lantus is to ask your vet for a prescription for the pens instead of a vial. With the pens, the insulin is packaged in smaller containers and it does not become ineffective before you can use all of it. One package of pens has 5 pens in it. Depending on your dose, one pack of pens can give you enough insulin to last 9 months or more.

There is also a coupon on the Lantus website that will bring the cost down to $25 per pen. Many people have had success with using it for their cat's prescription. You can also get the pharmacy to issue a single pen instead of a package if that will help spread out the cost.
 
If you are going to use the Prozinc then your U100 syringes are fine you just need to use a conversion chart. Which is here (click on the blue text). In fact U100 syringes are great when used with the conversion chart for dosing U40 insulin because you can make more accurate and smaller dose adjustments.

One money saving tip should you decide to go with the Lantus is check out online pharmancies in Canada. I don't use either Prozinc or Lantus but Levemir which is more expensive that either of the other two and I just got a 5pk of pens for $140 from Canada.

Mel and The Fur Gang
 
she2chat said:
... I will wind up throwing most of it out in 3 months. ...
Click to expand...

Not so - that is only how long the company tested its stability.

If you refrigerate the Lantus on a stationary shelf, and get it in the pens, or in some places get it in cartridges, you can use almost all of it before it wimps out.

Lantus is a U-100 insulin. This means it has 100 units per mL. A pen has 3 ml / 300 units. At 1 unit twice a day, you'd get 150 days out of it. At 2 units twice a day, you'd get 75 days of it.
 
Thank you for your information. My vet said absolutely not to use the U100 syringes.. we figured we could convert it to.. Not according to him.

I had a recent vet tell me my cat was fat, but she doesn't know that at 8 months he was right at the 24lb mark and he wasn't fat.. He is a very big boy, I think that he is half Siamese & half Maine Coon.. Mama was purebred Siamese.. lol

I did buy the Glucometer & test strips, I'm now waiting for the correct syringes to arrive. Apparently it takes a week to get here. The only place that has them near me is Costco & there price is 3 times the price as online. I'm watching Siam closely.. He is constantly hungry, but is getting 1 can of FF Classic in the morning with added water and 1 can in the Evening.. So far I haven't caught him peeing on the floor.. that is the good news.. lol

I would love to hear what Canadian Pharmacy you used for the $140.. that is a lot more reasonable than what I'm facing now...

It will take time but I will learn to adjust.. I did read an article that it may be possible to turn his Diabetes around... all diet based.. Remission.. One can only hope I can get him there..

Thank you for your support!!

She
 
she2chat said:
Thank you for your information. My vet said absolutely not to use the U100 syringes.. we figured we could convert it to.. Not according to him...
Click to expand...
Your vet has forgotten his training in dosages and calculations.

U-100 means 100 units per mL
U-40 means 40 units per mL; the concentration is 40% of U-100

To get a percentage of something, you can multiply by that
Ex 40% of 100 = 0.4 * 100 = 40
Ex 40% of 1 = 0.4 * 1 = 0.4

So each mark on a U-100 syringe would be multiplied by 0.4 to get the U-40 dose it is measuring.
0.5 * 0.4 = 0.2 units of U-40
1.0 * 0.4 = 0.4 units of U-40
1.5 * 0.4 = 0.6 units of U-40
2.0 * 0.4 = 0.8 units of U-40
2.5 * 0.4 = 1.0 units of U-40
 
I changed vets about four months after Merlin was diagnosed mainly because she kept saying that I don't have to test at home and she couldn't answer some of my questions. So I switched to another vet in the same office. He was very supportive of me testing at home, in fact, he wanted the spreadsheet every couple of weeks. When I took Merlin in for a dental, I shared the conversion chart with my vet. He too thought I shouldn't be using it. He recalls that in one of his studies, he heard that you shouldn't use it but he couldn't remember why. So he called his pharmacist friend to run it by him. The pharmacist also recalled that he was taught not to use the U100 syringes with U40 insulin however he too heard about "some" feline diabetes group (us) using a conversion chart and he thought it was ok. So my vet called me back and said he didn't have an issue with it especially since he saw that Merlin was doing just fine. My vet also indicated that he doesn't have too many patients that really get into understanding FD including all that testing so he was getting used to me too. So it may be just as easy to bring in the conversion chart so your vet can see it. I like using the U100 because 1) easy to buy (Walmart), 2) most everyone uses it here, and 3) it is much cheaper.
 
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