Newbie

Status
Not open for further replies.
B

Beeba's Dad

Member Since 2010
Hello,
I am new to the Lantus forum. My cat, Beeba was diagnosed just before Christmas this year and is now on Lantus. I am currently using a Freestyle Lite meter for her monitoring. When she had her curve done at the Vet's I had them do a side by side with my unit and there was a consistant disparity between the two meters as shown below.
Vet Freestyle
153 80
157 99
162 91

This has an average of +67 to what I get for the equivalent of the vet's machine. I am not sure what the vet has for their machine but I will check tomorrow. Never the less it brings me to my questions. Her numbers have been trending down for the past week. I have her almost exclusively on wet low-carb food now. Her numbers have been between 110-90 and she is on 2.5 units. I feel a bit nervous about the dose and am going to contact the vet in the morning about possibly cutting back her dose. A little more background on Beeba. I think she may have been a boarderline diabetic. In 2009 after some dental surgery she had to go back for some help because she was not responding well coming out of the anesthetic. Early this fall she had several Cortizone shots over the period of a couple months for some alergy-like symptoms. My theory is that she might have been boarderline and those shots "tipped" her over. Now that I have switched her over to low-carb high-protein and her numbers are much lower I think I should adjust her dose. I plan on talking to my vet in the morning as I said earlier, she has been very good about the whole thing and has answered my many questions. I was just wondering what thoughts that you folks have much experience with this would suggest? Thanks.
 
Hi Beeba and Dad and welcome to the Lantus forum. You have come to the right place. There are many knowledgeable people here who will give advice and support. You sound as if you have a very supportive vet. Don't worry about the discrepancy between the vet's meter and yours. The Alpha Track (which is the cat-specific meter vets use) will run consistently higher than a human meter. You can read about this in the description of the Tilly Protocol, which is the protocol we use with Lantus and which is posted in one of the informational "stickies" at the top of the Lantus forum. The protocol makes allowances for the discrepancy, so you can use your Freestyle lite without worry.
Our dosing advisers will be along to help you with your dose questions. They will want to know about Beeba: how old she is, how much she weighs, what you are feeding, etc. They will ask you to set up a spreadsheet in Google Docs so that the people here will be able to check Beeba's trends in blood glucose readings easily and advise you promptly. You will find instructions on how to set up the spreadsheet and the profile in the "New to the Group" sticky.
Most of the cats here start out on a dose of 1 unit every 12 hours so that the proper dose can be worked up to. Your dose of 2.5 may indeed be too high. But please wait for one of our experts to chime in, once you can provide them with the relevant information.
Mainly, I just want to say, Welcome!

Ella & Rusty
 
Welcome to Lantus Land.

As Ella suggested, reading the starred, sticky notes at the top of the board will help to get your oriented. We are very numbers driven here so getting a spreadsheet set up will help us to understand what's going on with Beeba and help you to stay on top of your test data. If you do have blood glucose test data from the past several days, posting that here will help us, as well. I would be uncomfortable making any recommendations about your cat's dose without seeing pre-shot and nadir test data over the span of several days.
 
Welcome to Lantus Land....it is late and I'm not sure who all is still on tonight..esp on a holiday weekend. It is good to discuss with your vet; please be patient and I hope one of the experienced dosing experts can make a few suggestions. Good luck!!
 
Hello all,
A few vitals about Beeba. She is 10 1/2 years old and weighs 12 pounds. I have transitioned mostly to all Wellness Chicken. It has been a gradual transition from dry Iams Adult furball. Overall she seems pretty much her old self and looks great. I will let you know what my vet reccomends after I talk to her tonight. Thanks again.
 
Welcome To LL Beeba's Dad! I am Arnie's Dad...there are a LOT of helpful people here. Sounds like Beeba might be a candidate for a dose reduction and hopefully many more!!!
 
Sorry for not replying sooner but I had a long work day today. I am glad I have my sister to help with Beeba. I talked with my vet and she agreed to reduce her dose to 2 units. I would have preferred 1 1/2, but my vet did not want to cut back to quickly and cause an added problems. I will monitor her BG#'s to make sure her numbers stay stable. She seemed her spunky self tonight so for now I will watch and monitor her.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top