Newly diagnoised & need advise

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angela.lewis2

Member Since 2014
I am sorry if I post this in the wrong board. My 17 year old cat Skeeter was diagnosied Monday with diabetes and started insulin that day. He was given 2 units of insulin twice a day until Thursday. That morning he got the 2 units and spent the day at his vet's office during a glucose curve. His levels stayed above 350 to 400 all day so his vet increased his insulin to 3 units twice a day which I started that night. This morning I checked his glucose level and it was 363 and then I gave him his 3 units of insulin. I checked his glucose and it was 133 at 8:30pm and checked again at 8:45pm it was 101. I called the emergency vet and was advised to skip his insulin and check his glucose levels every four hours and call my vet in the morning. I plan on checking it in a few minutes anyway. I am scared of his levels dropping to low. Please any advise would be appreciated as I am new to this. nailbite_smile
 
What kind of insulin (it makes a difference in our advice) How wonderful you are testing and could keep track of his numbers, and keep him safe.
 
I don't use Lantus, but will try to help. I would watch him carefully, testing every hour for the next few hours. He should be headed back up, but with that large a dose, he may stay the same or go lower for awhile. If he goes below 50, I would give him some gravy off higher carb food or homey. He should start to go up, but with the large dose, it's hard to predict..

The problem is that stress raises blood glucose levels and most cats are very stressed at the vet. Then doses based on those inflated numbers can be too high once the kitty gets home and relaxes. That's why we urge people to use their at home numbers to determine doses. We don't advising raising the dose by a full unit, but by .25 units at a time

Here is some info on Lantus:

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1581
 
Thank you! I gave him some food and just checked his levels and he is at 145. I will monitor him closely throughout the night.
 
It can take about 5-7 days after initially starting Lantus before seeing the full impact of the dose, so I think you guys may have increased the dose too soon. On top of that, usually the starting dose is around 1u, depending on the weight of the cat, so unless Sketter is a big boy, the 2u starting dose also seems to be a bit too much. At the very least, I would recommend dropping him back to 2u for the time being as you get some more tests in over the next couple of days and we can go from there.

angela.lewis2 said:
And we put his on a diabetic management wet food diet only since being diagnoised. No more dry food for my tiger.
Click to expand...

Which food specifically? It's usually either Hills, Purina, or Royal Canin.
 
Purina DM wet is not a bad choice, just more expensive than other OTC foods like Fancy Feast Classics, Friskies pâtés, or wellness grain free to name a few. Tomorrow morning, if you test him and he's over 200 at shot time, I suggest you give him at most 2u, but even then, I suspect it'll still be too much, so you might want to split the difference and try 1.5u for the next couple of days and see how he does.

If at any time he drops below 50 on a human meter (80 on a pet meter) that's an automatic dose reduction of .25u. If you find yourself skipping shots due to low pre-shot numbers (below 200 when first starting out), that's also considered an automatic dose reduction of .25u.

What meter are you using for testing, btw?
 
I am using an AlphaTRAK Blood Glucose Monitoring System set for cats.

On his Lantus insulin it is a pen and only doses by units. I cannot break it up.
 
The pen can be (and should be with cats) used with syringes instead of the pen tips. Depending on where you live, you can either get some syringes without a prescription or it might require a prescription. You want to use 3/10cc, u100 insulin syringes (either "short" 5/16" or "long" 1/2") with half-unit markings and draw it out of the pen as if it were a vial instead. In the meantime, I highly suggest you drop the dose back to at least 2u.
 
Update on Skeeter....
His glucose levels stayed around 150 throughout the night. Last checked at 4am. At 8:20a I checked it and it was 557. I called his vet and had to leave a message caused the vet was with someone. I went ahead and gave Skeeter 2 units of Lantus insulin since it was so high. The vet called and said I did the right thing this morning. He said that in the future if his levels get around 100 again to not skip insulin but to give him 1 unit to avoid his levels from jumping so high again.

Just checked and he is at 533 now.

I am learning how to care for him and really appreciate the advise.
 
The objective is to have a dose that can be given both morning and night.

The low number suggests that the 2 units may be too much. As Lantus builds up its effects over time, that issue won't show up until after several shots.

I'd suggest reducing the dose to 1.75 units, which you'll have to eyeball using a syringe.
 
Hi Angela and sugardude Skeeter and welcome to the message board.

You're getting some great information here from our experienced folks.

Would you be willing to put some information into your signature for us? Something like this would be helpful.

Angela & Skeeter (17, boy,14.5#)
dx date 2/3/14
Lantus and Alphatrak
Purina DM wet
any complicating health conditions like CRF or Hypet-t or pancreatitis

It goes in the User Control Panel, Profile tab, Edit Signature. It sure would help us to help you better if we had all this great information with each of your posts. Also, adding your location like country, state, closest city to the Profile tab, Edit Profile section would be helpful. That way we can give you country specific advice and perhaps there is another member that lives close to you if you need some help.
 
Mne is also newly diagnosed and just started her on insulin tosay, 3units of oro zinc 2x a day. First time ive ever injected anthing...have no idea if it is going in het at all. Vet didnot show, or ask me, to monitorlevels. She did that in her office over 1 day.

How soon will the catshow a difference that she is feeling better after starting insulan? She is starting to eat again, but i dont see any water intake yet. She is mostly sleeping all day and night. This is second day on 'juice' for her.

Can anyone calm my nerves?
 
Hi Pineappleval!

I see you have your own post going, so I'll answer you over in that post which is here http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=113361&p=1194650#p1194650 Just click on the link and it will take you to your post.

It's easier if you keep any questions you may have in your own posts, so we don't confuse the original poster. We're very happy to help you out here and like to give you specific feedback for your own situation. We like to give that "personal touch" to each member here.
 
Update on Skeeter:
Finally have his levels under control. 1 unit of Latus twice a day is keeping him between 140 and 160. He is on a diet od DM wet only. He feels so much better!!! I am so greatful for all yall's advice.

:-D
 
Hi Angela!

Good to hear that Skeeter is feeling better.

Since you use the Alphatrak for BG testing, it would be good if you could increase the font size on that text in your signature to make it stand out more. The editing commands for the text box are just above where you start typing. Highlight your text, click on the down arrow that says normal and change that to large.

Most of us use human meters and the reference ranges are slightly higher for those pet specific meters, so went want to see that Alphatrak stand out when we interpret the numbers.

Since our cats are more than a set of numbers, how he is feeling will tell us a lot. So, how's he doing with the 5 P's (peeing, pooping, purring, preening, playing) and his appetite?

We've got a great tool to keep track of the doses and the BG readings. We sure would love to see a SS setup for Skeeter, so we can follow along with his numbers and make suggestions on tweaking the dose. It's even great to be able to share this SS with your vet.Directions herefor getting our standard color coded spreadsheet setup and linked to your signature.
 
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