Newly diagnosed

B

bgenick

Member Since 2014
In early March my cats fructosamine was in the upper range of normal. Two weeks ago blood chemistry showed his BG 418 and he was diagnosed as diabetic. He started one unit lantus twice daily tuesday morning. This is thursday morning so he has just had dose 5.
He is wearing a libre sensor. So far he has almost no values below 400. Vet says improvement may take a few days. Does this seem right?
 
Your vet is correct. Lantus is a depot type of insulin. It takes 5 - 7 days for the depot to form and stabilize so you may not see much of a change before that time. In addition, until you know how your kitty is responding, you don't know if 1.0u is a "good" dose. You may want to take a look at the sticky notes at the top of the Lantus board. They contain information on how Lantus works, how we approach dosing, and other information you may find helpful.

If you're planning on joining us for the longer haul, you may want to consider setting up a spreadsheet and signature. The information is in this post on helping us to help you.
 
Sienne and Gabby (GA) said:
Your vet is correct. Lantus is a depot type of insulin. It takes 5 - 7 days for the depot to form and stabilize so you may not see much of a change before that time. In addition, until you know how your kitty is responding, you don't know if 1.0u is a "good" dose. You may want to take a look at the sticky notes at the top of the Lantus board. They contain information on how Lantus works, how we approach dosing, and other information you may find helpful.

If you're planning on joining us for the longer haul, you may want to consider setting up a spreadsheet and signature. The information is in this post on helping us to help you.
Click to expand...
 
Is it surprising for a newly diagnosed cat on one unit lantus twice daily to vary this much during the day?
 

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bgenick said:
Is it surprising for a newly diagnosed cat on one unit lantus twice daily to vary this much during the day?
Click to expand...
Hi! It's not surprising for a cat to swing that widely in a 24-hour period. Every cat is different. I recommend you pop over to the Lantus board and look at some spreadsheets, especially check out when a cat was initially diagnosed and started insulin, because that's where your kitty is in his/her FD journey. Look at Jude's spreadsheet when he was first diagnosed. While he wasn't terribly bouncy with his numbers, it took months for him to get relatively regulated. Overtime, it's not uncommon for cats to have cycles that are more flat, but again, every cat is different.

As Sienne mentioned, you might want to go ahead and set up both a spreadsheet to track your cat's progress and also complete a signature on your profile, especially if you plan on asking for information/guidance about your kitty's numbers. Sienne posted the link for both of these. The spreadsheet is a great tool for you to track your cat's progress, but, also, it helps us, when you come on the forum and post, to know what's been happening with your cat. We tend to be very data driven here. Let us know if you need any help with these.

Also, most of us Lantus users follow one of two dosing methods. They are both outlined here: Sticky - Dosing Methods: Start Low, Go Slow (SLGS) & Tight Regulation (TR). These dosing methods guide our increases and decreases. Of course, I can't tell what your cat's numbers have been because I can't see your data, but it's possible if, after a month at numbers hovering around 400, your cat might need a dose increase. If you can give us more of a picture of what his/her numbers have been, that helps more experienced folks here offer dosing guidance.
 
Also, we can talk to you about some ways to stop the deep dives your cat is experiencing with food. But, again, seeing his/her numbers will help us help you.
 
Mary & Jude said:
Also, we can talk to you about some ways to stop the deep dives your cat is experiencing with food. But, again, seeing his/her numbers will help us help you.
Click to expand...
I am interested in ways to keep bg from dropping with food. I give food a few minutes before insulin to be sure cat is going to eat then shoot. My cats bg just dropped from 348 to 243 40 min after feeding. He has only been diagnosed and on insulin about a month. This is per Libre sensor which I realize has some issues.
 
bgenick said:
I am interested in ways to keep bg from dropping with food. I give food a few minutes before insulin to be sure cat is going to eat then shoot. My cats bg just dropped from 348 to 243 40 min after feeding. He has only been diagnosed and on insulin about a month. This is per Libre sensor which I realize has some issues.
Click to expand...
If you could set up a spreadsheet, that would help us so much with looking at daily 12-hour cycles. It's hard to really see what is happening from these monitor snapshots. For example, I don't know what the shot time is, so it's difficult to see when the dive occurs in the cycle, if that makes sense. I can tell you that 150 is not too low (though it is a significant drop from earlier in the cycle). But you are likely going to be eventually reducing insulin, and at that point, if he/she continues this pattern, you might end up in lower numbers where you could use food to bump up those numbers. Here is a discussion for using food to "manipulate the curve:" 8/10 TASHIE pmps=HIGH! +Questions***.
 
His 1 unit insulin with food this am was at 8. Was 278 on sensor. At 1120 am he was 109 on sensor and 148 on human meter.
I understand what u r saying but ear prick is not feasible at the moment. Will write more later. Tyvm
 
When you note on the spreadsheet that you are using a CGM, anyone who is trying to offer assistance/guidance will know that they need to adjust the numbers a bit for the CGM. It's always good to have a handheld monitor, though, because the CGMs can be unreliable.
 
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