Numbers all over the place on Prozinc?!

I am gettin ga little frustrated with Elmos numbers on prozinc. They seem to me to be all over the place and inconsistant.

He was on 1.6 units and now on 1.8.

Anyone have any comments or suggestions?

I was hoping his am and pm ps would be lower by now and I am getting worried.

I test his ketones every week or every other, he only eats canned food and freeze dried treats so what gives?

I was expecting more from this prozinc insulin and am not too happy at this point.

 

I am sorry that this is so frustrating, and I completely understand why! ProZinc takes about 45 days to settle in before you might see anything predictable (sometimes takes less time, sometimes takes more time). So I really would save any judgment until at least a month and a half has passed.

I may have missed your other thread, but why did you decide to switch from the compounded PZI?

 

It took Puttz about 45 days to stabilize on ProZinc. Please be patient, I am sure you will be happy with it overall, a very gentle type of insulin.

 

I 2nd those opinions - We were all over the place for the first month and a half but when we stabilized, it was SO nice. Ari is more stable than she was on PZI or Vetsulin.

 

Kay,

I just studied your ss and I was actually thinking that it is very consistant, pink preshots and yellow through the cycle, (with the exception of the reds due to the dry food, which you can't blame on the prozinc) .

I hesitate to advise because I am only familiar with dosing an acrocat on Prozinc, but it seems to me that you need to bring those nadirs down into the blues, and those preshots into the yellows, and that is going to need more insulin... I always try to move slowly to let the body accomodate slowly to the new lows, to avoid the bouncing, but next time you can be around to watch the nadir, you might want to bump it up a notch. wait a week and then bump it up again if needed.

You have only been on prozinc ~23 days, hang in there.

And I am the FIRST to be empathetic to dry food mishaps, because as hard as we try it still happens here... but it always sets us back about a week, so...

 

Looking at your SS it looks like 2.U was a good starting point. I know you are working your way back up from 1.5U. Please be patient and things will fall into place. I am going to mention this again only b/c its so important if you're trying to find his dose & to help you with being so frustrated.... no more dry food, dog food whatever! haha I say this with hugs to you, but make everyone in the house aware of this, ok. ;-)

Hang in there. :YMHUG:

 

Thanks so much everyone!!

I switched from compounded to prozinc because I am really not a fan of the compounded insulin, i think the consistancy of small batches is inaccurate. Plus I have heard good things about Prozinc.

I try to keep him out of the dry food, I have 7 other cats, some very old and they have always eaten dry and I am not going to take that away from them. I have the dry food in a tupperware container and put it down and give other cats a chance to eat, watching and making sure Elmo does not go near. Its mostly the boyfriend he tries but then wander off and forgets to take container up, only happened a few times.

Also I bought a bunch of 100% freeze dried beef, chicken and liver treats that the cats love . I toss them a bunch, kinda like feeding the ducks around here hahahaha :lol:

I also am changing the dry over to Natural Balance Grain free dry for the other cats and they HATE it, I mean HATE it. Not even one of them will eat it!!! They like the crappy friskies dry.

Thanks again

 

Hi Kay, I totally understand about your other kitties. I have five myself. I actually switched them all to canned food which was another challenge. ohmygod_smile I need to feed two of them in the bathroom because they were losing weight from the lc. For what it's worth... just thought I'd throw this out there. I thought feeding cheap wet cat food was bad for kitties. Some may disagree with me, but cats love to hunt... eating raw meat - such as birds or mice. Elizabeth Hodgkins talks about this on her website. http://www.yourdiabeticcat.com/diet.html

Anyway, my point here is about Special Kitty canned food. I tried the FF and Friskies etc. Maybe it's nothing, but ever since I started feeding the Special kitty, Prudence had a major change in her numbers. I do switch back and forth with Sophisticat Adult Supreme. Well, keep us posted on your baby! Sending good vibes your way.

 

??- from what I remember, friskies has rice, and FF has guar gum, which is preferable because a tiny amount can thicken & solidify the food. ?

What do Special Kitty and Sophisticat use? Is Special Kitty the Walmart brand? I assume you mean the numbers improved, yes?

 

I don't have any experience with ProZinc, but for any other PZI cat, I would say you need a dose increase. I'd keep increasing the dose in .2 unit increments every 3-5 days until you start to see a change.

 

Nancy, Yes, Special Kitty is Walmart brand. Pru has been OTJ for over two weeks now. Sophisticat can only be bought at PetSmart too. I've gone with the Sophisticat Adult Supreme. If I use Friskies, I buy the Special Diet Beef and Chicken Entrée or Special Diet Ocean Whitefish Dinner.

BTW - How's Cody doing? Give him hugs from us! cat_pet_icon

 

Agreed. and hurray! it looks like you bumped it up tonight. Hoping for some better numbers.

I noticed he scavenged a hamburger/bun from a back pack. Cody used to do stuff like that all the time, but he is much less desperate & sneaky the last few months. I started feeding larger quantities, more often, adding extra meat/egg protein to the canned, and upping the insulin to deal with it. Maybe that could help decrease the temptation of the "big mac" :lol:

 

Thanks again,

I may beup for trying the sophisticat food or even the special kitty.

Believe me I would feed more expensive stuff but not in the budget and from the research I have done some of the foods like wellness etc also have ingredients in it that are unnecessary.

I have done much research on food with small animals and also big endangered cats and I agree the perfect diet would be a mouse .

I am pretty sure that I am feeding them enought - I feed 2 cans of friskies in am with shot, then 2 cans in pm with shot and then more canned again about 5 hours later at bedtime.

And if the food is gone at pm feeding I will add an extra can.

So that is 7 cans total for 8 cats, and for some of the cats they still ( don't tell Elmo) get dry food so..

And freeze dried treats thrown in here and there....

I really appreciate everyones input , am trying to be patient but each day his numbers are high I feel is bad for him.

I was giving 1.8 but increased it last pm to 2 units. Keep u updated :razz:

 

Hugs to you both! Yes, keep us posted and keep your SS up to date. ;-)

 

If you don't see the NADIR numbers you want after 3-4 days I would increase again, and again until you do. Your dose is still pretty low. Don't give up on the insulin until you see some nadir numbers that are where you want them. In my opinion, his dose should be based on his nadir. In Cody, that has been at about +8 lately. Earlier on it was at +4 so, ....

Seriously, look at Cody's ss from yesterday. If I hadn't been testing mid day I wouldn't have known his nadir went to 77 at +8 and then back up to high 200 at +12, and then mid 300's at + 13.5. I guess its luck of the draw because I test a lot and this came out of nowhere. Hopefully you wouldn't have that much movement, but you don't know unless you test.

Hang in there- judge based on nadir, not preshot