Opinions on time between feeding and injection
- Thread starter perry
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kse
Very Active Member
I normally test, feed and wait about 15 mins before injecting. People that have no issues with their cats throwing up after eating, often infect while they are eating. If Perry has any tendancy to throw up after eating, it would be a safe choice to wait 15 mins or so after eating to be certain the food stays down. Afterall, the insulin dose is relevant to the amount of carbs that are being eaten each cycle. Once, I shot while Kitty was eating, she threw up her meal and would not eat any more food. The cycle was most eventful-- as I had dosed her assuming she would have the carbs onboard.
Good Luck!
Good Luck!
perry said:
Everyone has their own ways, and much of it depends on how their cats react to food and insulin.
Just about everyone feeds while giving shots, or put the food down immediately after the shot.
What matters more is the amount of food you give at the time of injections, or any other time for that matter.
In order to have a better chance of a level curve of numbers, it's best for diabetics to eat smaller more frequent meals/snacks.
Depending on your cat, if it's found that a cat has a tendency of dropping quickly in the first few hours after shots, it can help to slow the big drop by feeding small amounts every hour for the first 4hrs after the shot.... just by giving a small meal at shot time, then 1tsp of food every hour has helped some cats have a smaller and more gradual drop.
The one time you should not feed at all is during the 2hrs prior to shot time because you don't want your shot BG to be a higher, food influenced number. Food will have worn off in influence in a couple hours, unless you are feeding dry which lasts a great deal longer and contributes to high BG numbers.
Jenn & Baxter
Very Active Member
Hi Perry's Dad welcome to ProZinc.
You will want to test before food. The insulin should be 12 hrs apart. You will not want to inject the insulin before. I keep a 8am & 8pm schedule with Baxter, but it's what fits into your schedule.
You will also want to test sometime after the injection to make sure he is lowering into nice safe BG numbers. This is good for a couple of reasons.
1. It helps you know what his body is doing with the insulin.
2. If he goes to low into hypo numbers it give you a chance to help him out of the hypo situtation.
As members we like to use +1, +2, +3 etc. meaning + how many hours after the injection.
Somewhere between 4-7 hrs after insulin is when a cat nadirs. This is when the BG is at the lowest point. So you will want to test somewhere within those hours. We keep all the numbers on a SS so other memebers can see & help & advice when you should post a question. I am The wrong person to help you get a SS set up. Maybe someone else will come by & help get you set up.
How long has Perry been on ProZinc?
What BG was Perry DX at?
What is his current dose?
You will want to test before food. The insulin should be 12 hrs apart. You will not want to inject the insulin before. I keep a 8am & 8pm schedule with Baxter, but it's what fits into your schedule.
You will also want to test sometime after the injection to make sure he is lowering into nice safe BG numbers. This is good for a couple of reasons.
1. It helps you know what his body is doing with the insulin.
2. If he goes to low into hypo numbers it give you a chance to help him out of the hypo situtation.
As members we like to use +1, +2, +3 etc. meaning + how many hours after the injection.
Somewhere between 4-7 hrs after insulin is when a cat nadirs. This is when the BG is at the lowest point. So you will want to test somewhere within those hours. We keep all the numbers on a SS so other memebers can see & help & advice when you should post a question. I am The wrong person to help you get a SS set up. Maybe someone else will come by & help get you set up.
How long has Perry been on ProZinc?
What BG was Perry DX at?
What is his current dose?
perry
New Member
Thanks for all the input. We've been waiting 15-30 minutes after injection/feeding before giving food thinking that it will take some time for the food to get processed. Perry does not have problems throwing up, but is having problems maintaining his weight.
He was diagnosed in early January and has been on Prozinc since then starting at 1 unit two times a day, gradually moving up to 2.0, coming down, and is now back again at 2.0 units twice per day. I've been looking at many spreadsheets of other Prozinc users and notice that Perry is much more consistent in comparison. We usually only test at injection time, and then once during the cycle since the numbers rarely change.
As an example, last Saturday when we did more readings than unusal his numbers were like this
3/31/2012 Sat 6:00am 235 (2.0 units Prozinc)
10:00am 196
12:00noon 178
2:00pm 240
7:00pm 433 (2 units Prozinc)
The numbers at the injection time rarely vary by 30 points, but he never goes down much more than by 50 at his lowest point after the first injection. He gets low carb foods almost exclusively (lots of poached salmon and grilled ahi tuna and some FF and dry DM), but with 15 other cats in the household (including a CRF cat that is getting hi carb foods) he will get the occasional bit of the wrong food.
We've only seen numbers below 100 two times, both at the initial 6:00am test the first time he was at 2.0 units. We skipped the dose then and began to reduce, but numbers pushed into the 300-400s so we're back at 2.0 again with somewhat better results.
Regards,
Perry and his dad.
He was diagnosed in early January and has been on Prozinc since then starting at 1 unit two times a day, gradually moving up to 2.0, coming down, and is now back again at 2.0 units twice per day. I've been looking at many spreadsheets of other Prozinc users and notice that Perry is much more consistent in comparison. We usually only test at injection time, and then once during the cycle since the numbers rarely change.
As an example, last Saturday when we did more readings than unusal his numbers were like this
3/31/2012 Sat 6:00am 235 (2.0 units Prozinc)
10:00am 196
12:00noon 178
2:00pm 240
7:00pm 433 (2 units Prozinc)
The numbers at the injection time rarely vary by 30 points, but he never goes down much more than by 50 at his lowest point after the first injection. He gets low carb foods almost exclusively (lots of poached salmon and grilled ahi tuna and some FF and dry DM), but with 15 other cats in the household (including a CRF cat that is getting hi carb foods) he will get the occasional bit of the wrong food.
We've only seen numbers below 100 two times, both at the initial 6:00am test the first time he was at 2.0 units. We skipped the dose then and began to reduce, but numbers pushed into the 300-400s so we're back at 2.0 again with somewhat better results.
Regards,
Perry and his dad.
perry
New Member
Thanks to all for the welcomes!
Denise and Shakes,
On that day I actually did the morning injection at 6:26am but I put the injection time at 6:00 in my message to shorten the number of lines in the table. The evening one was at 7:00pm. Perry gets his injections every 12 hours (or very close to it).
Also, we haven't been taking care to limit meals prior to the evening injection. Perry tends to eat throughout the day and with the weight loss, we don't have the heart to keep him from his food.
Perry's Dad
Denise and Shakes,
On that day I actually did the morning injection at 6:26am but I put the injection time at 6:00 in my message to shorten the number of lines in the table. The evening one was at 7:00pm. Perry gets his injections every 12 hours (or very close to it).
Also, we haven't been taking care to limit meals prior to the evening injection. Perry tends to eat throughout the day and with the weight loss, we don't have the heart to keep him from his food.
Perry's Dad
perry
New Member
Also, when Perry was first diagnosed back in January, his average BG (some longer term average derived from the blood panel) from the vet's testing was around 500.
I do also remember some 500 readings, though we never saw an "off the chart" reading on our AlphaTrak meter.
Perry's Dad
I do also remember some 500 readings, though we never saw an "off the chart" reading on our AlphaTrak meter.
Perry's Dad
Dragonfly229
Active Member
Greetings Perry and his dad! We are very close to you!
Linus wants to eat as soon as I get up, so I do a test then and feed him (this is usually +10 from his PM shot). Then I test again (and usually feed again) 2 hours later at shot time. Usually the numbers are comparable, and occasionally (like this morning), the AMPS number is lower, so I feel like I have enough information to make a good decision, and I'm not shooting a sliding scale, so a shot is a shot.
He won't let me ignore him, and I have too much to get done, and if I did my am shot earlier I would need to do the pm shot earlier, and that's the one that can be problematic, so I just go ahead and test and feed.
Anyway, that's my .02 worth.
Linus wants to eat as soon as I get up, so I do a test then and feed him (this is usually +10 from his PM shot). Then I test again (and usually feed again) 2 hours later at shot time. Usually the numbers are comparable, and occasionally (like this morning), the AMPS number is lower, so I feel like I have enough information to make a good decision, and I'm not shooting a sliding scale, so a shot is a shot.
He won't let me ignore him, and I have too much to get done, and if I did my am shot earlier I would need to do the pm shot earlier, and that's the one that can be problematic, so I just go ahead and test and feed.
Anyway, that's my .02 worth.
Jenn & Baxter
Very Active Member
Oooo another big gray cat in ProZinc. He is beautiful!
Ok so keep in mind if you need to shot early you will want to decrease the dose. Shotting early is actually like giving a dose increase.
One other think I saw where you gave 2 units into 273. That might be a little much into that number. Sometimes cycles that don't have much movement are caused by to much insulin. Or in mid cycle goes higher then comes down just a little bit & then raises again before another shot. That could also mean to much insulin.
Have you done a BG curve?
I know you talked a little bit about Perrys diet. One thing to be cautious about is feeding to much fish. Fish is high in phorphus & mercury which is not good for the kidneys. I was feeding Baxter fish every day until we were DX & I started to get educated about feline diet. In the readings feeding fish more then 2x a week isn't good.
You also spoke about Perry eating dry & the struggle it keep him out of dry food because of his siblings. One thing you could do is let him eat his canned food by himself. Maybe off in a bedroom or bathroom. Then when he is finished he is free to go.
So a couple things to remember no food at least 2 hrs before a test. That test will be food related & you don't want to base your dosing on that BG number.
The second thing to remember no more fish everyday. It's extremely harmful on the kidneys.
Third thing try to elimante as much dry food as possible.
Fourth if you need to shot early remember to decrease the dose. Because giving the normal dose is like giving a increased dose.
The last thing to always love on your Perry. Give him praise after a test.
Since I haven't seen anyway give advice on how to set up a SS. Make a new post here or in health for help to do that. It will be extremely helpful for you & memebrs here.
Ok so keep in mind if you need to shot early you will want to decrease the dose. Shotting early is actually like giving a dose increase.
One other think I saw where you gave 2 units into 273. That might be a little much into that number. Sometimes cycles that don't have much movement are caused by to much insulin. Or in mid cycle goes higher then comes down just a little bit & then raises again before another shot. That could also mean to much insulin.
Have you done a BG curve?
I know you talked a little bit about Perrys diet. One thing to be cautious about is feeding to much fish. Fish is high in phorphus & mercury which is not good for the kidneys. I was feeding Baxter fish every day until we were DX & I started to get educated about feline diet. In the readings feeding fish more then 2x a week isn't good.
You also spoke about Perry eating dry & the struggle it keep him out of dry food because of his siblings. One thing you could do is let him eat his canned food by himself. Maybe off in a bedroom or bathroom. Then when he is finished he is free to go.
So a couple things to remember no food at least 2 hrs before a test. That test will be food related & you don't want to base your dosing on that BG number.
The second thing to remember no more fish everyday. It's extremely harmful on the kidneys.
Third thing try to elimante as much dry food as possible.
Fourth if you need to shot early remember to decrease the dose. Because giving the normal dose is like giving a increased dose.
The last thing to always love on your Perry. Give him praise after a test.
Since I haven't seen anyway give advice on how to set up a SS. Make a new post here or in health for help to do that. It will be extremely helpful for you & memebrs here.
perry
New Member
Thanks for the suggestions Jenn & Baxter,
I think that I will perhaps try the lower dose and lately Perry's number are doing just what you describe. I don't ever get really low numbers, but they tend to just go down a little following the morning injection (or stay the same as is happening today), but will always rise a bit before the 2nd injection. So perhaps it is the too much insulin problem.
And I will work on reducing the fish, though Perry does not like much else.
Best Regards,
Perry and his Dad
I think that I will perhaps try the lower dose and lately Perry's number are doing just what you describe. I don't ever get really low numbers, but they tend to just go down a little following the morning injection (or stay the same as is happening today), but will always rise a bit before the 2nd injection. So perhaps it is the too much insulin problem.
And I will work on reducing the fish, though Perry does not like much else.
Best Regards,
Perry and his Dad
Jenn & Baxter
Very Active Member
Slowly start to lower the dose.
You said you are giving 2 units. Maybe go down to 1.5 units. I am not a dosing expert so maybe you would want to make a new thread about lowering the dose. There are some amazing memebers that will help you more on lowering.
When you lower the dose give it some time to work maybe 5-7 days.
One thing you could try to stop feeding the fish so much is start mixing the fish with chicken flavors. Or sprinkle the fish on top on chicken, turkey or beef flavors.
You said you are giving 2 units. Maybe go down to 1.5 units. I am not a dosing expert so maybe you would want to make a new thread about lowering the dose. There are some amazing memebers that will help you more on lowering.
When you lower the dose give it some time to work maybe 5-7 days.
One thing you could try to stop feeding the fish so much is start mixing the fish with chicken flavors. Or sprinkle the fish on top on chicken, turkey or beef flavors.
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