Question about injections

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concrete

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Hi all -

I have an 8 yr old male cat with diabetes. I am currently in the process of getting him regular on the insulin doses and he is now at 2 units, twice a day.

Last night when giving him his nightly dose I messed up with the injection and injected it into the tissue/skin (back of neck) and there was a bubble afterwards. This morning before his insulin I figured I would take his blood sugar before injecting him because of the incident yesterday. He was at 120. Normally in the morning at that time he is 350-400. I am wondering what happened, did the bubble create a "slow release" effect or did it just take a while to circulate? Anyhow, since he was so low, or normal I guess, I skipped his dosage. I didn't want to give him too much and have his sugar drop.
Any ideas or theories on why it would have been so low?

Any help is appreciated,
Dan
 
Do you test before each shot? What do you mean there was a bubble afterwards? Like under the skin? My Charlie has that after every dose, but his dose is pretty high. What kind of insulin is he on? How long has he been on it? If you are using Lantus or Levemir, it takes a few doses to see the full effect of the insulin, so that could be the cause. It was wise of you to skip. when you're just starting out, we recommend not shooting when the number is under 150-200. Once you gather more info on how the insulin affects him you can shoot at lower numbers.
 
Hi Dan
When you say "skin", do you mean you shot into "meat", or muscle? Rather than just under the skin?
What type of insulin?
You said you checked his BG this morning due to the mistake yesterday? Do you test before every shot? If not, you really should be doing that anyway.
Carl in SC
 
Prozinc is the insulin.
He was diagnosed in May so about 3 months. He was on 1 unit at first but the vet recommended that I up it to 2 after I did a curve.
I test him randomly and when I can tell if he is not feeling well. He's 8 and I've had him since a kitten so we are pretty close and I can usually tell but I do realize that he is a cat and they tend to not show distress as much as humans would.

The shot went into his skin I believe. I pulled up the neck skin like a tent and shot him there but I think the needle went back into the skin on one of the sides of the tent. Since it was only 2 units there was only a small bubble but it was raised.
 
Sorry we left you hanging!! I think the best thing you can do is test before each shot and try to get a spot check in every so often. The nadir on prozinc is usually around +6, so 6 hours after a shot is a good time to test. Dosing of pzi is based on a combo of nadir and pre-shot numbers. You could try dropping back to 1.5, or even 1u bid (twice a day) and do a little extra testing. Then go up slowly from there. Most pzi users use u-100 syringes from any human pharmacy (as long as they have 1/2 unit markings) with a conversion chart- that chart is available in the pzi sticky post in the pzi ISG (insulin support group). There tons of good info in that post...maybe too much. But just read it as you can. The u-100 syringes allow for micro-dosing in .2u increments. Many cats who do well on prozinc are on tiny doses. Like under 1u. So micro dosing becomes important. The ISG is made up of all current or former pzi users and they are a great group! They will help you interpret your data and work out a dosing strategy.
 
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