Yay! It works!
Sheila, let me see if I have the story right. Salem was diagnosed 1/2/2015. He's no longer eating dry food, right, but he was when diagnosed - was he eating the zero carb before, or some other dry food?
Is Depo a steroid? If so, yes, steroids can induce diabetes in cats.
There was another cat on here a while ago that had the rodent lip thing - i think it's called e. granuloma. His person found that there was a relationship between the skin outbreak and his blood sugar.
One thing that's helpful to know is that there are a couple of times when a cat has high numbers that it doesn't mean that they need more insulin: sometimes when a dose in increased a cat will react with higher blood sugar for a couple of days. We call that the very official name of "New Dose Wonkiness." The second occasion is when a cat is bouncing. If a cat either goes into a range of blood sugar that's lower than their body has become used to, or if a cat's blood sugar drops fast, the cat's body will respond by releasing hormones and stored sugars to send the blood sugar back up high. There's a longer explanation of it & NDW here. The difficulty with making dose adjustments at the vet's is that if you happen to get a test during either NDW or a bounce, it can make it look as though the cat needs more insulin, when in fact, they might not. The way to be confident about the dosing is to test at home - which is what you're doing. Kudos to you for mastering it - it can be a challenge at first but it becomes routine before long.
When you're having to skip shots because he's too low to shoot, especially after just starting out, it likely means the dose is too high.
There are 2 dosing methods we use here. Someone linked them to you above. With the Start Low Go Slow method, a cat begins at 0.5u if they are on canned food only, and the dose is evaluated with a curve once a week. Dose changes are then done by 0.25u increments (one quarter of one unit), based upon the results of the curve.
With the Tight Regulation Protocol, the starting dose is determined by weight, then adjusted by 0.25u or 0.5u increments, depending on how low the cat's blood sugar has been getting over the previous 3 or so days.
How much does Salem weigh?
Regardless of whether you want to follow SLGS or TR, you have to know how low the dose is getting Salem in order to know how to adjust the dose. The low point with Lantus is typically somewhere between +3 and +8 or so during the cycle. So it becomes critical to either do a curve before adjusting the dose or to do mid-cycle checks. It's really the only safe way to use insulin.
Let us know the answers to those 2 questions above and if you could take a look at the dosing methods and let us know what you want to follow, then we can figure out how to help you move ahead.
