Stopping insulin?

[RobC]

Hey everyone. My cat has been on lantus since March. He is currently on 2.5 in the AM and 2.5 in the PM.... The last few times we checked him he has been in the 200's. He ONLY eats dry food (so frustrating), and after some research I have learned that if you can get them on a wet food diet, it will drop their numbers that some may not even need insulin.

Last week we took our cat to the vet and he was fasting. His blood glucose was 215.

On to my questions..

1. Tonight my wife and I are going to try to give him mainly wet food. We are going to add some crushed up dry food to the top to hopefully get him to eat. I plan on checking his levels when I get up in the AM.. if they are under 200 do I skip his shot? When I check again in the PM if it is still 200 do I skip the shot again?

2. Is it safe to just stop insulin if your cats numbers are good? Do cats have any withdrawl symptoms? Is it safe?

I just have a feeling that if his blood glucose was 215 while he was stressed out at the vet (and all he ever eats is hard food), it would drop his numbers a bunch if that hard food was replaced by wet.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Chris & China (GA)]

Here's your last post

if they are under 200 do I skip his shot? When I check again in the PM if it is still 200 do I skip the shot again?

For now, if you get a Pre-shot number under 200, we suggest you stall, don't feed and post for help......make your subject line clear that you're stalling and need help (I suggest "STALLING.....NEED HELP!!"......we like to have someone watching out for you the first few times you shoot a lower number than you're used to

2. Is it safe to just stop insulin if your cats numbers are good? Do cats have any withdrawl symptoms? Is it safe?

While the answer to your question is "Yes, it's safe to stop insulin.....there are no withdrawal symptoms", if he's on 2.5 BID now, unless his numbers really drop by getting rid of the dry food, you're going to want to very slowly drop his dose anyway. We like to have them "earn" reductions in dose in .25 unit increments until they're all the way down to .1 unit before taking the insulin away completely. We want them to get a strong remission, not necessarily a fast one

Are you home testing?? It's very important, especially if you're changing his food to low carb wet!! If you have been testing, it would really help if you'd use our spreadsheet and post some of the numbers you've been getting (at least the last 2 weeks).

If you're not home testing, you need to start immediately to keep him safe!

Here are instructions on setting up the FDMB spreadsheet.....We really do depend on it to be able to give you the best advice for your "extra sweet" kitty.

 

[Wendy&Neko]

There are some dangers to stopping insulin, especially if you cat is prone to ketones. Are you testing regularly for ketones?

 

[julie & punkin (ga)]

What happened to the idea of switching him to Levemir?

I would make the food switch gradually from dry to wet. There is a relationship between the amount of carbs he is eating and his current 2.5u dose - if you dramatically reduce the amount of carbs, his dose could be too high. It's also best for his tummy if you do this gradually, over a few days. Have you looked through the www.catinfo.org site yet? It's run by a vet and she has a great section in there on how to transition dry food addicts to wet food.

We're all pro-hometesting here. We're not vets, and test data is what we have to go on to help people. Can we help you get going on that? Tons of ideas to help people make it easier are on the "Where Can I Find?" thread - look in the second half under Starting out with a diabetic cat:

It sounds like you are already testing some. If you need help getting a spreadsheet set up, just say so. There are a few people here who can do it for you and turn it over to you. The reason we are so pro-spreadsheet is because there is a several day flow to a diabetic cat's blood sugar. It is common for a cat who has gotten used to their blood sugar being over 300, for example, to react when their blood sugar gets into normal range. We call this a bounce, and that event - having their blood sugar get lower than they are used to - can raise blood sugar for as long as 3 days. So we look at the highs and lows in context on a spreadsheet so we can spot if their are low numbers that are causing the higher numbers.

Also, increasing a dose can cause "New Dose Wonkiness" - which for no known reason is a phenomenon where the cat's blood sugar rises for a day or so after a dose increase. Then it comes back down. Bouncing and New Dose Wonkiness are explained in the first 2 posts in this thread.

I would not stop his shots just because you are changing his food. If it were that easy to go off of insulin, we wouldn't have so many cats posting here daily. I would start a spreadsheet, get some more tests in so you can see what's going on, and see what to do with the dose based upon those tests.

Please ask if you have questions.