Thanks again for the warm welcome, everyone!
Hi Gabby (or rather, Sienne, sorry):
As far as we know, Sylvan doesn't have any other health issues. We are checking for ketones, and so far he has had none since he's been on insulin. I believe he has problems jumping when he is dehydrated. We started adding water to his food (suggested by someone on this site) and he's been moving much, much better. I don't think it's neuropathy because he isn't walking with a "low gait"?
When he did have ketones, it was after he was first diagnosed. At first, our vet did not want to put him on insulin and we also were using a bad meter that read his sugar much lower than it actually was. He got sick pretty quickly and ended up in the hospital for 4 days. He then went on Prozinc. Our old vet was no help finding a good dose for Sylvan. He wouldn't even look at his chart, he just said keep it at 3 units.
We then switched vets, who seems to have a better handle on diabetes. But she had a hard time finding a Prozinc dose as well. She said not to go above 3.5 units. When we did raise the dose, Sylvan had really wonky numbers. He would go high, have a reverse curve, or he would have his nadir at shot time. So our vet thought he was getting too much insulin. No dose seemed to work when he was in the 200's, but when he was in the 300's, 2.5 units would bring him down. Maybe he has a panicky liver? He also had bad numbers at the beginning and end of every vial.
Anyhow, our new vet admitted she did not have much experience with Prozinc, and all her other patients were on Lantus. So I figured we would switch him over before he hit the 6 month mark. There seems to be a known protocol with Lantus, whereas with Prozinc it's all guess work.
Poor Sylvan has gone through so much and I hope this will work for him. He hasn't been himself for 5 months and still hasn't gained the weight he lost when he first got sick.
