Tips to change insulin type and diet

[worldtraveller]

Hi there!
My 12 year old kitty called Kitty (yes, how original ) was diagosed with diabetes mid December. We live in Moscow (Russia) where I am on an expat assignment, and getting proper treatment from local vets is a bit challenging as I don't speak Russian and there are only a few English speaking vets. The vet we met in December gave him Caninsulin which I started to give Kitty about 3 weeks ago. Caninsulin has helped somewhat - Kitty is more alert and active, however he is still drinking a lot and his BG level is still high (I have done some home testing).

Based on various discussions with other vets at home and reading internet, I believe Lantus would be better option and actually I got that from a vet when I visited home for Christmas (starting with 2U twice a day). So - now I have Lantus in my fridge, but have still given Caninsulin... My vet in Moscow has not worked with Lantus, so I am a bit uncertain to change insulins.

Do others have experience how to change from Caninsulin (or Vetinsulin) to Lantus? I am afraid I am a bit on my own here as I don't have a good vet to talk to here...And the vet at home, who prescribed the Lantus, was asking me to work with a vet here who knows Lantus (I am sure I can find one here, but will take an extra effort and I have a feeling that that Russian vet might be still leaning towards Caninsulin).

The local vet we saw also was not so helpful regarding what diet change I should make, so I have now given Kitty Royal Canin diabetic dry food. Based on internet discussions, it seems that vet food is the way to go, but would that change the insulin dosage?

All views are helpful!! Thanks in advance!

Mia

 

[Melanie and Smokey]

Welcome Mia and Kitty,

I don't have a lot of advice on the trasitioning of insulin. 3 weeks is not a lot of time to have given the insulin to work, but the US version of that has been pulled from the market and Lantus is a good insulin. You are just going to want to be comfortable that you are using an insulin that your vet doesn't know.

Usually when starting Lantus, the dose is not above 1U. You'd start at 1U and let that settle for about a week. Lantus is an insulin with a depot or shed and you may not see a lot of effect from it until about a week into the treatment. If you read the stickies at the top of the Lantus Tight Regulation ISG you will find a lot of good information about using Lantus. You definitely want to keep to a lower dose if you are doing diet changes at the same time.

As for food. Prescription foods are not really the best. There are very few of them that are low enough in carbs for a diabetic and the prescription dry foods are all too high of a carb content. We target less than 10% carbs, with most of us aiming for the mid to lower range of that. You can see the carb content of foods on this page http://binkyspage.tripod.com/canfood.html and this page https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B8Uu8g ... ist&num=50. I know finding some of these in another country will be more difficult, but aiming for patte style, no gravy, grain free foods should get the carbs down.

 

[BJM]

...Based on internet discussions, it seems that vet food is the way to go, but would that change the insulin dosage? ...

Did you mean WET food as opposed to VET food? We wholeheartedly encourage the use of low carbohydrate canned or raw food available at many retail outlets for your cat ... diabetic or not! See Cat Info for more details on why.

Sometimes, you need to provide the continuing education materials to the vet (they handle numerous species, so its difficult to be up to date in everything). You might share this article with the local vet, to help familiarize him with Lantus.

Lantus/Levemir testing & dosing protocol Roomp & Rand