Too much or not enough insulin?

[Abbey Erwin]

Hello!

Our cat Cosmos was diagnosed this January with diabetes. He has since been to the vet ruling out pancreatitis and the like. He has also had his insulin (Prozinc) raised from I believe 2 units at a time in the morning and evening to 3 over time and now he does 4 in the AM and 3 in the PM.

Upon doing tons of research, it's entirely possible that we might have missed his sweet spot jumping by single units. He is still eating and very hungry all the time. In the last couple weeks he has displayed neuropathy and that is sometimes looking like it's getting better, than doesn't - likely because we don't have his blood sugar in a regulated place for him. He was just starting to use his wrists to lean on a bit more yesterday.

We have done ONE glucose curve before today and it was god awful, more so for us, lots of botching - well - apparently very common for someone who is new at doing it. Awkward, less expertise... anyhoo... my room mate picked up a human glucometer and we did a reading of 453 this AM before his shot and a reading of 312 about 4 hours or so after his AM shot. (To note, this is MUCH better than the numbers we were getting a month or two ago - more like 600's).

That being said, the boy is tired. He's extremely hungry most of the time, and also note the neuropathy not getting better due to high blood sugar. We are trying to see if going down to 3.75 in the AM and staying at the 3 for now at night will help at all. Maybe will try to stay at this a week or so doing readings and charting them for results.

We just want to find out what his sweet spot is... because we aren't so sure raising it up 1 unit every time he doesn't seem to be balancing out is the best approach? Which as well intentioned as the vet is, seems to be the blanket suggestion.

Thank you for any help that you can give or advice you have to offer! (Feeling a little blind is the worst thing about getting a handle on treating feline diabetes - I feel optimistic about it and am happy there is a resource here to help along the way!)

Take care,
Abbey

 

[FurBabiesMama]

Hi. Those are pretty high doses of Prozinc he is getting. Normally, it is suggested here that dose increases be in increments of .25 u. You may be correct that his appropriate dose has been passed by. It is good that you are testing, and that will get easier.. really. If you could go ahead and set up a spreadsheet to record any test results you already have and any new ones you get, it would be very helpful to people here when you ask for dosing advice. It will also be a very valuable tool for you moving forward.
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/understanding-the-spreadsheet-grid.156606/
Then, maybe come on over to the Prozinc forum for dosing advice.

What are you feeding Cosmos? Having a high-protein, low-carb wet food diet is very helpful in getting the glucose levels down. If you have not already made your way there, I suggest you check out catinfo.org. There is a link in my signature to the cat food database from that site. It is very helpful when determining what foods to feed.

For the neuropathy, I hear that the best thing is B12 together with folic acid. A lot of people use Zobaline since it has both.

 

[Abbey Erwin]

We are feeding him primarily Weruva wet food that's high in protein and grain free. Dry food varies but we look for the high protein and glycemic friendly food. We picked up Zobaline and also have a B12 that we found with no sugar. Most of them all have sugar which is sad!

Plans are to go down by a quarter unit a week or so to start and just be sure to keep testing him daily to find out where his sweet spot is. Hopefully this isn't too aggressive or too slow. We are not sure where a good starting base point would be and to go from there but we also don't want to jar his system too dramatically one way or the other if that's a possibility.

Thank you again for all of your help and the links! Checking them out now!