When to skip insulin injection?

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MissSarahJean

MissSarahJean

Member Since 2022
Hi everyone!
I’m new to the site :)
I’ll try to give as much info as possible!
My kitty Alice has been diagnosed with diabetes since the beginning of April. We’re on Lantus, my vet currently has her on 6 units every 12hrs. At the beginning of diagnosis we started with 4 units. We’ve done 2 glucose curves at home and I have another one to do in a few days. She’s been on 6 units of Lantus since May 19th.
Her numbers have gotten much better but I was never advised as to which numbers to look out for as being too low to administer insulin. On Thursday her morning reading was 6.3 so I made the call to skip her morning dose as that was the lowest I’d ever seen her blood sugar. Yesterday her morning number was 8.1 I was unsure but gave her her dose and everything was fine. This morning she’s reading 7.1. Her usual injection times are 8am and 8pm. I haven’t given her shot this morning because I’m afraid of putting her into hypoglycaemia. So what numbers should I be looking for as too low to administer insulin? I was going to call my vet today but they are not open yet.
Thank you all in advance!!
 
Welcome to LLB. New members are asked to start with an intro on the main forum. We need you to get set up with a spreadsheet and signature before posting here. You can copy and paste what you wrote here in the intro post on main. Once set up you will be directed here when ready. There’s lots to read in the stickies at the top of this forum.
 
Thank you! I made a new post in the right spot :D Hopefully! Also, I’ve created Alice’s spreadsheet. I’m hoping I did it correctly.
 
Thank you. Your spreadsheet is perfect. Which Purina dry food are you feeding? There are only a few low carb dry foods. Dr. Elsey’s and Young Again for sure and Epigen.

You have increased the dose way too fast. Too much insulin can look like too little. With SLGS you hold a dose for 7 days unless a decrease is earned by dropping under 90. Was your starting dose 4.0? We start at 1.0.

Also you don’t have any tests after PMPS so you are missing half of the picture. Many cats drop lower at night. Please start getting a before bed test at least at +2. Lantus onsets for most cats +2/3. So if that test is lower than the pretests it could be an active cycle. Lantus is dosed based upon how low it takes the cat and without night tests and some mid cycle tests we don’t know what that is for your cat.

Do you have syringes with half unit markings? I suspect you are not using syringes at all but rather a pen that only doses in full units.

I am going to tag a few others to see what dose you should try. For now if you get a pretests around 200 you could shoot. I’m concerned that the dose is too high. You will need to decrease but we need to figure out how much to reduce.
@Sienne and Gabby (GA) @Suzanne & Darcy @Wendy&Neko @Bron and Sheba (GA)
 
tiffmaxee said:
Thank you. Your spreadsheet is perfect. Which Purina dry food are you feeding? There are only a few low carb dry foods. Dr. Elsey’s and Young Again for sure and Epigen.

You have increased the dose way too fast. Too much insulin can look like too little. With SLGS you hold a dose for 7 days unless a decrease is earned by dropping under 90. Was your starting dose 4.0? We start at 1.0.

Also you don’t have any tests after PMPS so you are missing half of the picture. Many cats drop lower at night. Please start getting a before bed test at least at +2. Lantus onsets for most cats +2/3. So if that test is lower than the pretests it could be an active cycle. Lantus is dosed based upon how low it takes the cat and without night tests and some mid cycle tests we don’t know what that is for your cat.

Do you have syringes with half unit markings? I suspect you are not using syringes at all but rather a pen that only doses in full units.

I am going to tag a few others to see what dose you should try. For now if you get a pretests around 200 you could shoot. I’m concerned that the dose is too high. You will need to decrease but we need to figure out how much to reduce.
@Sienne and Gabby (GA) @Suzanne & Darcy @Wendy&Neko @Bron and Sheba (GA)
Click to expand...

I had no experience with diabetes at all before Alice’s diagnosis. As most owners are probably the same. So I’ve been following my vets instructions to a T. He started Alice on 4 units of Lantus.
I’m not 100% sure what dose method I’m using in terms of SLGS and TR. My vet increased the dose from 4 units to 5 following her first at home glucose curve then we gave it a week, did another curve, and he increased to 6 units and told me to do another curve in 2 weeks this time instead of 1. Not sure what his method is here.
Yes I am using an insulin pen. It only goes up by single units.
I am feeding her Purina cat chow complete advanced nutrition. I was mixing it with a lower carb dried food- Crave chicken & salmon as I had learned about it online as being a lower carb option. I’ve ran out of it though so she’s been back to just the Purina cat chow and then wet food at second injection.
 
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