Diabetes in Pets
Diabetes in Pets
Advertisement
Moggie:Feline
Female Orange/White domestic short hair
Moggie
Born Mar-1998
Dx May-2006
Oral meds :
Regulated Not-yet

Regulated between 100 and 250

Remission Not-yet
Insulin No favorite insulin yet

We live in Kelowna, BC, Canada Moggie lives with a civie torbie, Phoebe, and we also have a Shih Tzu, Luka. Moggie dx'd May 4/06 and started on Caninsulin.

Neuropathy was what took us to the vet - full blood panel was drawn including fructosamine and x-rays to rule out arthritis of spine and pelvis. He heard her heart murmur, saw a slighlty enlarged heart and kidneys, however, Creat and BUN were normal. He shaved her ear to teach us how to home test, taught us how to use a syringe and rented us his One Touch Ultra. We did two curves this way and then realized we had paid for half a unit - we bought one. The useless kibble went into the bin after we found FDMB on line, and we embarked on Caninsulin.

June 22 we did an ultrasound and had her blood pressure taken and we are astounded to report everything, including her heart, is normal - and the murmur is no longer there. And we actually were at the clinic which took care of her for 7 of her 8 years - so her chart was there with which to reference.

We also ventured off with a new vet - the fear for so many years was that her bad heart caused too much of a risk to do this dental. The dental was done, after our change to Lantus, as Caninsulin was not a good insulin for Moggie. It shot her down too rapidly and did not allow her to be in a good place for a long enough time. If I had read the Speaker's Notes by Dr. Margie Sherk, DVM, DABVP, I may have had another insight to this insulin where she, as well as other vets, believes it only has 8 hours of duration. It may have changed how we used it.

The new vet wanted us to feed high fibre kibble - and we said no and are still having a bit of a struggle on that as Moggie has lost a little bit of weight.

These statements about feeding start with Caninsulin and run into our experiences now, with Lantus. We started Moggie on Wellness however, there is a discussion that the recipe has changed with the squash moving up three notches on the ingredient list so we have phased that out. She has a touchy stomach and cannot eat Fancy Feast or some of the super market brands. We do, however, keep her under 10% carb, and find we have to aim to the 4 to 6 % range.

The history of Caninsulin by Intervet started SID, went to BID, and the vet had us up to u40- 2 units - ended up between .4 and .6 u40 (1 and 1.5 u100) We experienced rebounds, non clinical hypos, and not much time in a good place for Moggie - it appears she metabolized the insulin too quickly. It was not predictable.

If you look at wwww.caninsulin.ca, you can see the rapid metabolism graph. We gave it an honest six weeks. The vet who did the ultrasound took a look at her log and the decision was confirmed to move to Lantus on June 30, 2006.

Lantus is our insulin to date with much better results - not perfect, no remission, not in control, but she's happier and looks so much better.

While we were having so much trouble with Caninsulin, other cats were going into remission. As we say, ECID. Each cat is different.

Advertisement