Insulin Dosage

[Bosco]

Bosco had a glucose curve at the vet on 11-7-13. Her numbers were 86, 102, 156, 207. Bosco is on 4 units 2x a day. The vet said he was concerned about the 86 number. So he told me to give Bosco 4 units in am & 3 units in pm without changing the amount of food. When I asked questions pertaining to the correlation between the insulin & the amount of food & that I was concerned the her bg would go up in the pm, he told me to do what I want. Has anyone ever been told to administer 2 different dosages of insulin without changing the amount of food?

[Monsters Momma]

Re: Insulin Dosage

I've never heard of a vet saying 'do what you want' to a client! The 86 would concern me, and the 102 worries me a bit. If Bosco is active at all, that 102 could come down into dangerous levels.

I do believe there are several people on here that do just that, one dosage at morning and another at night. I'm sure they will be chiming in soon.
Mel

[Judi]

Re: Insulin Dosage

the recommendation sounds normal to me! but I'm with Mel on the "do what you want" Maybe the vet knows you and knows you would do that anyway?

We did different doses at night for awhile. Most dogs need more insulin at night because they aren't as active but my Jenny, if she is having some low readings, tends to have them in the morning too for some reason.

Some maniacs have done 24 hour curves just to see what happens at night! I've done a night curve but never a 24 hour one

[Eddie]

Re: Insulin Dosage

We did slightly different doses morning and evening for quite a time - but only 1 unit difference for a biggish dog (13 and 14 units). The bigger dose was for the evening.
We do test him quite a bit and make that sort of adjustment on our own, and tweak his food amounts as well. I find we know the fine detail of how Eddie reacts to doses and food better than the vet.
Antonia

[Bosco]

Re: Insulin Dosage

The vet said to give Bosco the lower dosage at night 3 units instead of 4. You are saying that a dog would need a higher dosage during the night so the 3 units at night doesn't make any sense.

What I'm understanding from your post is that the less activity, the higher the dose of insulin that is needed.

If the 86 & the 102 readings are both too low, what reading is safe.

[harleychik66]

Re: Insulin Dosage

Bosco, I will say this. My guy's numbers looked like your boys when he went in for his curve tests. I will not go into how I argued with the vet he was overdosing him blah blah because of the low morning numbers. Let's just say when he crashed I kinda said screw the vet, dropped him from 18 units down to 12 two times a day and when he had a scheduled curve test 2 days later his numbers still read low morning and steadily climbing throughout the day.

I decided this was the time to start home testing and while my vet initially wasn't happy with me dropping the dosage I looked at him and said...you weren't there when he crashed so I really don't give a blankety, blank what you think.

Surprisingly when I started home testing I NEVER saw those low morning numbers with a higher rate in the afternoon. The last vet curve was totally different that what I saw. I firmly believe the stress of him being there all day....even though he loves the vets...borked up accurate readings.

And my guy is 95lbs and when I stuck to 12 units 2x a day he was doing awesome. He was being way overdosed on 18 units a day. We have since needed to bump it up due to other meds that affect absoption but that is a different story.

I am not a vet I can not tell you what to do but it sounds to me like he is getting overdosed. From what I dealt with I would say drop both doses down to maybe 3 units and home test for 3-5 days and see if his levels even out across the board. I don't think some vets understand you need to treat the lowest number and try to get the higher number down. Heck I didn't understand this concept but once I started doing it myself with the lowest number and dropping the dose the higher number came down as well and evened out.

I hope this makes sense to you.

[jesse girl]

Re: Insulin Dosage

i can see why your vet may have suggested lowering the dose at night with the 86 first thing in the morning

i agree with harly and drop to 3 units for am and pm you can always raise back up by a quarter unit if needed but i would hold steady for a week or longer unless you see some lower numbers .

in general the curve looks good no big swings in blood sugar and you did see a rise off the 86 not sure if something was given as far as sugar or food to accomplish that or it naturally came up on its own .

[amydunn19]

Re: Insulin Dosage

I give two different doses day and night but my dog drops frequently after breakfast up until noon so my lower dose is during the morning. She tends to be higher at night so she gets a half unit more.

It would never be a good idea to change food and insulin at the same time. If you change both amounts to compensate, you wouldn't really change the numbers. Why not try a half unit instead of one whole unit? It seems a small tweak is all you need. 1 unit to my 12lb dog is about 100 points, sometimes more so I rarely make any adjustment an entire unit at one time.