This is a continuation from New Insulin and Crashing.
Its been an interesting few weeks. Back at the beginning of the month of August I switched Bender off of Vetsulin to ReliOn N (Novolin N). If you don’t know, Vetsulin is off the market for an undetermined amount of time.
At this point Bender is decently regulated on ReliOn N. The numbers aren’t as tight as Vetsulin but good.
Vetsulin average numbers: 110-180
Novolin average numbers: 60-170
He dips pretty low right before he eats.
I have to do another round of testing this coming week. So I will see if there are any changes.
But lets go back a few weeks. After talking with my vet he said the 70/30 mix of insulin, at least Novolin N wasn’t a good solution for dogs. It wasn’t producing good results and the Novolin N was a bit better.
We also dropped Bender down to 7 units on a u100. Which is awesome. If you remember Bender was receiving 22 units of Vetsulin on a u100 needle. Now that Bender receives 7 units, a bottle will last about 2 months instead of 3 weeks. Plus the cost of ReliOn is the same as Vetsulin. Over the course of the year I should save about $260-270. Not bad at all.
Our cat did great on Novolin N but her sugar would spike too soon since it’s much less long lasting. She was on 2.5 units of N ($20 @ local gen merch Wal-mart) but had to switch to Prozinc which is the ‘new vetsulin’. It’s more stable and lasts about 12 hours so I only have to give her 2 shots a day and she’s more stable when we’re not home. That’s the upside.
Now for the downside…
Prozinc ‘requires’ a U-40 syringe. I put that in quotes because we adjusted her dosage to a stable level and then switched to U-100 syringes with the same amount (in our case 3.5-3.75 units of U-40 = about 9 units of U-100).
1 Unit U-40 = (approx) 2.5 Units U-100 (I’m not a vet so don’t take my word for it!!!)
The other downside is it’s over $100 a vial. But it’s also more stable and last over 60-90 days. However, in our case we simply had to weigh vet bills (she’d been getting sick a lot recently) vs insulin prices to figure it’s better than having an unhealthy cat. (She hasn’t been back except to board in 3 mths!)
A cat’s metabolism is much faster than that of a dog or human, this is why NPH is not a good choice for our diabetic kitties, it does not seem to have the duration that is needed.
Lantus seems to be a great insulin for our diabetic cats with no significant peaking action which works well with cats that are free fed.
My diabetic cat was on PZIVETT before it was taken off the market several years ago. He was able to reach remission for 10 months.
Sadly he has since passed from cancer.
I’m confused… I know Vetsulin was taken off the market in apprx. Jan. 2011. I heard it was coming back and the Vet was very happy because it was a less expensive insulin and worked great for small animals.
You are saying the new version, Prozinc is more expensive than the average insulin and it is not working good for your pet :/ That worries me, since ‘Winston’ hasn’t been responding well to his Novolin. We’ve bee holding our breath’s while waiting for the Prozinc to finally come out. Oye… now what?
Doesn’t look like Vetsulin is back on the market.
As for Prozinc, it looks like it is only for cats.
-Jeff