Ketone Strips...Are My Eyes Playing Tricks on Me?

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Ozzy Pawzbourne

Ozzy Pawzbourne

Member Since 2016
We have been testing Ozzy's urine for ketones the past couple of days. Boy is that variation from negative to trace a bit blurry. The last few times, I SWEAR I see a little pink (= trace amounts) in the square at the end of the strip vs the tan color (=negative) but when I have Hubby come look (I don't tell him what I think I see, I just ask him to compare), he always says its tan. Then after I look again, yes, it looks tan to me, too.

Same thing happened to me tonight. So...I decided to take a test myself to check what a true 'negative' looks like for comparison. And then....mine looked pinker than my cat's! o_O I do not have diabetes or any kind of sugar problems. I have a thyroid condition and have blood tests regularly and never have any issues with high sugar. I also have used the home glucose monitor and my sugar levels are normal (sometimes low).

This is confusing. The results of the ketone tests are so important, especially since my cat just came home from a DKA episode 2 weeks ago, so I was just curious what you all think?
 
Ozzy Pawzbourne said:
but when I have Hubby come look (I don't tell him what I think I see, I just ask him to compare), he always says its tan. Then after I look again, yes, it looks tan to me, too.
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One important thing to note....you have to dip the ketone strip into fresh urine and read it at the right time....as it sits, the strip will change color.....so unless your husband is looking at it at the same time you are, he's not going to see the same color

As long as it's "trace" or below, it's probably going to be just fine.....it's when it's over "trace" that you have to get them to the vet
 
As for humans, it can sometimes show a trace if you have been fasting or not eating much. That happened to me when the doc did a urinalysis, I had been fasting because I was sick. Your body is burning fat.
 
Reposting on this thread I started a few weeks ago. For the most part, I 'think' Ozzy's ketone tests have been negative, but then every once in awhile I think the result is closer to trace or looks negative all around on the test strip but the center of the test strip looks slightly (pink). I did another test tonight and within the first 5 seconds, I swore it was in the 'trace' result but then a few moments later (probably longer that the required 15 second test), it looked more on the negative side. This is driving me nuts! I have been putting water in each of Ozzy's feedings to make sure he is getting more hydration.

I'm concerned because he still is consistently in the yellows and pinks with just a few blues here and there. Should I be concerned he will develop ketones again with such high sugars even though he is eating really good and receiving daily insulin?

Also, should I be concerned that he is still in the 200-300 range most of the time and has been consistently for the last month since he was DX? I keep saying to myself 'marathon not a race' but I've been looking at a LOT of other peoples spreadsheets and it seems their kitties are throwing blues much quicker when starting the insulin and their kitty is in more healing ranges for longer period of the day than Ozzy.

Would appreciate any feedback/advice here. THANKS!! :)
 
Don't drive yourself crazy over the difference between negative and trace......as long as it's not above "trace" and he's eating and acting fine, you're good....It IS important to keep testing since he's had an episode of DKA though

You have room to increase his dose.....With Vetsulin, you can develop a "sliding scale" and dose based on the Pre-shot....just take good notes and test enough to figure out a good scale for Ozzy

We can see that .75 doesn't get him where we want him, so you might go ahead and try 1U

There's also always the option of trying a better insulin like Lantus, Levemir or ProZinc (if your vet will cooperate)
 
Chris & China said:
You have room to increase his dose.....With Vetsulin, you can develop a "sliding scale" and dose based on the Pre-shot....just take good notes and test enough to figure out a good scale for Ozzy

We can see that .75 doesn't get him where we want him, so you might go ahead and try 1U
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Other folks on this board thought that 1U was too much so I took him down to .5 then .25 and then back up to .75 based on the vet's recent suggestion. If you look at his SS, on the 1U dose, he dipped into the 60s at +3 and there was some concern over this.

Just when I was starting to 'think' I had the hang of this...I'm confused all over again!

Also, I'm growing more nervous since I go back to work in a few days and won't be able to home monitor him anymore except on the weekends.
 
That's one of the fun things about cats though....their insulin needs can change

Generally, when we're dealing with Vetsulin, the goal is to get about a 50% reduction from PS to nadir....while I agree that on 12/23 he dropped too much, the .75 also isn't really doing the trick either

Have you ever thought about using U100 syringes instead of U40? It would allow you to get some "in between" doses.....there's a Conversion Chart you have to use
 
Ozzy Pawzbourne said:
What is the sliding scale again? Do we dose based on pre-shots on on nadirs? Both
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It varies from cat to cat.....that's why I said to keep good notes and test often

Basically, what a sliding scale means is if the Pre-shot is XXX, you give YYY.....as you learn more about Ozzy, you can develop a sliding scale specifically for him

You might want to also try posting over in the Vetsulin forum.....there are quite a few people using it now so the forum is trying to become more active again
 
I have a slightly different view to Chris. Based on my experience treating my own cat with Caninsulin and also from studying the data of other cats here I would not advocate use of a sliding scale scale dosing method for cats on Caninsulin/Vetsulin (C/V).

C/V has the ability to yank down unusually high preshot BGs without any change in dose. See this post for further discussion:

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/scooters-multiple-endocrine-issues.169703/#post-1849184

Also, have a look at Elmo's recent BG data (late December 2016) to see another example of the same phenomenon (especially the yellow PS BGs):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZAoPctvtyhkyKhyx_vJh8ffy8ZTl_Ac1AqiCovCd_70/pubhtml

As we know, each cat will respond in its own way to the insulin with which it is being treated so it may be possible to use a sliding scale dosing method with C/V but, IMO, a lot of data should be gathered first before attempting to dose in such a fashion. I would strongly advocate for much closer BG monitoring if such a dosing method were practised using this particular insulin.

When treating my own cat I used nadirs as my guide to dosing Caninsulin with only a cursory nod to the preshot BG levels (especially when Saoirse moved into a lower BG range). The choice served us well.

My two penn'orth.


Mogs
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Critter Mom said:
When treating my own cat I used nadirs as my guide to dosing Caninsulin with only a cursory nod to the preshot BG levels
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Do you think we should take him back up to 1U? He's been on .75 for several cycles and as Chris & China mention above, it's not getting him where we want him.
 
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