This might be longwinded...but any advice would be helpful

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Wesley and Spicoli

Wesley and Spicoli

Member Since 2017
Dx on 2/16/17, bg over 400. immediately started 2u/2u of prozinc and switched him over to FF classic. was bumped up a week later by our vet to 2u/3u. the following week bg still not coming out of the 300s. bumped up again to 3u/3u. i expressed an interest in home testing and our vet gave me the vet glucogauge by henry schein at no cost. (anyone have any experiences with this one?) started testing preshot and was averaging 280. stopped testing bg as much because it had been consistent for some time. he really hates having his ears pricked even though ive taken all the advice here and tried my best to put it into practice. im sure with time we will both get better at it. continued with 3u/3u till 3/23 when i came home from work (close to his nadir) and noticed that he was very lethargic. gave him a snack, 1 can FF classic and he perked up a bit. (on a side note he's a big kitty used to weigh 13.7lbs and once he developed diabetes his weight dropped to 11.3 and the vet wants to see him back to 13-14 range. hes pretty slim ATM and bony.) decided i really should test preshot last night and was surprised when his bg was 108. obviously we had no insulin last night. this morning his preshot values were lower than normal at 225. called the vet and he advised to give a reduced dose at 1.5u. so tonight his preshot bg was 98. called the vet again because they told me i should just so they have this info for our checkup monday, even though ill be bringing it all with me. so no shot tonight either. any ideas on whats going on here? i will say that there is dry food out for our other 2 cats - hills science diet active longevity. i do know spicoli isnt eating it. he hates dry food and has a missing front tooth (have no idea how he lost this one) and 2 missing molars due to 2 FORLs. i am currently not testing for ketones, should i have them check him for them monday? i do plan on getting testing supplies for this, but he is an indoor/outdoor and always prefers to go potty outside. so i may just have to shut him up on occasion to test. he is eating and drinking normal and has had no odd behavior. any advice/input would be greatly appreciated.
 
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I would have your vet test your kitty for ketones.
I think that a lot of vets start a cat on too high of a dose of insulin. We usually suggest raising the dose 0.25 units at a time. My vet started Smoky on 2 units of vetsulin and it nearly caused him to have a hypo. The wonderful folks on here guided me on how to raise his blood sugar back to a safe level.
 
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@Lois and Java has used Henry Shein meter, fellow Prozinc member. Did you test him when he was lethargic that one day? At minimum you should test twice a day at preshot times to make sure they are safe to give insulin. I think ketones are more concerning when their BG numbers are higher but should still test weekly. Will tag our mentors @Rachel @Kris & Teasel
 
I didn't test him the day he was lethargic until it was shot time, in hindsight I know I really should have. From this point on I will always test PS even if he hates it. (And any other time I start to notice any different behavior) I understand how dangerous hypo is and that it's really up to me to do my best to prevent it from happening. Unfortunately I'm either at work or asleep at 5+, but I am at home and up at 7-8+. I can move things around gradually, but I'll only ever be able to hit 5+ once a day except for Sun-Mon when I can be home all day. And it seems that will work out well with weekly testing for ketones on those days. Going to go pick up some strips tomorrow.
 
Hi, I can only speak to the vet meter by Henry Schein. My vet gave me one for free also; he had been given it by the HS area sales person. I also have an alphatrak 2. The HS meter reads ~15 to 40 points less than the AT. The meters are very similar. The HS has one blood drop intake port, the AT has two. Re stored memory, the HS counts up with the most recent test number on top; the AT is the opposite, if you need to look up a recent number you have to scroll through everything from the beginning. Both use tiny drops of blood. AT strips are fractionally more expensive than the HS, both are around a dollar a strip - AT ~$1.02, HS ~$.98.

Henry Schein is a medical, dental, and Vet Supply Company. My biggest gripe with them is that it takes about 3 weeks to get test strips from the time I place an order. My vet won't let me deal with them directly, and there's no contact information on their website, so I honestly don't know if my vet's staff, the HS company, or the local HS sales rep is the delay problem. I had a request for information that I had to take to the HS Twitter account, which got their social media people to get on their sales person to get back to me. To be fair, he did call my vet, not me, from his vacation in Hawaii to answer my question.

All the AT supplies can be ordered quickly and easily from ADW Diabetes, so that's why I'm using the AT now over the HS. I actually like the HS meter more, especially the lower numbers!
 
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Lisa and Smoky said:
I would have your vet test your kitty for ketones.
I think that a lot of vets start a cat on too high of a dose of insulin. We usually suggest raising the dose 0.25 units at a time. My vet started Smoky on 2 units of vetsulin and it nearly caused him to have a hypo. The wonderful folks on here guided me on how to raise his blood sugar back to a safe level.
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My vet had me giving Java two units of prozinc twice a day after dx, and within 36 hours / 3 shots, he was in the vet ER with severe hypo, very low, very scary and dangerous. The good people here, especially Kris and Teasel, helped me and continued to help me with protocols and dosing. Key to all of that was starting a spreadsheet and regular testing.
 
Will be starting a spreadsheet this weekend. Ordered some ketone testing supplies since I can get them cheaper online than in my area. Going to try to and do a curve at home tomorrow so I have a little more data to bring with us on Monday. Should i test every hour if possible? 3 weeks ago we did a curve but his numbers never dropped out of the 300s. AMPS was 147 so no insulin last night (PMPS 98) or this morning.
 
Hey there! Sorry I didn't get the tag til now...been feeling under the weather since last night.

It sounds like your kitty has definitely been on too high of a dose. I'm glad you're testing now so you could catch those low numbers! We suggest new members not shoot numbers below 200.

It's fine to test nadir (which is the midcycle...anywhere from 5-7 hours after the shot usually) just when you can. If you can't get it every day, and most of us can't, just get it when you can and try to grab other numbers during the week. I usually tried to get a before bed test on work days, which was 3-4 hours post shot. That way, I had some other data to use. We have a saying here..all data is good data!

For a curve, testing every 2 hours is fine.

Please do let us know what other numbers you get! And if you get time, it would be helpful to read our Beginner's Guide and Protocol . They have lots of good info! Do you have any questions we can answer for you?
 
Thanks for all the advice guys :) Had a few spare minutes at work, so I re-read the guide and protocol. Got a +7.5 reading when I got home from work - 128. Still a little concerned about ketones but nothing I can do until Monday when my supplies get here and we have our check-up. While I am concerned something might be going on with him, I'm a little excited about these low numbers without insulin. Looking at the data I do have I would have to say that my vet was in a hurry to get his numbers down and he's been on too high of a dose. If his numbers go back up to a point where I need to shoot I think I'll start with 1u and see where that takes us. Thanks again guys!
 
Vet visit today, asked them to do a urinalysis because of concern over ketones. There were none present. Dosage reduced to 1u BID. Also started spreadsheet with my recent data.
 
Didn't need any insulin yesterday. High AMPS this morning but reduced from 1u to .5u because of what happened on 3/28 at 1u. In 2 hours he dropped from 315 to 56. So we'll see where this takes us. Switching meters today from henry schien to AT2. I do plan on using both but ordering things through my vet seems to take forever.
 
Yong said:
I will take your High PS numbers over mine lol:D. He seems to be doing very good and might work well with a small dose :cat:
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So far we're sitting pretty - +3 107. So for right now I think the 1/2u might just be the perfect dose. Will test again at +6.
Seems like Maury is a tricky little kitty! :)
 
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