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Will you be home around your PM shot time? If so, that's when you'd want to test to see if she'll need a shot tonight. They can't go hypo if they haven't had insulin, so she's safe for you to leave her at this point.
 
She didn't get a shot today, as I didn't test. So, I'm not sure what time shot would be?
She was 166 last night at PMPS and that was around 10:20pm. I will be home again tonight at about 10:30 again. Then I'll need to leave again tomorrow at 6:45am and I may not be able to return until Tuesday at 8:30am.

I'm going to try for another extended break tomorrow. If I can get one...is there a time you recommend coming home to check?

Hope that makes sense.
 
Hadn't you decided that her shot times were 9am/9pm? or am I mixing Gracie up with another kitty? You could test her right now, and then your 'new' shot time could be 6:30/6:30 since you could shoot her 12 hours from now in the morning. Or you could test her when you get home, and just know that you'll need to skip in the morning since it won't have been 12 hours yet.

Basically, since you skipped this morning, you can shoot anytime you want to - you just have to make sure that the shots times that follow are 12 hours apart.
 
You are correct. 9am/9pm are the general shot times for me. I think I'm going to test her when I get home, as I assume (lightly) that she won't need a shot tonight.

I am more concerned about the extended gap tomorrow--about 26 hours. Ugh.
 
Assuming you're right and she doesn't need one tonight, try to give yourself some extra time in the morning to test her. That way if she needs one tomorrow you can shoot her before you leave (doesn't that sound awful?!?! -- I mean inject her before you leave ;)).
 
Got it. I'll test her before I get ready in the morning instead of after and inject if over 200. If she for some reason she over over 200 tonight, I will inject her with her normal dose. This will mean I can't give her AM dose (if needed) as it would be to early.

I'll update spreadsheet when I get to work and settled--about 8:15am my time tomorrow.
 
Teenuh said:
Why is it recommended not to shoot . . . opps! I mean inject under 200 in the beginning? Every so often I look at others spreadsheets and see many numbers under 200, but insulin was still given.
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For safety....at the beginning, you have no data on how your cat responds to either insulin or feeding.

As you gather more data and learn more about Gracie, that "no-shot" number comes down
 
Someone did shoot Sam when he was feral - he's got a pellet/bb/something in his butt. Found it on an x-ray a few years back. :eek: He likes to sit on the windowsill and yodel during the warm summer nights, so it's not hard to figure out why someone might have tried to scare him off :p
 
Djamila said:
Someone did shoot Sam when he was feral - he's got a pellet/bb/something in his butt. Found it on an x-ray a few years back. :eek: He likes to sit on the windowsill and yodel during the warm summer nights, so it's not hard to figure out why someone might have tried to scare him off :p
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What?!?? Dear lord. Sam you are a trooper!! Someone gave my "old" cat anti-freeze once. I wouldn't say they have gave it to her, but they were working on cars next door and she got a-hold of it.
Big vet bill. Sad ending.

Sam sounds like such a character! Does he hiss or growl? I only ask because Gracie doesn't. Instead she chooses a more non- verbal approach when shes mad.

The only obnoxious thing she'll do is sit in the windowsill and chirp or talk to the birds she sees but can't get at.
 
I can't jinx it.
She got sick this morning. She woke me up. Vomit and diarrhea on the carpet. Which even surprises me even more that her number was still that low.
 
Oh no! Gracie, what's up with that? Hopefully it was just a one time thing and she'll be fine when you get home. This is one of your long days, isn't it? Do you have a neighbor who can check in on her sometime today/this evening?
 
So, would I be OD-ing my cat right now if I were giving her the 1u of insulin with these low numbers (I promise I'm not)? I'm just curious, as my vet said not to test.
 
Djamila said:
Oh no! Gracie, what's up with that? Hopefully it was just a one time thing and she'll be fine when you get home. This is one of your long days, isn't it? Do you have a neighbor who can check in on her sometime today/this evening?
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Hard to say. It could be a different flavor of the FF Pate that didn't agree with her, or maybe stress too. She saw me packing a bag last night.
I know she knows what that means. Ugh.

I reached out to my cat lady to see if she is available. No word yet. Her feline is having some big problems right now though too. I don't want to over burden her.

If needed I can go home today briefly to check in on her.
 
Teenuh said:
So, would I be OD-ing my cat right now if I were giving her the 1u of insulin with these low numbers (I promise I'm not)? I'm just curious, as my vet said not to test.
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Very possible.....that's why we are so anal and insistent about home testing! Because if you hadn't caught that 79 and injected anyway, you could have come home to a tragedy.

Death isn't the only possibility either.....permanent blindness, brain damage and a whole lot of nasty consequences are possible with severe hypo's
 
Hearing that even frustrates me, and makes me feel like my review of the vet who OD'd my cat on insulin was justified. I was skeptical, but went ahead and wrote the revie anyway.

My co-worker told me in the beginning that "blindness" is a guarantee with feline diabetes. Her dog was a diabetic.
 
Wow Gracie! That low number sure is nice...but I'm sorry her tummy's upset. I hope she's better this evening!
 
Nononononono! :eek:

(sorry, I'm feeling a little dramatic today :rolleyes:)

She will always be a diabetic. She will never be able to handle carbs. She is (hopefully) becoming a diet-controlled diabetic, but giving her carbs can throw her right back into high numbers and she'll be back on insulin. That's what happened to Sam. He went into remission in three weeks the first time. Then after about a year of remission I got lazy about the food and he relapsed. It's been a year now and well.....you've read my thread. :(
 
Djamila said:
Nononononono! :eek:

(sorry, I'm feeling a little dramatic today :rolleyes:)

She will always be a diabetic. She will never be able to handle carbs. She is (hopefully) becoming a diet-controlled diabetic, but giving her carbs can throw her right back into high numbers and she'll be back on insulin. That's what happened to Sam. He went into remission in three weeks the first time. Then after about a year of remission I got lazy about the food and he relapsed. It's been a year now and well.....you've read my thread. :(
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You are allowed to feel a little dramatic--especially if you are trying to get someones attention. Sometimes, I feel like being a "Petty Betty".

I'm glad I asked. I didn't necessarily think she could go back to dry kibble, but a little part of me was like . . . what if . . . . but that was shot down real fast.

Sorry Gracie, and sorry bank account. I tried.

Oh Sam.:(

Were you still testing? Or did you start noticing "symptoms" again?
 
Cats are gods.jpg


I think this sums it up pretty much.
 
I was mostly testing at least once/month and often a bit more which is what's recommended during remission. Except that the holidays hit and I went like six weeks...of course that was when he decided to come out of remission. I hadn't even noticed that I'd missed his test - I noticed all of a sudden that he was peeing and drinking too much. It still took me a few days to do the test b/c I knew what had happened and didn't want to face it. It was super fast. One test he was 81 (12/17/16) and the next he was 302 (2/5/17).
 
Ah yes. Barely two months? So fast and scary.
I only noticed Gracie drinking an increase in water 1x, but after I became sick and was home more paid closer attention. I'm sure it was a more frequent thing, but I wasn't home enough to pay attention. She stopped eating her dry food. I thought for sure it was a dental problem. I started watering her dry kibble to see if she would eat it. She ate some, but not much. Then I started noticing the sticky- hard to clean litter. One day I picked her up and thought wow she seems smaller. Lost 6#'s.

It's a hard pill to swallow . . . especially if you "feel" like you did something wrong. I hope you don't beat yourself up over it.

Did your vet know you stopped giving insulin and he was in remission?

I'm trying to figure out what I should/should not tell my vet.
 
Teenuh said:
I'm trying to figure out what I should/should not tell my vet.
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I lot of people get stuck in this position. If your vet is willing to work collaboratively and your tell him/her you want to be hands on with Gracie's FD treatment, that's best case scenario. We always say to stick with a vet you like for general kitty health care if he/she isn't a "my way or the highway" type of person. Some people just nod pleasantly and do their own thing at home if their vet is a bit too directive.
 
I'm more angry at the cat food company's packaging that led me to believe it was low carb. When I finally contacted the company directly and asked, it turns out the food was 23% carbs. They have since changed their recipe and I believe it's much lower now, but I will never ever feed their food again - or trust what I read on the package! Whenever I switch food now, I contact the company to confirm the values.

As for the vet, yes, he knew when I stopped. I called and gave him an update with current numbers over the two weeks of the OTJ trial so he knew I was making an informed decision to go off insulin. My vet is definitely not an expert in FD, though he is a very nice person. So he was okay with me making decisions for Sam's care.
 
When she called me on the phone to give Dx she said I could either start insulin, try diet changes and recheck in a few weeks. She didn't like me feeding Gracie Blue Buffalo when she was overweight, but oh well, I did my own thing.

I would say for the most part I like her. I wish she encouraged home testing, but I'm finding that few vets do.

I'm not a human diabetic, but I'm almost 99% certain they have to check their BS prior to injection. My cat lady/sitter said her vet said her cat wouldn't go hypo, as their body will tell them eat.
 
Djamila said:
I'm more angry at the cat food company's packaging that led me to believe it was low carb. When I finally contacted the company directly and asked, it turns out the food was 23% carbs. They have since changed their recipe and I believe it's much lower now, but I will never ever feed their food again - or trust what I read on the package! Whenever I switch food now, I contact the company to confirm the values.

As for the vet, yes, he knew when I stopped. I called and gave him an update with current numbers over the two weeks of the OTJ trial so he knew I was making an informed decision to go off insulin. My vet is definitely not an expert in FD, though he is a very nice person. So he was okay with me making decisions for Sam's care.
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Even food labels for adults are so misleading. Ugh. What food was it? If you don't mind sharing.

My vets office has a "pet dietitian". o_O Hills Science Diet and Royal Canin are the only thing she recommends for diabetic felines. After I did my research and I returned the bad food she tried to to tell me that there are good carbs and bad carbs.
In the end it is still carbs. You don't tell a human diabetic . . . you can still eat all the carbs you want, but just make sure they are whole grain.

Carbs=Bad for diabetics.


Can you remind me. Do use AT or human meter? I'm guessing if you presented to your vet yo gave him AT numbers.
 
Teenuh said:
My cat lady/sitter said her vet said her cat wouldn't go hypo, as their body will tell them eat.
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Her vet is wrong. There is no guarantee whatsoever that a hypoglycaemic cat will automatically seek out food. (The same holds true for human diabetics. My best friend is a lifelong diabetic and he taught me to look out for warning signs that he was going hypo without realising it.)

For example, some cats become extremely lethargic and/or spacy and do not automatically seek food (and to this I can personally attest). Actually, a cat can actually have a symptomatic hypo after a fast, steep drop down to the low part of the reference range (i.e. still in the nominal 'normal, safe range'; and I can also attest to the truth of this).

I've actually read here about a kitty that was sitting on the sofa looking absolutely fine one moment only to fall off it completely unconscious due to low BG levels a moment later.


Mogs
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Speaking of low BS.

I arrived home from school and I had a weird feeling to check Gracie's blood sugar. She was at 40.
I suspect she didn't feel well, or something to that nature, as usually when I arrive home she greets me, or I can find her on my bed or the couch. She was in neither spot. After calling her name she came out of hiding.

She was at 40. I checked again and she was at 45. Is this considered a hypo? She had no insulin this morning--so I'm guessing no. Do I need to retest soon? I'll be home for another 4 hours.
I gave her fresh food after I tested. She ate some, but not much.
 
There are some cats who just run a little lower. If you find Caitlin and Pita's spreadsheet you can see that Pita has a number of lime green days when he was OTJ for a brief period.

There are also a few non-diabetic health issues that can cause cats to go hypoglycemic, though they are quite rare. It may be worth keeping an eye on her a bit to see if she continues to run low. I'm afraid I can't remember what exactly causes it, but I believe it's a small tumor somewhere. Most likely though, she is just running low for a moment and it's not a problem. The old spreadsheets actually didn't count hypos until 40. Personally, I'm glad it was bumped to 50 now. Feels a little safer for those of us who go to work once in awhile. ;)

As for your friend's vet -- Sam has always been great about feeding himself when he was going low, and letting me know that something was up. However, just this morning he failed at that job. I was just about to run out the door for work and grabbed him for the out the door test and he was at 46. He was sitting in the doorway to the kitchen, maybe two feet from his food dish, but hadn't tried to eat anything. I put some food in front of him and he dug in like he was ravenous. Why in the world he hadn't just helped himself is beyond me. But again, that's why we test. Most of the time they can and do take care of themselves pretty well. But every once in awhile....
 
Djamila said:
Why in the world he hadn't just helped himself is beyond me.
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I was with my friend when he hypoed on a couple of occasions. He became a bit disoriented, didn't know exactly what was going on and his behaviour changed (became a bit skittish and a little incoherent of thought). Thankfully because he'd primed me on warning signs I was able to quickly give him some sugar water to get his levels up again quickly. As soon as his BG got back up it was like flicking a switch and his speech and thinking patterns went straight back to normal.


Mogs
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Well, that hurt. I accidentally poked myself when I was doing a retest on Gracie.

Anyway, do any of you weight your felines? I've become a little obsessed about it lately--only because she dropped so much weight in the beginning.

I usually just put her on my human scale.
 
I'm going to be home till about noonish today then I have to go run some errands and head to work.

Should I do any extra testing? I tested 2x this morning--about 30 mins apart.

I only ask, as eventually wouldn't I be shooting below 200? just at a lower dose.
 
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We only shoot under 200 if the cat requires it in order to stay under 200. So for example, this morning Sam was 141. If I didn't give him his full shot, in a few hours he would have been over 200. He needs insulin in order to stay lower than that. His own pancreas is not producing enough insulin to keep him healthy, so I have to inject insulin to help him out.

Gracie is staying lower than that on her own. She doesn't need injected insulin to do it. Her own pancreas is providing all of the insulin she needs. If you added more insulin to what she's already producing, it would be too much, she would hypo, and could be harmed.

Right now you really only need to test once or twice/day. You're just monitoring to make sure she stays in healthy ranges on her own.
 
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