Ways to get blood for testing besides poking ear

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Tadd68

Tadd68

Member Since 2018
My Carlos absolutely hates getting his ear poked when i do his BG testing, my wife has to hold him down and he throws a fit.

Is there another place to use the lancet to get a blood droplet for testing .. maybe i'd have better luck ?

Thanks!
 
Bellasmom said:
I test my cats paws, I switch paws each time
I tried this week to do ear but he will not let me anymore
I wipe with alcohol swab before and after
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Just wanted to say thanks again, this morning AMPS i had my wife hold him while i got a blood sample from his paw pad .. he was so good and never even moved. This is a big relief as he threw a fit when we would get his ear
 
Been testing before each shot but it's so hard for us to do any tests between do to the hours we both work. This morning AMPS was 302 .. i will get home about 5:30-6pm and test/shoot/feed and update my SS. He is doing good eating the Fancy Feast Patē, i been adding some extra water and noticed he has been drinking less from water bowl
 
Tadd68 said:
Been testing before each shot but it's so hard for us to do any tests between do to the hours we both work. This morning AMPS was 302 .. i will get home about 5:30-6pm and test/shoot/feed and update my SS. He is doing good eating the Fancy Feast Patē, i been adding some extra water and noticed he has been drinking less from water bowl
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You are doing great, just try and get one in-between when you can, maybe a +2 or +4 tonight, are u off on weekends
 
Bellasmom said:
You are doing great, just try and get one in-between when you can, maybe a +2 or +4 tonight, are u off on weekends
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I work every other weekend, this Friday im going to get more readings throughout the day. His ear looks sore where i been poking him .. i did his paw once but it mskes me nervous to think he gets in litter box with his paws and could get infected so i went back to ears.
Are you supposed to stick the small vein in ear close to edge or go between vein and edge of ear?
 
Your asking wrong person about the ears, bella won’t let me, i wipe with alcohol wipes before and after and it’s such a small hole it clots almost immediately, I’ve a bunch about that, I just don’t have any other choice and it was bruising Bella’s ear bad
 
Bellasmom said:
Your asking wrong person about the ears, bella won’t let me, i wipe with alcohol wipes before and after and it’s such a small hole it clots almost immediately, I’ve a bunch about that, I just don’t have any other choice and it was bruising Bella’s ear bad
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Yesi may have to go back to his paw, he hates the ear poking
 
He seems to be doing pretty good. We took him in to our vet yesterday for a full BG curve and she wanted him to continue on 3-units every 12hrs. She said that we did not need to poke him twice or more daily to check his sugar as has been in the 300's-400's and he was taking a beating on his ears. She said to continue until next Thursday and wants me to do a curve that day at home and call her to go over results.
He loves the Fancy Feast patē food, seems to be drinking less water, has been more vocal and playful last 3-4 days
 
How is Carlos doing, haven’t seen you guys here for a bit and no info on spreadsheet for a bit, hope all is ok
 
Bellasmom said:
How is Carlos doing, haven’t seen you guys here for a bit and no info on spreadsheet for a bit, hope all is ok
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He is doing good, we took him to the vet last Friday for a day long BG curve, vet said to leave him on 3-units but told me i was poking him too much and that it was not necessary to check it every time before his shot. He told us to wait till tomorrow and we could do our own bg curve at home by checking and recording every 2hrs .. he wants us to call and give him the numbers and we'll go from there
 
i can tell you NO one on here agrees with not testing before shooting, if the cat is low to don’t want to chance hypo especially if you are not gonna be home to fix it
I work in healthcare daily and I do NOT ever give insulin without testing first
Glad everything is going well was thinking about you guys the other day
My suggestion is to test before shooting
I have never understood why vets say don’t test or u r testing to much, my vet is thrilled I send him a copy of spreadsheet once a month, he said he wished everyone did.
 
Thanks for all of the information here. We may give the paw a try. I absolutely hate poking the ear, and inevitably have to poke 2-3 times to even get it to bleed. My one reservation with the paw is the potential for infection, via the litter box, mainly. As his blood sugars continue to run into the 400's, on 4 units on Lantus every 12 hours now, we are testing him as the vet has recommended, only every few days. Once his glucose levels come down to at least less than 300, I will test prior to dosing before bedtime, and if one of us won't be home. I'm not going to check a blood sugar every single time I give a dose of insulin as I think his quality of life would decline dramatically.

I am starting to get really nervous about the fact that the increasing doses of insulin do not seem to be having much of an effect on his blood sugar. A major complication for Zack is that he is on Prednisolone 5mg. every other day for an unknown food allergy. (Testing is currently in progress and will take 2-3 weeks to get results.) Could I please have some feedback re: how much insulin your cats are on, and how long of a time period it took to get your sugars down? I have read through some of these threads and have seen things like "acro" and other endocrine problems, so before I overwhelm myself by reading up on those things, I just wonder if this is a normal course for a diabetic cat. I am so relieved this forum exists, and thank you all again.
 
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Tadd68 said:
He is doing good, we took him to the vet last Friday for a day long BG curve, vet said to leave him on 3-units but told me i was poking him too much and that it was not necessary to check it every time before his shot. He told us to wait till tomorrow and we could do our own bg curve at home by checking and recording every 2hrs .. he wants us to call and give him the numbers and we'll go from there
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Yes I also have to disagree with this. Testing before shot I would think would be the most important time to test! You could throw him into hypo if he is too low to give shot!
I know my limit on the poking is about 3per day :eek:I like to see where she is about 6 hours post shot. I guess I picked the 6 hour mark as that is when vet wanted to see her. I also absolutely hate doing the ear poke, but this weekend I’m going to really make an effort to get a curve by testing every couple of hours.
I work 10s and can only feed and give insulin twice/day (but she is now transitioning over to Young Again so she always has nibbles. Myself...I would never do a shot without a test to make sure she’s not low. Even if she’s been running high there can be a BG dip for some reason or the other. Gretchen was running high 300s to 400 and one morning “boom” she was 183 I think it was.
 
We are so confused right now, we have went to the same vet our entire lives and we did our own blood curve yesterday from 6-6 pre-shot started out at nearly 500 then it dropped slowly .. lowest reading was 373 at 2
Vet wanted us to call today which my wife did, Vet says "i really think he needs to be back on the Purina DM to help regulate his blood glucose better" ... i thought this wet Fancy Feast would be better .. Vet said something to my wife about digestable carbs/non digestable carbs and DM ... i am just confused
He is on 3-units every 12hrs, eating 2 cans of Fancy Feast a day (6 & 6) and yesterdays curve never showed a reading under 373
Just confused, tired, and wish we could get him straighted around
 
Tadd68 said:
We are so confused right now, we have went to the same vet our entire lives and we did our own blood curve yesterday from 6-6 pre-shot started out at nearly 500 then it dropped slowly .. lowest reading was 373 at 2
Vet wanted us to call today which my wife did, Vet says "i really think he needs to be back on the Purina DM to help regulate his blood glucose better" ... i thought this wet Fancy Feast would be better .. Vet said something to my wife about digestable carbs/non digestable carbs and DM ... i am just confused
He is on 3-units every 12hrs, eating 2 cans of Fancy Feast a day (6 & 6) and yesterdays curve never showed a reading under 373
Just confused, tired, and wish we could get him straighted around
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It would help if you put any/all curve data on your spreadsheet. Aside from curves are you trying to test at times other than AM/PMPS? You really don't know how low he might have gone during the day (on a day off) or overnight (before bed test can help predict that). I know you've struggled with testing. Is the paw pad working better?

We'd all disagree with your vet about food. DM pate is fine because it's 6% carbs but the dry is too high (14+% I think). It's expensive though. Fancy Feast is fine. It's hard to get conflicting advice here. What we recommend is backed up by a ton of experience and successful outcomes.
 
Re vets: Many really good vets have little experience treating diabetes in cats. They mean well and suggest what they've learned is the way to do things. If you like your vet there's no reason to change. However, the level of experience here in treating FD is enormous, more than almost any vet could match. You might well have to make that mental leap and take on the treatment yourself using resources and help available here. It's one of those situations where you try one way, find that it isn't working well and decide to try something else.

Many of us have been in that dilemma of vet versus FDMB and had to go out on a limb to find out that this way is better. I'm one of those people. :)
 
Kris & Teasel said:
Re vets: Many really good vets have little experience treating diabetes in cats. They mean well and suggest what they've learned is the way to do things. If you like your vet there's no reason to change. However, the level of experience here in treating FD is enormous, more than almost any vet could match. You might well have to make that mental leap and take on the treatment yourself using resources and help available here. It's one of those situations where you try one way, find that it isn't working well and decide to try something else.

Many of us have been in that dilemma of vet versus FDMB and had to go out on a limb to find out that this way is better. I'm one of those people. :)
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Thanks for the input, and I will keep that in the forefront of my mind. I have some experience as a pediatric nurse with diabetes, and feel that between me and my husband, a physician, we can safely monitor Zack when we're home. We are currently transitioning between free feeding dry food to scheduled canned food twice a day. (He really doesn't "fast" more than 6 hours at a time.) I will refer to the food chart for brand advice. We were also advised that snacks between meals were fine, as long as they adhere to his diet.

Can you please tell me how long it took to get to a stable insulin dosage? Or are you on a sliding scale? I'd like to know insulin dosages other cats are on. Also, should i just start another thread for this? Sorry, I'm (obviously) new to this format.
 
Zack Attack said:
Thanks for the input, and I will keep that in the forefront of my mind. I have some experience as a pediatric nurse with diabetes, and feel that between me and my husband, a physician, we can safely monitor Zack when we're home. We are currently transitioning between free feeding dry food to scheduled canned food twice a day. (He really doesn't "fast" more than 6 hours at a time.) I will refer to the food chart for brand advice. We were also advised that snacks between meals were fine, as long as they adhere to his diet.

Can you please tell me how long it took to get to a stable insulin dosage? Or are you on a sliding scale? I'd like to know insulin dosages other cats are on. Also, should i just start another thread for this? Sorry, I'm (obviously) new to this format.
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My comment was in response to Tadd68's post but I'm glad it helped you too. :)

You'll get more attention for your concerns if you post your own thread on this forum. Here's a bit of info to start:
  • some people use a type of sliding scale if their insulin is a non depot type
  • dosage per cat can vary from really tiny amounts like 0.25 units up to enormous amounts in the 20-30+ units range for cats with high dose conditions like acromegaly. Average dose is somewhere around 1 - 3 units.
  • it's rare to get to one dose that works day in and day out over time. Most of the time the dose has to be slowly and carefully tweaked up and down in order to keep BG in a good range. It can take a long time to get to that stage - weeks if you're lucky but many months is more common. Most vets won't know or tell you this.
 
I have not been told to do this testing yet and not sure i will be able to
I am taking Ciara to the vets on Wednesday it must be for that test i hope the vet can do it rather than me
I dont know for sure that i am getting the insulin in properly yet i have now done 10 injections so hope i have got it right.
 
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