Insulin Dosage Help! I think I messed up the progress we made :( (new to forum)

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Sugarkitty15

Sugarkitty15

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Hello,

I need some help! I recently started at home testing. (6 days in) I thought we were doing great until I took my kitty to the vet on Monday to see how accurate the new meter is. We found out it's -164 pts! Over last weekend, I was taking blood glucose readings every few hours to start getting more data, there were a few times his readings were below 200, so I skipped his insulin. (as I thought it was much lower than it was) Come to find out, those numbers were wildly inaccurate! Now, ever since we went to the vet on Monday, his blood sugar is really high. (I'm thinking it's a combination of skipped insulin shots, vet stress and the food issue below) I'm wondering if I need to increase his dose a bit? To make matters worse, I ran out of his lower carb canned food, so he's been getting I & L & Y stews, which have about 15% carbs. Low carb food will be here on Friday. (Brands are indicated in my profile)
Can I get some advise on how to handle his insulin dosage right now and what I should watch for as we get back to low carb canned food on Friday PM?
Thank you in advance for any help you can provide! I feel like such a crappy fur baby mom right now!
 
I'm not sure what device the vet uses to test blood glucose (I never asked) --but we used the same blood sample to test on my meter, then compared the difference.
 
Your kitty is doing pretty well actually! That 1.5 dose seems to be a good one for now. I'd hold it a few more cycles and see what happens.

As for the difference....Yes, the pet meters will be higher than a human meter, but there's no "formula" where you can say "if X on human, it's Y on pet"

At lower numbers (which are the most important for safety) they're fairly close. Your "time to act" on a human meter is below 50....on a pet meter it's below 68

As the numbers get higher, there will be a bigger difference, but it really doesn't matter if you get a 350 or a 500...."Too high" is "too high"!

Just pick one meter and trust it. Otherwise you'll truly drive yourself crazy trying to compare them.

We're not really focused on exact numbers anyway (except when they're too low)….we watch more for "trends" over time...ask yourself "Is the current dose getting my cat where I want them?"
 
Can we get you to fill out your Signature? The profile is fine, but when you need a fast answer, it takes time for us to go back and find it or ask you the same questions over and over. If you look below our comments, you'll see the "signature" with the basic info we need to know about each cat.

The Signature box is the same place you posted the link to your spreadsheet. It just helps to have that extra info in there too.

Your name/Cat's name, age, sex, date of diagnosis, type of insulin, type of meter, type of food, any other health issues/medications? ….and of course leave the link to your spreadsheet!
 
Chris & China (GA) said:
Your kitty is doing pretty well actually! That 1.5 dose seems to be a good one for now. I'd hold it a few more cycles and see what happens.

As for the difference....Yes, the pet meters will be higher than a human meter, but there's no "formula" where you can say "if X on human, it's Y on pet"

At lower numbers (which are the most important for safety) they're fairly close. Your "time to act" on a human meter is below 50....on a pet meter it's below 68

As the numbers get higher, there will be a bigger difference, but it really doesn't matter if you get a 350 or a 500...."Too high" is "too high"!

Just pick one meter and trust it. Otherwise you'll truly drive yourself crazy trying to compare them.

We're not really focused on exact numbers anyway (except when they're too low)….we watch more for "trends" over time...ask yourself "Is the current dose getting my cat where I want them?"
Click to expand...

Ok great! That makes me feel a bit better about the numbers I've been getting! We'll see what his numbers look like when I get the low carb food restocked. (Put it on auto ship so I don't run out again!) This whole meter difference really through me for a loop--I appreciate your help! ((I also updated my signature :)))
 
Dose of 1.5U of Prozinc looks ok for now for Squeaks. Please, do put the real BG values on your SS, not any sort of adjusted values. We want to see the true BG reading on the SS.

Don't have much to add to what other folks have already told you.
We would like to see you get a few test numbers in during the night cycle. A "before bed test" every PM cycle is a good one to get.

I do have a question for you. What does the I & L & Y stand for, in your signature? Does you cat need to lose weight? The Purina OM is meant for weight loss. But feeding canned food, will likely achieve the same goal, since canned food is lower in calories than the dry cat foods.

There is a handy spot on the spreadsheet, the Remarks column on the far right, to track information like the food you are feeding. You might seriously consider putting the food being fed there, especially since you ran out of LC wet, and are feeding medium carb food right now. Notes on the food, on an ongoing basis, can help us interpret what is going on with the BG (blood glucose) levels over time.

Saw your other post in the Prozinc ISG group first, then saw that Chris said she had replied to your post in Feline Health first.
 
Deb & Wink said:
Dose of 1.5U of Prozinc looks ok for now for Squeaks. Please, do put the real BG values on your SS, not any sort of adjusted values. We want to see the true BG reading on the SS.

Don't have much to add to what other folks have already told you.
We would like to see you get a few test numbers in during the night cycle. A "before bed test" every PM cycle is a good one to get.

I do have a question for you. What does the I & L & Y stand for, in your signature? Does you cat need to lose weight? The Purina OM is meant for weight loss. But feeding canned food, will likely achieve the same goal, since canned food is lower in calories than the dry cat foods.

There is a handy spot on the spreadsheet, the Remarks column on the far right, to track information like the food you are feeding. You might seriously consider putting the food being fed there, especially since you ran out of LC wet, and are feeding medium carb food right now. Notes on the food, on an ongoing basis, can help us interpret what is going on with the BG (blood glucose) levels over time.

Saw your other post in the Prozinc ISG group first, then saw that Chris said she had replied to your post in Feline Health first.
Click to expand...

Thanks for looking at this! I will be sure to get some before bed readings. That’s a great idea to add the food he’s getting feed in the comments to see trends. Will start to do this as well. Yes, he definitely needs to lose weight! He LOVES his dry food so I’m trying to slowly ween him off. (First cat I’ve ever had that loves dry food lol)
 
Eliminating all dry food, which is higher in carbs, can and likely will drop the BG (blood glucose) levels for your cat.

So closely monitor, keep the SS (spreadsheet) updated in case you need to yell for help on here, and hope the food transition is a success. It will likely be 2 steps forward, and 1 step back at times. Be patient, be persistent, use your cat's natural hunger instinct to get him to eat the wet food. In other words, don't free feed him. Take the food up at times, so he has to ask for food to be fed. Or get a timed feeder, that automatically opens for food at set times.
 
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