? Ear testing getting progressively harder

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Lisa and Angel

Lisa and Angel

Member Since 2023
I'm having a harder and harder time with getting blood from Angel's ears. In the beginning, she bled a lot. I have the Freestyle Lite Lancet Device, and at first I'd shoot on depth setting 2, and I'd get a nice fat drop, usually right away but always within 3 tries.

Now though? We're at depth 4 (as deep as it'll go), I alternate ears, warm her ear beforehand, shoot on the vein, but a lot of the time NOTHING is coming out. When it does bleed, it's only a tiny little bit. In the past few days, it's taken about 10 tries to get a decent sized drop. Obviously this distresses her, and me, and wastes a lot of materials too.

Does anyone know what's causing this? Is it scarring from the frequent testing? Is there anything I can do? She used to let me test her easily, but she's starting to hate it now and I can't even blame her.

Edit: also, I don't know if this matters, but in the beginning I didn't even have to warm her ears. I don't recall if she just always had warm ears or it didn't matter to the testing. But now she pretty much always has cold ears and I always have to warm them up beforehard.
 
Also, I've read conflicting info about "milking" the drop. Some say it's fine, others say it affects the glucose measurement. What's the truth?
 
Will she tolerate/enjoy an ear/face massage? I find that the best way to get a decent drop out of Herman….(vs just warming the ear or milking after)…, I also find setting 2-3 to be the best on the lancing device, 4-5 goes too deep and pokes through to other side sometimes which oddly yields less blood. I’ve not found milking the ear to affect reading but a smallish drop (which gets accepted by the reader) sometimes reads low, and I never add more blood if the reader asks me to…., I throw out and start over as those results where I add blood seems to always be wrong.
 
Amy & Herman said:
Will she tolerate/enjoy an ear/face massage? I find that the best way to get a decent drop out of Herman….(vs just warming the ear or milking after)…, I also find setting 2-3 to be the best on the lancing device, 4-5 goes too deep and pokes through to other side sometimes which oddly yields less blood. I’ve not found milking the ear to affect reading but a smallish drop (which gets accepted by the reader) sometimes reads low, and I never add more blood if the reader asks me to…., I throw out and start over as those results where I add blood seems to always be wrong.
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Usually she does, but now she knows it's a precursor to testing she tries to get away. :(
 
Just now I tried without the lancet device, as I thought the clicking sound might be uncomfortable for her, and I can't aim for "the sweet spot" as well with it anyways. I dislike needles but if this is better then this is what we'll do.

She flinched when I pricked her. I've always read that it's painless but this is clearly not the case if she flinches.

I did get a drop after milking the spot, so I think that'll work. And not having to prick her 10 times will surely help. But is there any way to make it painless for her? I got her right on the sweet spot
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and held the lancet the right way, so I don't know why it still hurts her. Even milking the spot afterwards seemed painful as she tried to pull away.
 
Do you think it may be a scar tissue related issue? I'm alternating my boy's ears now, although at the beginning -foolishly- mainly opted for one. I find it harder to get blood out of that ear even now, after giving him a month or so break (used the Libre instead) so his ears could fully heal.

Edit: I just realised you're using the exact same meters I do :D (with the exact same, horrendous discrepancies between CGM and BGM too... so aggravating! :mad:)
 
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.:. in.active .:. said:
Do you think it may be a scar tissue related issue? I'm alternating my boy's ears now, although at the beginning -foolishly- mainly opted for one. I find it harder to get blood out of that ear even now, after giving him a month or so break (used the Libre instead) so his ears could fully heal.

Edit: I just realised you're using the exact same meters I do :D (with the exact same, horrendous discrepancies between CGM and BGM too... so aggravating! :mad:)
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I think I actually screwed up in not milking for a long time. Looking back, that's when the trouble slowly began. Maybe the milking actually triggers the capillary response of making it bleed easier. And I wasn't aware of the "sweet spot" before, so when I started getting less and less blood I'd aim for the vein, thinking that's where I'd get the most blood right? I feel so bad reading that that actually hurts them :arghh: of course she remembers that and anticipates the pain. Maybe that's why she flinched. It'll probably take some time for her to forget that. I'm giving her lots of extra treats and love in the meantime.

In the beginning I ALSO only did 1 ear! And it bled very well. So I don't think it's the repeat tests/scar tissue that is the issue here. I also went through 3 libres, each time skipping ear tests pretty much the entire time... maybe that was actually a bad thing. Like it resets the tiny capillaries that have formed before, so it's as if you're starting from the beginning again.

And yeah, it's really frustrating to see the differences between the Libre and the Lite. I still have one left over, but won't be putting it on her anymore. She didn't mind it, but the data was pretty much useless with how large the discrepancies were.
 
Don't beat yourself up about it. For what it's worth, I did exactly the same things you mention above. :facepalm:

It was actually my vet encouraging me to use the Libre when I raised my concerns about his ears, to let them heal. Maybe not testing with the Libre on and "resetting the tiny capillaries" is not a bad thing after all - yes, you may need to start all over again, but at least you start with a clean slate, and much wiser, so won't hurt her as much ;) (But yeah, don't do it with unreliable Libre readings, I'm just trying to put your mind at ease, because I know how guilty we feel when let alone we see them in pain, but we are the ones actually causing the pain.)
My boy's favourite spots were always his ears - he loooved ear rubs over chin or cheek or belly or tail-base rubs. And with all the poking and pain I took even that away from him :(
However, I also noticed, that I get blood easier and/or a HUGE drop on occasions when his BG is lower. I believe it's to do with the blood being less concentrated and less "thick/sticky" with sugar... so hopefully once our fur babies are seeing lower numbers on a regular basis, these testings let alone able to become slightly less frequent, but also will be easier both on them and on us - trying to stay positive here :cat:

The Libre situation is so infuriating! I see others using it with (presumably) no problems, whereas I'd get a 23 reading on a 10 for example. When it's screaming HI (27.8+) at me, I know he's still below 20, so I don't even flinch anymore. Nonetheless, it's absolutely outrageous and makes me wonder whether it may be a manufacturer issue in my country and/or this being the reason they're so willingly offer free trials here. I, too, have like 4 boxed Libres here still, but I'm very reluctant to use them. Maaaybe, when his BG is a bit more stable, and we are nearing regulation I'll start to use them again, as I found the discrepancies being smaller under 8 mmol/L, but until we are having to deal with anything higher than that, it's absolutely useless.
Abbott is useless too; I have given them a breakdown of the issue (it's obviously on my non-verbal son, as far as they know :smuggrin:) and they called saying "well, since it's a reoccurring problem, you may want to stop using it, as in rare cases our product isn't compatible with certain skin types"...

Anyway sorry, I went off on a tangent.

Edit: Wanted to add re: ear pricking, that I had noticed to get a much bigger drop and/or blood much easier when my cat's BG is lower
 
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Lisa and Angel said:
But now she pretty much always has cold ears and I always have to warm them up beforehard.
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My girl is incredibly hard to get blood from unless her ears are very warm. And it seems to vary when it comes to 'where' exactly I can get blood from. Sometimes it's closer to the very tip of the ear. At the moment it's very low down on the outer edge... We move to wherever the blood is, haha! :smuggrin:

BTW, will your kitty let you touch her feet...? Some people have more success with paw pad testing. And some people alternate between ear testing and paw pad testing...

Eliz
 
I'm very happy to report that with the tips I've gotten here, testing has gotten a lot easier!

Some notes:
- I've only been testing from 1 ear this past week to rebuild that capillary network.
- Milking seemed to have been key for stimulating those capillaries to bleed well. The first few days I had to milk a lot, these last 2ish days however there's a big fat drop without me having to do anything but prick her.
- Pricking ONLY in the sweet spot. She's calmed down a lot doing this. Testing is now a mostly smooth process. Even her ears are warm more often than not again, though I have no clue how, if at all, this is connected. Might just be the weather or the inner chaos of cats lol.
- Lancing device set at 2-3 instead of 4 indeed works much better.
 
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