Another terrified newbie (28/8)

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Apparently one of our regular cat foods is high carb (gourmet gold gravy) and I have cane sugar syrup too. I understand stalling but not how to proceed if his sugar is too low- do I still feed?

Teetee (UK) said:
I forgot to add that if Charlie is low on his preshot then you will need to stall and retest after 20 minutes to see if his BG has risen enough to give him his injection.
Do you have some high carb food for if he drops too low?
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Further to all of this Charlie hasn't really had many of the biscuits over the last couple of days tho he's very excited for and wolfs down his wet food. I'm wondering whether I should try to transition him on to two larger wet meals a day and try moving the dry food where he struggles to access it (though long term a selected cat feeder is probably safer in case he gets up there! The issue is I can only really reliably manage 2 feeds a day and I'm struggling a bit with that because of my stupid sleep problems, adding a third feed in means a high liklihood of having to wake up twice during a sleep cycle for at least 45 mins to test feed and dose, and with poor sleep my depression becomes quite unmanageable. I suppose if I can eventually get a chipped cat feeder I can drop larger amounts of wet food in for him but what if he wolfs it all in one go?
 
Gourmet gold in gravy is very high in carbs at 27%, this is used as a food to be kept in your hypo kit, also Webbox lick e lix is good, which is about 20% carbs in case Charlie drops too low.
Charlie needs food lower than 10% carbs. My cat has Sheba fine flakes at 2.5% carbs or the Sheba classics in terrine at 3.2% carbs, we never go above that threshold.
If he's too low then follow these instructions.
Q: It’s time for my cat’s shot, but the BG is a little too low. What now?

  • If your cat’s BG is a bit below 200 mg/dL [11 mmol/L] on a human meter, consider ‘stalling’.
    • Stalling is waiting - without feeding your cat - for 20+ minutes, then retesting to see if the BG has risen to a suitable level.
    • You are looking for a number that is rising, not falling, and is high enough to give insulin.
    • If you have time, you can repeat the stalling process to see if the cat’s BG reaches a number you can shoot.
  • If you cannot stall do to time constraints, if numbers are continuing to drop or if you do not have a supply of strips and high carb food on hand, it will be safer if you skip the shot.
  • Note: As you gain experience with home testing and have gathered data to show how your cat responds to insulin, you will become more confident and better able to shoot progressively lower numbers.
  • Ask for help on the forum before giving insulin if you are unsure, as you can never ‘un-shoot’ insulin.
So in other words, if he's below 11 mmol/L stall and wait 20 minutes and retest to see if his numbers come up, if they have gone above 11 mmol/L then your good to go, if not wait another 20 minutes retest to see if he's above 11 mmol/L if he's above then you can feed him and inject 20-30 after he's finished.
As i say i'm not a Caninsulin user so i'm just following the protocol on the Caninsulin thread.
 
CatCharlie said:
Further to all of this Charlie hasn't really had many of the biscuits over the last couple of days tho he's very excited for and wolfs down his wet food. I'm wondering whether I should try to transition him on to two larger wet meals a day and try moving the dry food where he struggles to access it (though long term a selected cat feeder is probably safer in case he gets up there! The issue is I can only really reliably manage 2 feeds a day and I'm struggling a bit with that because of my stupid sleep problems, adding a third feed in means a high liklihood of having to wake up twice during a sleep cycle for at least 45 mins to test feed and dose, and with poor sleep my depression becomes quite unmanageable. I suppose if I can eventually get a chipped cat feeder I can drop larger amounts of wet food in for him but what if he wolfs it all in one go?
Click to expand...
What some do on here is give there cats their main meals and feed a little food at say +2 +4 +6 or +2 +3 +5 just after you have tested him, we give Duke roast chicken as it's zero carbs so it doesn't affect his BG. This can be prepared prior and ready to feed in his dish.
Once your into a routine it takes 10 minutes max, test and a little snack providing he's in safe numbers.
 
So if I can't stall or his numbers don't go up do I feed anyway but skip the dose?

Is it safe to just switch him to a low carb wet food? Do I need vet supervision or a better dosing understanding? Can someone advise on safe switching?

When should a high carb be given- at what (human meter) number? Should it be given as a meal with insulin or a supplement?


Teetee (UK) said:
So in other words, if he's below 11 mmol/L stall and wait 20 minutes and retest to see if his numbers come up, if they have gone above 11 mmol/L then your good to go, if not wait another 20 minutes retest to see if he's above 11 mmol/L if he's above then you can feed him and inject 20-30 after he's finished.
As i say i'm not a Caninsulin user so i'm just following the protocol on the Caninsulin thread.
Click to expand...
 
I don't really understand- am I getting up every 2 hrs to test and feed him every day? My mental and physical health would spiral with that much interrupted sleep.

Teetee (UK) said:
What some do on here is give there cats their main meals and feed a little food at say +2 +4 +6 or +2 +3 +5 just after you have tested him, we give Duke roast chicken as it's zero carbs so it doesn't affect his BG. This can be prepared prior and ready to feed in his dish.
Once your into a routine it takes 10 minutes max, test and a little snack providing he's in safe numbers.
Click to expand...
 
CatCharlie said:
So if I can't stall or his numbers don't go up do I feed anyway but skip the dose?

Is it safe to just switch him to a low carb wet food? Do I need vet supervision or a better dosing understanding? Can someone advise on safe switching?

When should a high carb be given- at what (human meter) number? Should it be given as a meal with insulin or a supplement?
Click to expand...
High carb food is only ever given when the cat is dropping too low to bring their BG back up.

If his numbers don't go up or you can't stall then yes you feed him, never let him go without food.

Switching to a low carb wet food to what he's eating now could drop his BG as you're feeding high carb dry food at the moment, as your new to this it's best to gradually reduce the high carb and increase the low carb.
You could switch straight to low carb wet food but you will need to reduce his dose to compensate, now as i say i'm not a Caninsulin user but if it were me i would reduce the dose by half and build up, hopefully a Caninsulin user can help out @Sienne and Gabby (GA) can you give any advice please.
No your not getting up every two hours, our routine is we test and feed Duke at 6:30 AM. test him at +3 +4 +5 +6 although i'm a little too keen on testing, i know. We do the same routine 12 hours later and test at +3 +4 +5, sometimes only +4 depending on his numbers.
You can do your test, feed and injection routine whenever you want, just as long as it's a 12 hour cycle.
As you get more comfortable you can say to yourself he's fine and not dropping into low numbers then you can leave him.
 
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Oh I see, so it's only for half of a 12hr cycle really.

I think the best thing with him not even really eating the dry is to switch him off dry and on to 3.5x of the shebas (fine flakes- presumably in jelly or gravy, and terrine) (is that just standard sheba not special?) you mentioned (which is a bit pricey but hopefully manageable if it's only one cat and the other stays on her wet dry routine) per day. But I need to know how to safely implement this, what bg numbers to look for, how to switch etc if anyone can advise.
 
CatCharlie said:
Oh I see, so it's only for half of a 12hr cycle really.
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Yes that's all, unless you have any problems with low numbers then obviously it will take more time until he's in safe numbers.
CatCharlie said:
I think the best thing with him not even really eating the dry is to switch him off dry and on to 3.5x of the shebas (fine flakes- presumably in jelly or gravy, and terrine) (is that just standard sheba not special?) you mentioned (which is a bit pricey but hopefully manageable if it's only one cat and the other stays on her wet dry routine) per day. But I need to know how to safely implement this, what bg numbers to look for, how to switch etc if anyone can advise.
Click to expand...
Yes it's just the normal Sheba but we don't use the gravy one although it's below 10% carbs we don't go above 3.2% with Duke.
 
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Ok, thank you. Hopefully someone can give me advice on a safe switch over as soon as possible given that he is barely touching the dry and is demanding wet before the 12 hrs are up. May I ask how you feed Duke his sheba? It says 3.5 pouches for a 4kg cat (which is how much charlie should weigh) but is that given as a pouch and a half every 12 hrs and then half a pouch as snacks every few hours between meals or what? How do you do it?


Teetee (UK) said:
Yes that's all, unless you have any problems with low numbers then obviously it will take more time until he's in safe numbers.

Yes it's just the normal Sheba but we don't use the gravy one although it's below 10% carbs we don't go above 3.2% with Duke.
Click to expand...
 
Duke luckily is a greedy cat, his feeding routine now is we feed him about 140g of Sheba for breakfast and the same for his supper and then we give him 10/15 grams of roast chicken at +3 and +5.
We weigh him weekly to keep on eye on his weight, he's about 6 kilo and very lazy.
We did have a different routine before but we changed it because he was still really hungry after his main meal.
It's all trial and error with the food really, also we always make sure Duke eats at least 100g before we give him his insulin.
 
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