? A quick update on Mocha + dosing questions

Anoud&Mocha

Anoud&Mocha

Member Since 2026
Mocha Previous Thread

Hello everyone,

I am writing this while completely broken and in tears. Today has been one of the hardest days of my life with Mocha. Her pre-shot blood glucose was 220, so I gave her the 1 unit dose, but within the very first hour, it dropped drastically and terrifyingly to 98. I had to rush her to the emergency clinic immediately, and they had to hook her up on an IV drip (IV fluids).

I just want to clarify: I do know that 98 in general isn't a hypo on its own, but Mocha has previously suffered from hypos twice before. Whenever her blood glucose drops this rapidly within the very first hour, it consistently leads to a severe hypo for her. Today, even though I fed her a lot of food to try and bring her numbers back up, it didn't help at all, which is why it kept dropping and forced us into the emergency clinic for IV fluids.

I am completely lost, and feeling utterly helpless. I spent the entire day searching everywhere—stores, pharmacies, and veterinary clinics—trying to find half-unit syringes, but they are completely unavailable here. I cannot physically give her less than 1 unit right now because I don't have the proper syringes, but giving her a full 1 unit is clearly way too high and dangerous for her, as it keeps causing these terrifying, life-threatening drops.

To make matters even more heartbreaking, a veterinarian I spoke to today told me that I should just surrender to the idea of her dying because there is no treatment, saying 'even humans die!'

I desperately want to try using calipers, but I know deep down that I cannot manage to do it properly by myself without making a dangerous mistake.

I am asking you honestly: should I surrender to this situation, or is there still a real hope that I can actually treat my cat and get her through this? How can I possibly handle her doses safely until the half-unit syringes I ordered arrive around September 24th–25th?

Please, I need your guidance and your honesty. I feel like I'm losing my mind
 
I'm sorry you are having a rough time. :bighug: A few years ago on this forum I spent a long night trying to find a good vet for someone in Bahrain. I even sent emails to some Bahraini friends. All I could find were vets who mainly specialized in large animals. Is this the case where you are?
Waving from Canada.
 
Red & Rover (GA) said:
I'm sorry you are having a rough time. :bighug: A few years ago on this forum I spent a long night trying to find a good vet for someone in Bahrain. I even sent emails to some Bahraini friends. All I could find were vets who mainly specialized in large animals. Is this the case where you are?
Waving from Canada.
Click to expand...
yes, it is very similar here, and honestly, in some ways it might even be worse. Most local vets here have very little and extremely superficial knowledge about feline diabetes. But it's not just the vets—it's also the supplies. I cannot easily get basic necessities here, like specialized diabetic cat food or proper insulin syringes. Finding anything specialized is almost impossible. Thank you for caring
 
I’m sorry about the rough day. If you have to go to a lower dose, could you eyeball it? Err on the side of caution and even if you end up eyeballing less than half. I’m not fully caught up on your recent situation, I’ll go read now. The drops are scary, but as long as she’s above 50 mg/dL on a human meter I would think she’d be ok.
 
@Wendy&Neko mentioned doing a lower dose yesterday. Maybe she can suggest a dose. Eyeball it. Your spreadsheet says you’re following TR and I don’t see anything in today’s numbers that would indicate needing a reduction if that’s true, but overall she’s doing pretty well with the skips in there so maybe that’s why.

Otherwise, what are your major hurdles right now? What’s the food situation, can you switch her off the Royal Canin? That will help.

I know there’s a lot of emotions but I see a cat who has a real good shot at going into remission and continuing to live a long happy life.
 
Please don’t give up. As Tim said, even if you eyeball 1/2 a dose (or .50 unit) it’s better than a full 1 unit which is too much.
Anoud said:
yes, it is very similar here, and honestly, in some ways it might even be worse. Most local vets here have very little and extremely superficial knowledge about feline diabetes. But it's not just the vets—it's also the supplies. I cannot easily get basic necessities here, like specialized diabetic cat food or proper insulin syringes. Finding anything specialized is almost impossible. Thank you for caring
Click to expand...
You don’t need diabetic cat food at all.
Our cats eat low carb pates wet canned food and use higher carb food for when they drop lower.
We do care 🫂❤️❤️‍🩹
 
I think a lot of humans don't want to go to the trouble of the testing and the staying home to test BID ett. and that vets are used to that. Because they don't know enough, don't have the experience, weren't taught in school about this disease in cats.

When J.D. was diagnosed in 2004, I tried and tried and tried to find a vet that "knew" something about diabetes, and never found any experts. I came here. and got the support I needed. He was mostly never "regulated" but lived another 9 years with pretty much uncontrolled diabetes and passed at 20 years old. And, he lived a very good, happy, and normal cat life. Sometimes, you need to take things into perspective and realize that most humans don't do what we do for our babies.
If you look closely at other cats and spreadsheets here, you will see that there are lots of good options and good stories of cats living very happy lives into old age.
 
Tim & Pookey said:
@Wendy&Neko mentioned doing a lower dose yesterday. Maybe she can suggest a dose. Eyeball it. Your spreadsheet says you’re following TR and I don’t see anything in today’s numbers that would indicate needing a reduction if that’s true, but overall she’s doing pretty well with the skips in there so maybe that’s why.

Otherwise, what are your major hurdles right now? What’s the food situation, can you switch her off the Royal Canin? That will help.

I know there’s a lot of emotions but I see a cat who has a real good shot at going into remission and continuing to live a long happy life.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much for your support. To clarify a few things:

  • Regarding today's numbers & food: The numbers in the spreadsheet today are actually after giving her dextrose (orally to rescue her from the drop). I have actually been trying to cut out the dry food over the past couple of days, but I gave her some of it today because I was desperate to help bring her numbers back up. However, I will go back to cutting it out completely and stick to wet food.
  • Regarding my major hurdles:
    1. No reliable veterinary support: There is no clinic or vet here who understands her condition or can help me in emergencies; unfortunately, they have the absolute minimum or zero understanding of feline diabetes.
    2. Dosing confusion & equipment: I am currently using a Lantus pen and injecting directly from the pen itself—I am not using separate syringes right now. Because of this, I honestly don't know what exact dose I should be giving her, and I cannot reduce or adjust the dose properly because the correct syringes (half-unit marked ones) are currently unavailable anywhere in my city.
Also, I didn't quite understand what you mean by 'eyeball the dose'. Could you please explain how I can safely eyeball it with the Lantus pen or what you mean by that?
 
Anoud said:
Thank you so much for your support. To clarify a few things:

  • Regarding today's numbers & food: The numbers in the spreadsheet today are actually after giving her dextrose (orally to rescue her from the drop). I have actually been trying to cut out the dry food over the past couple of days, but I gave her some of it today because I was desperate to help bring her numbers back up. However, I will go back to cutting it out completely and stick to wet food.
  • Regarding my major hurdles:
    1. No reliable veterinary support: There is no clinic or vet here who understands her condition or can help me in emergencies; unfortunately, they have the absolute minimum or zero understanding of feline diabetes.
    2. Dosing confusion & equipment: I am currently using a Lantus pen and injecting directly from the pen itself—I am not using separate syringes right now. Because of this, I honestly don't know what exact dose I should be giving her, and I cannot reduce or adjust the dose properly because the correct syringes (half-unit marked ones) are currently unavailable anywhere in my city.
Also, I didn't quite understand what you mean by 'eyeball the dose'. Could you please explain how I can safely eyeball it with the Lantus pen or what you mean by that?
Click to expand...
You can not "eyeball" the dose with the lantus. You will need the syringes to see what the approximate dose is.
 
Anoud said:
Mocha Previous Thread

Hello everyone,

I am writing this while completely broken and in tears. Today has been one of the hardest days of my life with Mocha. Her pre-shot blood glucose was 220, so I gave her the 1 unit dose, but within the very first hour, it dropped drastically and terrifyingly to 98. I had to rush her to the emergency clinic immediately, and they had to hook her up on an IV drip (IV fluids).

I just want to clarify: I do know that 98 in general isn't a hypo on its own, but Mocha has previously suffered from hypos twice before. Whenever her blood glucose drops this rapidly within the very first hour, it consistently leads to a severe hypo for her. Today, even though I fed her a lot of food to try and bring her numbers back up, it didn't help at all, which is why it kept dropping and forced us into the emergency clinic for IV fluids.

I am completely lost, and feeling utterly helpless. I spent the entire day searching everywhere—stores, pharmacies, and veterinary clinics—trying to find half-unit syringes, but they are completely unavailable here. I cannot physically give her less than 1 unit right now because I don't have the proper syringes, but giving her a full 1 unit is clearly way too high and dangerous for her, as it keeps causing these terrifying, life-threatening drops.

To make matters even more heartbreaking, a veterinarian I spoke to today told me that I should just surrender to the idea of her dying because there is no treatment, saying 'even humans die!'

I desperately want to try using calipers, but I know deep down that I cannot manage to do it properly by myself without making a dangerous mistake.

I am asking you honestly: should I surrender to this situation, or is there still a real hope that I can actually treat my cat and get her through this? How can I possibly handle her doses safely until the half-unit syringes I ordered arrive around September 24th–25th?

Please, I need your guidance and your honesty. I feel like I'm losing my mind
Click to expand...

Anoud, it is a lot to handle, a lot, but if you calm your mind and take it step by step, it will become less overwhelming. Take some time to sleep and rest… then it may be easier for you to think clearly. 🙏🏼

Here are the topics I wanted to mention to you - maybe they can help:

  1. Food: the Farmina LC wet food you are using is great. You already have it there. 🙏🏼 You can also use any other low-carb food you can find there. There is a calculator here on the Forum that can help you check if a food is really low carb or not.

  2. Soon, the syringes you bought will arrive. That is great news. You found them!

  3. For the moment, you can use another U-100 syringe and estimate the dose by eye, so you can see approximately what half of one unit looks like in the syringe you currently have. If you are going to give 0.5 unit, you would look at the halfway point between the 0 and 1-unit marks. But for this, you need a U-100 syringe until the other ones arrive.

  4. Your other option for these five days would be to make an effort to use the caliper… but again, you need a U-100 syringe for that, I believe(?). The more experienced people here can confirm this for you.

  5. Do you know the proper way to extract the Lantus from the pen into the syringe? It is easy - no big deal. You can practice it a few times so you feel comfortable doing it.

  6. If Mocha’s BG drops very quickly and reaches really low numbers, you can use MC or HC wet food. HC food is usually easier to find at regular markets. You can also keep honey or oral glucose at home. If you ever need to use oral glucose, you can start with a small amount, such as 2 mL given slowly into her mouth, and monitor how her BG responds. But once you restart with the appropriate dose, hopefully this kind of situation will happen much less often.

  7. What exactly are you calling a “severe hypo,” if I may ask? 🙏🏼 I ask because, over time, the body can become more used to lower numbers. A BG of 60 later in the treatment is not necessarily the same situation as a BG of 60 at the beginning, when the cat's liver is not yet accustomed to those numbers.

  8. Finally, for anything related to FD, you can make good use of the knowledge and experience here on the Forum. It will probably make things much easier for you. But if you want or need to discuss the diabetes with a vet, you could consider an online consultation with a vet from another country. You can send the vet her graphs and discuss your questions online, with a vet who is comfortable communicating in English. (Many vets do online consultations, and if necessary, you can even use an interpreter.)

    Maybe some of these points can help you feel a little more at ease.

    Please don’t believe everything you heard from that vet today.
    Don’t let your heart absorb everything he/she said.

    I’m sending you a hug 🤍
    I hope you can sleep and rest your mind.
    Today’s storm will pass 🙏🏼

    🌿🌿🌿​
 
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..has anyone mentioned a caliper yet?.. that’d fix dosing immediately; also is more accurate. syringe markings are rarely reliable. its a tool that properly measures the doses for you, whatever syringe brand u have. maybe it would at least help somehow? can you source one?

or take a little marker and halve the 1 U w a little dash.. then can halve that.. theres your .25 U.. .5 U.. etc.. better than too much insulin. ❤️‍🩹

Dosing with Calipers
 
Please don't listen to that veterinarian again about treating feline diabetes. It sounds like the vets there don't have much experience with it. You have been a fabulous caregiver for Mocha, she is lucky that you care so much and are willing to learn and treat her condition. Which is very treatable.

Another technique is counting drops. You can measure the number of drops in 1 unit. Fill a syringe with coloured liquid (tea, juice, pop). Slowly twist the plunger to squeeze out a drop. Practice several times until you can get a consistent size drop. Now fill the syringe to 1 unit with the coloured liquid. Twist the plunger, squeezing out drops until the syringe is empty, counting those drops. Now you know how many drops are in 1 unit. Half that number is 0.5 units. Load a fresh syringe with 1 unit of insulin. Twist the plunger, squeezing out half the drops. Now you are ready with that half unit dose until the syringes with half unit markings arrive.

Saudi Arabia is not the only country without half unit marked syringes, even Australia has the same problem. Some countries sell child sized syringes with half unit markings, but the method above will also work for a smaller dose. The counting drops was the original method used here before someone tried using digital calipers.
 
Thank you all so much for your kindness and for taking the time to write all of this. Reading your messages after such a terrifying and exhausting day really lifted a huge weight off my shoulders
seeing the tips about using colored water as a visual guide or counting drops is such a relief. As soon as I'm back, I'll try to find any basic U-100 syringes locally so I can use these methods safely until my proper half-unit ones arrive
and I actually bought out all the Farmina diabetic wet food available here, and now it's completely out of stock in our local market. Hearing that I can use other low-carb wet food types instead is such a huge relief

Thank you all again for caring so much and I'll keep you updated.
 
I have a quick question about Mocha's dose and wanted to share what I'm seeing. She has had no evening dose for about 3 days now, because every night her numbers are already falling at shot time. The pattern I keep seeing: She drops after meals and rises during fasting gaps — with or without insulin. When I do give insulin, the drop is much steeper and she ends up needing intervention. Without insulin she still comes down, just gently, and stays in the 170–215 range instead of the 300s she used to run. (Meter is a human Contour Care; sensor is a FreeStyle Libre 3 Plus and reads roughly 40–60 points higher than the meter.) My questions: Is it time to stop the insulin altogether and monitor? Her own pancreas clearly still does something — she drops on her own after food, and twice now adding insulin on top of that has pushed her too low. Has anyone here taken a cat off insulin in this situation, and what did you watch for?
 
170-215 still means she needs insulin. You want her to be in the 50-120 range. But I agree it is better. You've also changed her diet which may explain part of the improved numbers.

There are a couple explanations for what you are seeing in terms of "dropping" numbers. She could have a partially working pancreas that responds to food. However, any pancreatic healing she has may be fragile, so you want to keep on some insulin (less than 1 unit for Mocha) as long as safely possible, to give the time for the pancreas to fully heal. The second explanation for a dip at the end of the AM cycle is called the Lantus double dip, where the cat does a second mini drop at the end of the cycle, but not as low as the main nadir.
 
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