2 hypos in a week?

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SarrrUK

SarrrUK

Member Since 2017
Hey, new to the forum and so relieved that this exists.
We have had our diabetic cat, Luna, for a month now. She has had diabetes for about half a year so it's still new to her too, we adopted her knowing the responsibility we were taking on.

Anyway, she is on 2.5u twice daily at the moment. Everything has been stable until we changed her food, over to a much lower carb-higher meat content. Since doing this, she has had 2 hypos, both after her evening injection.

The second one was at 12am last night, we took her to the emergency vet and when we got there her sugars had stabilised (we had admistered glucose but she was still exhibiting symptoms and we don't have a glucometer)

I skipped her insulin this morning and will probably skip it tonight. I'm worried about tomorrow though. Apart from anything else we're down about $500 in vets fees and I don't want to risk her health.

Would it be better to hold off any insulin until Monday when we can take her to our vet who has her records?
 
@Sarrrrr

Hello, and welcome.

Well... It's clear that the insulin dose is too high, but without blood testing data we can't know how much it needs to be reduced. It may even be that your cat no longer needs insulin at all, especially since you've switched her to a low carb diet. That may have reduced her blood glucose significantly....

Are you able to pick up a glucose meter (meters for humans are fine) and test Luna's blood glucose at home? We can help you to learn, and it's not nearly as hard as it sounds, honestly!
'Home testing' will be the very best way to find out what's going on with your kitty's blood glucose.

Popular meters with FDMB members in the USA include the ReliOn Confirm or the ReliOn Micro from Walmart. Both are inexpensive, and the test strips (the main cost of home testing) are among the cheapest.

Eliz
 
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The most important thing that you can do for your cat is go out and buy a human glucometer and test at home. It will save your cat's life and will cut down the trips to the vet. We can help you start testing and which glucometer is best for your cat and inexpensive.

Changing to a low carb food can drop blood glucose numbers and your cat's dose may now be dangerously high.

If you have any readings taken at the vet during hypos, that would help.
 
This is what I suspected. I've ordered a glucometer online as there is nowhere around here that sells them, it's on it's way and should be here by Monday, so I can start home testing.

I believe the first hypo she was down to 2, she spend a few hours at the vet and then stabilised. Last night she was up to 5.2 by the time the vet took a sample.
For some reason our vet told us that home testing wasn't possible - realise now this is bad advice :P

I have a few diabetic human friends - would it be possible to ask to borrow their meters? :P
Thanks for the advice. New diabetic cat owner and trying to learn as much about this as possible to ensure Luna has many more long happy years with us.
 
Sarrrrr said:
I've ordered a glucometer online as there is nowhere around here that sells them
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Where do you live? Glucometers are available at any pharmacy that sells diabetes supplies. You do NOT need a specific "pet" glucometer. Most of us use human meters.

Sarrrrr said:
would it be possible to ask to borrow their meters?
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Sure! Again, most of us use human meters, so if they're willing to let you borrow one, that's fine.....the one thing you have to consider is the cost of the replacement strips. That's where the real money comes in.
 
I'll see what I can sort out. The glucometer I ordered is a human one, it's a freestyle freedom lite which I heard was great for cats.

I live in England, UK.
Pharmacies near me are closed today, I'll see if I can borrow one from a friend.
 
My partner has gone to pick one up now. It's a basic colour changing one. We are gonna skip her insulin dose tonight, and possibly tomorrow as well. Hope she will be OK :(
 
Sarrrrr said:
We are gonna skip her insulin dose tonight, and possibly tomorrow as well. Hope she will be OK :(
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Way better to skip the shot than to give insulin and risk another hypo....

Do you know if Luna has any history of ketones or DKA (Diabetic Ketoacidosis)?

And you are an absolute *STAR* to take on a diabetic kitty. She is a very lucky girl......
 
Elizabeth and Bertie said:
I'm in England too. (Waving from Surrey!)
And if you can borrow one from a friend that will do nicely. :cat:
.
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Oh Hi! *waves from Bristol* not too far either. I thought it was mainly folk from the US here :)
Pharmacy closed cause of bad weather. Been difficult to get outside but my partner is braving storm Brian to go find a way of testing Luna's glucose.

We haven't given her any insulin and she seems very stable! I think we're just going to hold off til Monday.
 
Elizabeth and Bertie said:
Way better to skip the shot than to give insulin and risk another hypo....

Do you know if Luna has any history of ketones or DKA (Diabetic Ketoacidosis)?

And you are an absolute *STAR* to take on a diabetic kitty. She is a very lucky girl......
Click to expand...

We've a bit of a history of taking on overlooked cats - usually with FIV or just very old, she's def the biggest challenge, but the most rewarding <3

RE Ketones, none that I know of. The shelter/vets gave us very little info when we took her on, I'll mention it to them on Monday.
 
who wouldn't want to squish this moon butt!
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@Sarrrrr

So... Luna is currently on 2.5u Caninsulin twice a day.
Diagnosed 6 months ago.

What was she eating before you changed her food?
And when did you change her food?
BTW, 'Nature's Menu' is a great food for diabetic kitties (except the beef one, I think, which may be a bit higher carb.... Will need to check....)
.
 
Most of the members here are in the U.S. and Canada. It can take a few minutes to clue in you're 6 to 9 hours away.
You can change your name to Sarrrr...UK or anything you choose, there's no set rule.
Keep posting, there's always someone here.
And yes, moon-butt is the universal language for moon-butt-cats.
 
She has the chicken and turkey ones :)

She was on food donated by the cat shelter before. It was a mixture of Hills Metabolic (cans) and Royal Canin diabetic pouches. She was also on Hills dry cat food for weight management. We have been slowly giving her less and less of the dried food. Before we found Nature's Menu, I bought some tins of Applaws, which is a similar raw style food with high meat content.

I'm aware this is quite a lot of food changes, so we've been adding in bits of the old food and the kibble to introduce her gradually. Now that I know nature's menu is good and we have a lot of it, I started gradually getting rid of the dried food from her diet completely. I started her on this process when we first got the Nature's Menu, which was about 11 days ago. The first night I gave her this with slightly reduced dried food, she had her first hypo. I took her to the vet and they kept her in for several hours til her sugars stabilised. The vet said it was likely due to the food change and not to give her insulin dose the following day and to make the transition more gradual. So we have been doing that, and she has seemed stable until last night, the first night we gave her no dried food whatsoever.

My partner ran out and got some blood glucose test kit, it's very basic and I've never tested for glucose levels in any level on any species before, so any advice on when to test would be appreciated.

This forum has been absolutely amazing, I feel so much better and in control already, you've all answered questions vets have just dismissed!
 
so we now have a blood glucose test kit. I've given Luna her evening dinner and no shot.
She seems totally stable, no excessive thirst/weeing/any other obvious sign of hyperglycemia.

Should I test her blood glucose tonight? Or wait until tomorrow before her morning shot?
 
I always say knowledge is power, so I would go ahead and test her tonight. It will give you practice without the pressure of her on insulin and let you know where she's at without the insulin. If you don't get it, it's not a big deal, but it would be interesting to know what her BG looks like. :)
 
We only have 2 glucose test kits so decided to wait til this morning. We tested her AMPS and it was about 6 and a half, which is quite high.
We gave her insulin (2.5u) and monitered her physical symptoms closely. She seems totally fine :)
We're not going to give her shot tonight as it seems to be at night/late evening when she has hypos. So far so good.

Will be going to vets tomorrow, cross your peets for Luna! <3 thanks for all the advice.
 
6.5 mmol (117 mg/dl US) - which is a very nice number on a human meter for not having a shot for no shot the night before. The normal range is about 4.5 to 9.7 (at least that is what is on my lab work). Or did I get that reading wrong?
 
Yes, that's correct :) we are using a very basic colour coded system at the moment, until our proper glucometer is delivered next week - but the colours matched between 6 and 7. It seems her sugars are more stable when we don't give her her shot - perhaps she is going into remission! *fingers crossed* will keep you all posted on her trip to the vet tomorrow but she seems sprightly and happy tonight, eating well and purring :)
 
Hello! So we just got back from the vet, Luna's sugars were 11.5, which considering she has had no insulin since Friday, we all agreed was pretty good!

They are going to keep her in for the day tomorrow to get an idea of her daily glucose curve. But the vet agrees she definitely needs much less insulin, and is quite possibly going into remission!

Peets crossed for our bean! <3
 
SarrrUK said:
Hello! So we just got back from the vet, Luna's sugars were 11.5
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That's great! ...And the number may have been elevated due to stress of being at the vet.....

SarrrUK said:
We tested her AMPS and it was about 6 and a half, which is quite high.
We gave her insulin (2.5u) and monitered her physical symptoms closely. She seems totally fine :)
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Can you just clarify, are you saying Luna's blood glucose was 6.5 mmol/L? ...That is a totally normal number and not one that requires insulin.

We generally recommend that, for newcomers to diabetes, or those who have very little data about how their kitty responds to insulin, NO insulin is given if the preshot blood glucose is below 11 mmol/L.

Keeping fingers and paws crossed for continuing improvement for Luna... :bighug:

Eliz
 
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