4/8 Boops amps 375 +4-447 +6-398 pmps-HI NEED ADVICE

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Erin Lewis and Boops

Erin Lewis and Boops

Member Since 2015
Past test results have shown Boops' nadir to be at +10 or 11. However, we are already at 65 and sinking at +4. I'm scared about hypo and need advice! This is one week in to Levemir insulin and we had been reducing his evening dose to .25 instead of .5 due to lower numbers, but gave the full dose tonight based on advice to keep his dosage the same. What to do?
 
Have you fed him his regular food recently, Erin? If not, pull out a tablespoon of his regular low carb and let him have some. He's not in danger at this point yet and I can stay with you. He's just dropped 16 points in the past hour, which isn't too bad. He's dropping like this because he's clearing a bounce from that HI this morning. Sometimes clearing a bounce can cause a lot of downward momentum, but i think he's not dropping too fast at this point.

Please recheck him in 20 or so minutes after you've fed him. I'll check back.
 
Should I just feed him an entire can (3 oz)? I know he would love it! Would that be OK or a bad thing? He was fed 4 hours ago when he got his shot, and isn't scheduled for another feeding until about 7-8 more hours.
 
No - you want him to be hungry so that if you need to dole out the food to keep his blood sugar up, you can be confident that he'll eat more.

If he ate 4 hrs ago, I'd give him 1.5 ounces or so. that'll help flatten out his numbers.

If you're doing ok, you can take off the 911.
 
OK, that makes sense. I gave him about 1.5ish and he is wolfing it down. (my boy is a good eater!) I'll check him in a few minutes when he has finished. Thanks for being there.
 
hahaha and that alert worked so well, it says you only posted "a moment ago" Bron. ;) I'm home tonight - it's not even 8pm for me yet, and will keep watch for you, Erin.
 
Thanks Julie. I thought you may not be back for 20 mins and I know what it it like to be frightened and waiting.
My stupid iPad kept freezing on me .....that is why it took so long to post;)
 
ok - he's still ok, but go ahead and pop open a can of gravy cat food and give him about a teaspoon or so of just the gravy. Then you'll retest in 20 minutes or so. I'll watch for you.
 
Hugs, Erin. I know what it's like to be scared to death and waiting for the time to go by until you can test again. You're in paws here. You can do this! It's going to be fine.
 
You can always add karo syrup, honey or maple syrup to any food to increase its carbs.

i'm not familiar with the Iams. do you know what carb % it is?
 
i was using a 16% as high carb early on and i couldn't seem to bring punkin up out of the 40's - he was just surfing along test after test. The person helping me said she only used HC that is over 20%, preferably 25% carbs. Next time you go shopping you might take the www.catinfo.org food list with you and choose something that's higher carbs.

In the meantime though, just add a drop or two of the karo to his regular low carb or the Iams and it will work just fine. It's common to have it take more than 20 minutes to see the effects of the HC, so don't worry that he was lower after he ate.
 
Well, I am probably going to shoot him up because i definitely gave more than a drop or two of karo! He got more like a teaspoon. I will definitely pick up some higher carb stuff tomorrow in the am. Will test him in about 10 minutes.
 
that's ok - everyone overcarbs at the beginning! it's pretty much a rite of passage, lol. the point is to raise the blood sugar and if you accomplish that - everything's good! :D
 
Reduce his dose to 0.25u because he got into the 40's. That's a signal that he's ready for a lower dose.

Since you've raised his blood sugar by using carbs, even though he's over 100, i'd still get another test in about an hour. carbs can wear off and the blood sugar can drop. I doubt that he'd go back below 50, but since we don't really have previous experience to tell us what Boops might do, I'd test him again in another hour. I've bolded the part below in blue that applies.



If your cat is testing in low numbers and you are not getting a quick response to your post, there are several things you need to do. (Low numbers are under 50mg/dL or 2.8 mmol/L.)

  • Depending on how carbohydrate sensitive your cat is, feed approximately a teaspoon or less of gravy from high carb food or high carb food only.
    (If you have a cat with GI issues, using a couple of drops of syrup plus low carb food is an alternative.)
  • Test again in 15 – 20 min. Depending on the numbers, give more HC food.
  • Repeat the above steps every 15 – 20 min. until your cat tests in the 50 mg/dL (2.8 mmol/L) or above range for 2 consecutive tests. Continue to feed in small amounts to keep numbers in a safe range.
  • Test in 30 - 40 min. and repeat the test and feed process until there are 2 consecutive tests where numbers are stable or rising.
  • Test in an hour and follow the same steps.
DO NOT become complacent. If number have risen after one or two tests, it’s important to continue testing. Numbers may bobble up and down as the HC food and/or Karo wear off. DO NOT get one test where your cat has risen from low numbers into the 50s and go to sleep or leave the house. You are putting your cat in a risky situation. When in doubt, leave HC food out.

In the case of an accidental overdose or should there be symptoms of hypoglycemia, even if you have caught this in the early stages, you may need to monitor for literally 16 or more hours. Lantus and Levemir are long acting types of insulin. This means if your cat is over dose, you will need to stay alert for hours in order to closely monitor and to keep your cat safe.

Please post your numbers. Those people who are helping you will not abandon you. In fact, they are staying up with you. The experienced people will even work in shifts to make sure your cat is safe and you have the support you need. Remember to refresh your browser to see new posts and keep posting so we know all is well.

~ written by Sienne and Gabby​
 
sorry, i was taking the time to pull this info up for you, erin. don't just go to bed and leave him! i don't think Boops is going to be on insulin for long, although there are no guarantees, but you want to keep him safe while he is.

i'd definitely set an alarm and test him again in an hour, then decide from there what to do. if he's up higher at that point, then call it a night. but if he's dropped back down you may need to test again. sorry for the bad news - i know it's rough whenyou're tired.
 
OK, so we made it through the night and he didn't go back down. He shot up to 427 this morning as a result of the treatment and maybe a bounce too. We gave him the .25 this morning. Thanks so much for your help!
 
I'm telling you, I feel like I need a doctorate in veterinary medicine to be this boy's mommy anymore. I feel like I live in fear. When I wake up in the morning, I'm always scared to death that I won't see him running in the door, and when I come home from work, I can't breathe until his sweet face singing for me through the back door's glass. I don't even care when I pull into the driveway and see him sitting on the dining room table- I'm just so glad he's alive! I honestly don't know how I will ever go on without him. My husband also lives in fear for my emotional and mental well-being at the prospect of losing him. He says they will have to take me away in a strait jacket! I'm not sure he's entirely incorrect there.
 
I know this is hard to believe, but it really does get less scary. I still get a bit nervous every time I pull in the driveway too, but for the most part, I know that I'm doing all the right things and have all the right help to give my boy a high quality long life. I think it's very rare for someone who's using the advice given on this board to lose a cat to diabetes. Sending more hugs. I know this is really hard.
 
No, at this point i'm seeing that he got to 53 at +7 and then +8/103. Today his blood sugar is still being influenced by the previous 0.5u dose. With a depot insulin it can take 4-6 cycles AFTER the dose decrease before the previously larger dose is no longer still affecting blood sugar. The depot is an interesting thing - when you inject the Lev some of it binds up and is unavailable while some goes to work immediately. There is a balance between the amount of the dose and the amount built up. When you decrease the dose the bound up part in the body is still the size caused by the larger dose. After a few cycles it will reduce and become in equilibrium with the new lower dose. But until then, it is still "giving" and lowering blood sugar.

So today's 53 would still be caused by the 0.5u dose. I wouldn't reduce his dose today.

Also, we know that the strongest remissions come from giving a cat insulin as long as safely possible. It supports the newly healing, sputtering pancreas. Jill gave a good explanation of that on Elizabeth's 4/2 thread that is worth reading.
 
Hi Erin, no advice from me just total empathy with your fears, it certainly is an emotional rollercoaster ride and my DH shares the same concerns as yours. At least we are in the best place for great advice and support. Calming, healing vines to you and Boops.
 
Thanks to everyone for the support. Right now we are swinging from good numbers to high, which is always confounding. But, there's nothing else to do than to pick a dose and stick with it, so we are staying at .25 for the forseeable future. God, I hate poking my precious boy, but he is such a good boy about it. I've seen videos of others not so sweet. I just hope that on some level he understands that it is a necessity and that we would never cause him undue pain.
 
I think of all the kitties with ripped up ears from fighting . . . I didn't think the poking ever hurt punkin's ear until I'd poked too much in one day. I think his most was 22 pokes in a day and his ear definitely hurt by then. Do you know about Neosporin ointment with pain relief? I put it on his ear every night and in the morning it was always completely healed. I tried it on myself once when the cats ran across my bare foot and scratched me - the stuff is pretty amazing. Totally took the owie away. You might try it if you haven't yet. It also replaces vaseline - the ointment is kinda greasy and if you just wipe it off in the morning, enough remains to keep the hair and skin from soaking up the blood.

Make sure you're always giving a treat, too. It's amazing how well that works.
 
Erin Lewis and Boops said:
I'm telling you, I feel like I need a doctorate in veterinary medicine to be this boy's mommy anymore. I feel like I live in fear. When I wake up in the morning, I'm always scared to death that I won't see him running in the door, and when I come home from work, I can't breathe until his sweet face singing for me through the back door's glass. I don't even care when I pull into the driveway and see him sitting on the dining room table- I'm just so glad he's alive! I honestly don't know how I will ever go on without him. My husband also lives in fear for my emotional and mental well-being at the prospect of losing him. He says they will have to take me away in a strait jacket! I'm not sure he's entirely incorrect there.
Click to expand...

You are not alone! I felt the same way every single day that Sammy was on insulin. Just know that we are all here for you.
 
We didn't because our first stick was a bust and felt fortunate that we did get a good one eventually. I hated to squeeze on that spot again. Will test again soon.
 
Julie will probably be on later.
I would say that 32 earned him a dose reduction. Pretty much anything under 40 is a definite one.

She's more familiar with your history than I am. And I don't have time to go read at the moment.


Has Boops had a dental? Sometimes needing one can make for some wild swings too.
But the other possibility is that he has been getting some lower numbers than you have caught with testing.
 
It's possible that he needs a dental. We've had to do a lot of dental work in the past 5 years. We recently switched him to Levemir, and his doses have been getting reduced every few days. Julie mentioned that he may not need insulin much longer, which would be great! Not sure how to reduce from .25 because even that is hard.
 
slide down on this page to the syringe pictures.....
0.1 dose

depending on the syringes you have, you might want to do a test.
when I got down to one drop.... I actually had to load 2 drops to get one drop to come out when I gave the shot. ( my type of syringe)

You can count drops for your particular syringe by loading with water. hold the syringe pointed up. and twist the plunger slowly. Each drop is counted as it bead up on the needle and rolls down. You can start with 0.5 u ....
then you'll be able to figure out how many drops your dose is.
 
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