BG readings to safely give shot?

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Reesespieces

Member Since 2020
Hi everyone! I’m new here and I’ve been scouting around the forums picking up info as I go. We had a diabetic cat for many years who was a family pet. However; we didn’t do glucose testing at home and he never had any hypo episodes or issues with feeding. I have a few questions that have been coming to my mind as I navigate and try to learn more about diabetes.

I am a cat sitter.
I now have a newly diagnosed client who is very overweight and is on a dry food only diet. He had been eating regular dry food and the vet recently switched to him to dry diet food. I did tell the owner that wet is so much better and can help the cat with weight and diabetes. The owner stated he is going to talk to the vet about making the switch but that the cat is very stubborn. ( I linked him to the catinfo .com site with information about transitioning stubborn cats).

2) Since this cat is newly diagnosed and is a stubborn eater: what BG readings are appropriate and which are considered worrisome? He is on 1 unit of lantus. Twice a day. He does not like the diet food and I have to sprinkle flora on it or mix a little regular dry with the diet dry. He still only eats half with prodding.

The owner doesn’t monitor BG levels. And I have no experience monitoring. But I can look up tutorials on how to draw blood fairly easily. I have my own (non diabetic) cat to practice with. I went ahead and ordered a relion meter, test strips, lancets, ketone strips and honey so I can have all necessary supplies on hand for testing or emergencies.
 
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Reesespieces said:
) I always had heard that free feeding was a bad idea for diabetic cats- are there cases where it’s actually recommended?
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Diabetic cats do much better when fed several smaller meals during the cycles.
Always feed them before giving the insulin to see that they will eat and the give them some smaller meals during the cycles, preferably during the first 6 hours of the cycle.
Some people free feed their cats but we ask them to take the food up for the 2 hours before the preshot test so the BG is not food influenced.
We strongly recommend that you always test the BG before every shot to ensure it is safe to give the dose. You would be surprised how often it is not safe to give the shot.

Reesespieces said:
2) Since this cat is newly diagnosed and is a stubborn eater: what BG readings are appropriate and which are considered worrisome? He is on 1 unit of lantus. Twice a day. He does not like the diet food and I have to sprinkle flora on it or mix a little regular dry with the diet dry. He still only eats half with prodding.
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Dry food has a lot more carbohydrate (often 35%) in it than wet food. It is not at all suitable for any cats...let alone diabetic cats. Wet / canned or home made low carb food 10% or under carbs is much more suitable and what we recommend. However it is not safe to swap over from a high carb diet to a low carb diet when on insulin without testing the BGs because a low carb diet can drop the BGs by more than 100 points and potentially cause a hypo.

A normal BG for a cat using a human meter is 50-120.
You would not want to be giving a dose of insulin if the BG was under 200 (human meter) before food at shot time, especially if there was no monitoring of the BGs during the cycle and no previous data.
The vet obviously does not know a lot about feline diabetes if he is giving the cat dry food and I doubt he will suggest the swap to wet food but if he does they need to be aware it could drop the BG significantly. And doing curves at the vets when the cat is stressed leads to higher than normal BGs and the insulin dose is based on these higher numbers which drop once the cat is home. Home testing is far and away the safest way to manage a diabetic cat.

It is great you have bought testing equipment and honey. I would also get some high carb wet food for your hypo kit.

Have a look at the FAQ page for a lot more information. It has info on food charts and many other issues.
We don't mind how many questions you ask. I think it is great you are being proactive about looking after these kitties.. thank you.
 
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WELCOME TO FDMB Boy you have your hands full! First I ant to tank you for being such diligent and caring sitter. Your clients are LUCKY to have found you! We are in turn glad you found us.

Theres a wealth of information here with good people to help you navigate it all. Wouldnt it be nice if you could convince your dry eating clients that wet is the way to go. There are lower carb dry foods out there. Dr. Elseys and Young Again are two of them. There are others (I just cant remember the names.):rolleyes: Maybe your clients would consider trying one of them?

WELCOME TO OUR FAMILY:bighug:

We'll do our best to help all three of them. This is the best site on this planet to learn everything you need to know about feline diabetes;)

jeanne
 
Thank you both so much for the welcome and the information!
Specific to the cat I’m currently sitting: he is on 1 unit lantus morning and evening. He is extremely picky. They said as long as he eats a third of his food to give him the shot and take the food away. I know it doesn’t help because I’m not sure the brand of food (it’s in a large plastic bin that they removed the original package. But I know it was a vet prescribed diet one). They said they give him the shot because it’s so little insulin. But is it?
Do you think I can add tuna juice to the wet to entice him? Or would it be okay to add some wet (I’d choose one with moderate carbs which is probably equivalent to the dry but I’m only guessing here).
 
The only problem with adding tuna water to the dry is...I would think, if the cat quits eating dry. The owners may not appreciate that. Its too bad they have him on dry food its like pouring gasoline onto a fire.

If youre going to add can food to the dry I would add the lowest carb food. Not the highest. There again you might risk that he likes it too much. :oops:
 
jt and trouble (GA) said:
The only problem with adding tuna water to the dry is...I would think, if the cat quits eating dry. The owners may not appreciate that. Its too bad they have him on dry food its like pouring gasoline onto a fire.

If youre going to add can food to the dry I would add the lowest carb food. Not the highest. There again you might risk that he likes it too much. :oops:
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So I emailed the owner and I asked if adding the tuna juice or mixing wet and dry is okay and they said it’s fine for me to try both. So; you think a low carb wet is the best option? I’m assuming the diet food is pretty high carb that’s why I thought a moderate carb mix would be best for him. I have wellness and tiki cat at home; these are both very low carb.
 
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Reesespieces said:
So I emailed the owner and I asked if adding the tuna juice or mixing wet and dry is okay and they said it’s fine for me to try both. So; you think a low carb wet is the best option? I’m assuming the diet food is pretty high carb that’s why I thought a moderate carb mix would be best for him. I have wellness and tikicwr at home; these are both very low carb.
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why add more carbs to ...carbs. You want to mitigate the carbs. You add a high carb content to dry food and its just going to raise BG numbers. Its like throwing gasoline onto a fire.
 
I thought maintaining his current level of carbs would be what I should do since my goal for this week (they are gone for a week) is to just make sure he eats. If I mix the low carb wet in with the diet dry it’ll lower the total carbs. But I guess that’s okay since I’ll be checking the insulin? I am worried most about him going hypo and my not being there. I only spend about 40 minutes with him twice a day so that’s my concern.

Yes I think a spreadsheet would be helpful for this cat; he has only been on insulin for 3 weeks. Still early enough that a diet change can help. I will be able to start gathering numbers tomm night when the monitor arrives.
 
Oh I thought you were already testing ok I see your point. He HAS to eat. I still think mixing the low carb food would be better . Actually neither will work if he wont eat.
It would also be super helpful for you to add your info to a signature.
This way you wont have to be answering the same questions over and over.

  • under Settings, Click on Signature. This is where you will put information that helps us give you feedback.
    • There is a limit of two lines which may include two links; you may separate pieces with commas, dashes, | etc. This is where you paste the link for your spreadsheet, once it is set up.
    • Add any other text, such as
    • Caregiver & kitty's name (optional)
    • DX: Date
    • Name of Insulin
    • Name of your meter
    • Diet: "LC wet" or "dry food" or "combo"
    • Dosing: TR or SLGS or Custom (if applicable)
    • DKA or other recent health issue (if applicable)
    • Acro, IAA, or Cushings (if applicable)
    • Spreadsheet link. Please put the signature link on the bottom line of your signature information, on its own, so it is easy to find.
    • Please do not put any information about your location in the signature for security reasons. If you wish to add your country location, please add it to your profile.
Be sure to click the 'Save Changes' button at the bottom. If you need help urgently it is important we know these things at a glance. We don’t want to waste valuable time finding out information.

Are all the cats on the same kind of insulin? Or are you only questioning about this one cat?
 
Ok I just added a signature! And I’m going to focus on this cat (‘cole’). Since he is new to the game and I’m sitting for him this week. I updated my original post so it can focus on cole. Bron answered my other original question .
 
You might want to add you are the sitter.

Here are the instructions for setting up Cole's spreadsheet:
FDMB SPREADSHEET INSTRUCTIONS

You can link it in your signature. Boy your employers dont know what a good thing they have with you WELL DONE!

If you have trouble setting it up there are VERY good people to help you!
 
Just wanted to add quickly as I have to go out. Don’t take the food away from him after you feed him at shot time.
Leave it down so he can snack later. I just don’t know why vets suggest this. It is far better for the cat and safer for them to have food available if their BG drops and no one is around.
 
Bron and Sheba (GA) said:
Just wanted to add quickly as I have to go out. Don’t take the food away from him after you feed him at shot time.
Leave it down so he can snack later. I just don’t know why vets suggest this. It is far better for the cat and safer for them to have food available if their BG drops and no one is around.
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So I left the food down as suggested. I told Cole’s daddy that leaving out the food is probably safer for him. He ate a small amount of dry food and I had to substitute 1/8 cup regular kibble so he would eat at all. (He gets 1/2 cup dry at each feeding): He wouldn’t touch any of the wet that I brought. Except to lick a little juice. I brought 2 different shredded varieties. I’ll try a pate tomorrow morning.
My concern remains that he barely eats anything at the ‘mealtimes’ when I visit and so I feel injecting him may not be appropriate. My relion monitor arrives tomm evening. (And I am determined, but I am a total newbie with meters).
 
Is he eating any of the dry food you leave down for during the day?
Don’t forget to give him a treat when you test even if you don’t get a result. Even a price of dry if that’s all he’ll take is ok.
 
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