BG test variances when not on insulin

[Pumbaa]

Initial reading at vet last week = 336 (Pumbaa was very agitated, had bit me, and was muzzled when they did the blood draw)

9:30 am reading today = 325 (this was about 2 hours after eating Instinct Raw chicken medallion mixed with EVO canned turkey and chicken)
12:30 pm reading = 297 (I had given Pumbaa sardines in water as a treat after his 9:30 test. Don't know if he had eaten anything else.)
3:30 pm reading = 288 (He ate some Stella & Chewy's freeze dried salmon and some EVO canned turkey and chicken around 1 pm - )
6:30 pm reading = 277 (He's been grazing all day. The only difference in what he has eaten is that he didn't get any more Instinct Raw frozen chicken after 7:30 am.)

While I understand that the BG 277 is still high, I am encouraged by the 59 point drop since last Monday.

I have another question, though:
What would be causing variations in his BG readings?

Pumbaa is not yet on insulin. Just total diet change to low-carb canned food (Innova EVO turkey and chicken, which claims to have less than 7% carbs) and raw (Instinct Raw chicken medallions and Stella & Chewy's freeze dried salmon & chicken dinner). For treats, he gets human-food protein, like chicken, sardines (in water), salmon or sharp cheddar cheese.

It's funny, because I can wrap my head around the differences in the readings when cats are on insulin - i.e. test before eating and if the numbers are over a certain point, they get insulin while they are eating; if the numbers before eating are low, they may not need the insulin. But I can't figure out how this relates to Pumbaa's pancreas producing insulin. If anyone can explain this, I would certainly appreciate it. Especially over the course of a day, when he's not getting any carb-rich food.

 

[MommaOfMuse]

First perhaps understanding exactly what insulin is would help. Insulin is a hormone that the body produces to be able to unlock the body cells so that it can use the nutrients from the food that was eaten. It is something that natural occurs in the body when the pancreas is working correctly, so it isn't a stagnant reading ever, it constantly varies throughout the day. I have even run curves on my non-diabetics just to see how their reading change over the course of the day and they go up and down depending on when the reading was taken in conjunction to when they had last eaten.

The other thing is that all meters have a +/- of 20% so hate to be a buzz kill but all of those numbers are virtual the same if you figure in the 20% variance that all meters have. You can test the same drop of blood and get two different readings because of that built in variance of all meters.

When you read about someone here doing a food trial to see if their cat is OTJ (off the juice) or not they are looking to see if the cat can pull their BGs down to a normal range without the use of extranous insulin. If the pancreas is functioning normally there will be a rise in BGs shortly after eating then the pancreas kicks in, releases its insulin and the BGs will drop on their own back into the normal range.

Hope that helps.

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang

 

[Pumbaa]

Mel, thank you so much for the response. I've been searching high and low to make some sense of these numbers.

I did not know about the +/- 20% on the meters. That doesn't make regulating the BG very easy, does it? And here I was all excited that Pumbaa's numbers appeared to be getting much better after one week of extremely low carbs. And I was blaming the Instinct Raw frozen chicken for the high number this morning.

Still waiting to hear from the vet about the need to get Pumbaa on insulin since we tried the raw and canned only for a week.

Thank you, very, very much for the information.