Danielle and Baby

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We need another test please Danielle.

We need to test every 30 minutes for a bit longer.

When was the last time you gave her food?

AMPS n/a (not home testing yet) 10 AM 4U Lantus
+5 (3 pm) 53 at vet
+6 (4 pm) 37 after home from vet - gave maple syrup
+6.5 (4:30) 27 - gave maple syrup
+10.5 (8:35 pm) 44
+11 (9:08 pm) 33
+11.25 (9:16 pm) 1/4 ml syrup
+11.75 (9:45 pm) 51
+12 (9:55 pm) 1/4 ml syrup
+12.5 (10:30 pm) 50 1.5t food ( Meow mix canned chicken and shrimp in gravy)[/quote]
+13.75 (11:45 pm) 70
 
Wow you all really know what ur talking about that is awesome I am so glad I met Jamie to be introduced to you! Sry I took so long my phone was dying and it's hard to do his on my phone lol baby is doing good she's relaxing but she is very alert thank goodness
 
Danielle,

When did you last feed her?

One more test please. Depending on what the test is, maybe more food.
 
Hi Daniellle

You're doing great.

Unless you take her to the emergency vet, you're going to be up most, if not all, of the night with this, so a pot of coffee or strong tea may help.

If your phone/internet access becomes unavailable, you'll need to continue with test, syrup/feed, wait, repeat.
 
The message board is being a bit wonky tonight.

You may need to log in again - check in the upper right, light blue band to see if it says Login or Logout.

If it says Login, your connection was dropped and you need to sign in again.
 
Hello all so sorry about last night my phone kept closing my open apps for some reason gotta love technology. Baby is doing very good just checked her again and got a BG-105. We did not give her the morning dose as we don't want her to bottom out again like yesterday. Well I'm gonna take a nap didn't get much sleep lol
 
Ok you did great last night! And made the right decision no insulin this morning.

Now that the crisis is passed, let's go over some basics so you can better understand all this.

1) Food/nutrition - Now, as far as diet - definitely dump the dry food (if you are feeding any) and if the vet recommends purchasing prescription food like DM just say "no thank you". ALL cats, and especially those with diabetes, do best on a species appropriate diet that is high in protein and low in carbs. Dry food DOES NOT fit that bill and DM food, even canned, just really isn't that great as far as quality. Most here on FDMB feed low carb/high protein canned, raw bought from a pet store or they make there own.

Here is a link to a site by a vet "Dr. Lisa DVM" ... who also posts on this board from time to time ... www.catinfo.org

If you look on the right side of her site, she has a food comparison chart to help you figure out what food you want to get based on the carb %.

You want to keep the carb % below 10% and around 7% is great. (Personally, I stay between 0-6% carbs.)

While on her site, you can read about in-depth info. on nutrition and how to make raw food, etc.

Here is another link that will give more information about food/nutrition

Nutrition/food info

The good thing with feeding your diabetic cat this way, is that it is ALSO good for any non-diabetic cat too. All your cats can safely eat the same food without worry and it may save you some costs and headaches of having to do separate feedings and keeping track of what they are eating.


The meow mix with gravy is a high carb food and was perfect for last night. You don't want to feed this as her every day food because it is too high in carbs and you will have to adjust the insulin too much because of the food. I suggest if you still have this food, to keep it - label it high carb and separate it from the low carb food you will use. If you have another incident like last night, you can break it out and use it.

2) Home Testing - Thanks to Jamie - you are now a pro at home testing and it's self explanatory why home testing is critical in monitoring diabetes and BG levels. So kudos to you on this.

3) Insulin - you are using Lantus and that's great - Lantus is an excellent insulin for cats. My only concern is that you are at a higher starting dose than we would like to see.

Could you tell us a few things:

When was your cat diagnosed?
What was the starting insulin dose?
How did you get at 3 / 4 units of insulin?

We normally recommend a starting dose of 1 unit or even 1/2 (0.50) units twice a day. This the the start low, go slow approach. The reason we recommend starting out this way, is to avoid the hypo incident you had last night. By giving a higher dose 3 or units at a time, you may have skipped over the ideal dose which could be 1.5, 1.0 or even 1/2 unit.

As you become familiar with this board, you will see we have several forums here. The health forum (where you are now) is a great place to get started. Once you get comfortable, create a spreadsheet to track the BG's, insulin doses etc, we suggest posting on the Lantus Tight Regulation Forum. There are lots of folks there who can help tweak the lantus dose. We can do it here, but there is always someone on that forum.

That leads me to next steps and now what. Keep testing and if she is 150 or below, at this time, I would suggest NOT giving insulin. Seeing that she was 107 this morning with all the high carb, gravy and syrup given, that is fantastic to see.

It can also mean that if you change her food to 100% low carb wet only, the need for insulin may no longer be necessary. It is possible to control her diabetes with food. Now that doesn't mean you stop testing and monitoring her. It just means she may not need insulin, or may only need a very small amount.

If you do need to give insulin, I also suggest starting over and following the start low, go slow approach and restart her by giving 1/2 unit at a time. This will help to keep her safe and hopefully avoid another incident.

Ok - here are links for you:

How to Get a SS and Link in your Signature -- viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18207

Help with signatures/links/images/avatars here! -- viewtopic.php?f=6&t=486


Board index » INSULIN SUPPORT GROUPS (ISG) » LANTUS (GLARGINE) - Tight Regulation - viewforum.php?f=9

In this forum there are several posts that are starred/called stickies that I suggest you read - it will give you details about Lantus, how to use it, etc. that will be invaluable

Dr. Lisa's website - www.catinfo.org

Gives you the food chart comparison list, explains why dry food is bad for cats, and a host of other valuable information about vaccinations, UTI's, etc.



Please come back and ask questions - we are here to help and will do everything we can to help you and Baby!
 
Welcome Danielle and Baby!

You handled everything so good last night :thumbup :thumbup Glad Baby is safe today!

I get a chill thinking what could have happened if you had not met Jamie and Jupiter nailbite_smile

Good job on you too Jamie!! You were awesome!! :-D

Jane
 
fantastic job last night. if God did not intervene and send JAMIE to you. I truly believe your cat would not be with you right now. Thank you so much for listening to someone you never met and for taking the initiative to come to the board for help. this also saved your cat from possible death.

it was a close call for sure had not all these things happened.

PLEASE DO NOT give any insulin before checking in here with numbers and waiting for an answer on what to do.

also, i would like to extend an invitation to you to attend our annual get together of people from the board at my place on august 17th. cats welcome.

come meet some great people and talk cats. learn everything you will ever want to know. we do a pot luck cause so many come. You live close enough that you can make it.
would love to meet you as I am sure all those attending would also. we are all family. It is nice to be able to put a face behind the name and cat.

let me know,OK

AGAIN Great job last night
 
Thank you all soooo much for you advice and support, I really do believe Jamie & Jupiter were my saving grace and I am very grateful to have met them yesterday!!!
 
I would be very inclined to read the riot act to the vet's office, especially the tech ... except diplomacy can work better than ripping someone a new one (no matter how much they deserve it!!!)

That being the case, I think it might be useful to print out the American Animal Hospital Association 2010 Diabetes Treatment guidelines, read them over thoroughly yourself, then provide them to the vet's office with a note saying you understand how difficult it can be to stay up to date on numerous conditions for numerous species ... followed by a succinct statement of what happened last night.

The combination of the guidelines, plus a description of what happened, should get the vet's attention, as it could be considered malpractice to have instructed you to shoot that high dose without home testing, if you were the kind of person that wanted to do that.

If you should decide you need to fire that vet, there are Vet Interview Topics in my signature link.
 
Danielle,

So glad to hear that Baby is ok. You did a great job last night and helped Baby so much.

How are you doing? You kind of had a 'trial by fire' with doing all the testing you did last night. I shudder to think what may have happened to Baby if you had not met Jamie and she had not given you her spare meter.

We kind of hit you hard and fast last night, not giving you too much information to catch you up on how we work. We were trying to stick to the essentials which were feeding Baby some high carb food, testing to see what the numbers were and making sure she wasn't dropping again.

You did a fantastic job last night! Kudos to you for sticking with us.

You have been given a lot of information in other posts already, so take you time to review it and come back and ask questions.

We are like a family here and you are now a member of this wonderful, caring, giving extended. Welcome Danielle and Baby.
 
Hello all,
I'm am so sorry I haven't been on to update everyone on Baby the last few days have been hectic. Thank you for all the help and caring as Saturday night was long and crazy!!! Baby is doing GREAT!!! We are still testing her everyday to check her BG levels. They are as follows:

Sunday morning BG-in the 100's I think like 102 or 120 so many numbers I'm getting confused lol
Sunday night BG-235 so we gave her 2units
Monday morning BG-87 no Insulin
Monday night (tonight) BG-77 so again no Insulin

If not for meeting Jamie & Jupiter along with all the help and advice from you all I would of probably lost my Baby Girl :cry:
Hopefully some day soon I will be able to say that with Diet and the help and advice from you all she may not need Insulin.
I have been doing some research on all the information I was given and you sure can learn a lot.
I am very Happy and Grateful to have met everyone on here and look forward to future conversations with everyone! :thumbup
 
We need to find a dose that you can give consistently every 12 hours. Obviously, that 2U dose is too much since you have to keep skipping because of low numbers.

I would not recommend more than 0.5U for now. With a bit more testing and a few days on that dose, maybe we will need to increase that dose.

What food is she getting fed now?
 
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