Diagnosed one week ago

[Monster's Mom]

Hey! I have been reading all I can find on here and want to say you all have helped me so much already, thank you. My 11yo Monster was diagnosed last week. They didn't tell me her BG, just said it was off the charts. They gave her subcutaneous fluids, royal canin glycobalance, and a script for Lantus 2u every 12 hrs. I picked it up, came home, fed her the new food, injected her, and immediately started looking up all the info I could find and i found you all. Read about testing, food and all. I went the next day to buy friskies and or FF. The vet did not say anything abou home testing. So I messaged them and asked if I should be testing, they said no because they would be testing her every 2 hours during her visit for a curve. I bought a meter anyway. Contour next-gen and had a heck if a time getting blood at first, now it seems to be getting better. I also let them know that I would be canceling her appt for a curve in office due to stress and would be doing it at home. She said ok and wanted to make sure I had a meter calibrated to animals because a human one won't work, I lied, said yes, then decided to buy one to compare. The readings are so much different, i had no idea. So now I'm not sure which one I should use. I got used to the reading on the human one, switching to the pet one is confusing. I have been doing her glucose curve TODAY and was able to test with both meters a few times. Is one better than the other? Are they essentially reading in comparison to what her levels should be? I'm still in a trial and error stage with changing their food, doing testing, giving shots.
I tried putting some of our info in my profile but to be honest, I have never used a spreadsheet before and never learned how, so I have everything written down, guess I'm old school. Any help, advise, comments would be greatly appreciated

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

Welcome to FDMB!

The human and animal meters are calibrated differently. At lower numbers, the difference between the meters is relatively small. For example, at a blood glucose of 50 on a human meter, a reading of around 68 is what you would see on a pet meter. As the blood glucose readings get higher, the difference between the meters gets larger. Unfortunately, there is no established way to convert between the readings from the two types of meters. What we suggest is that you pick a meter and stick with it so you don't drive yourself crazy! Vets like to tell you to use a pet meter. They seem to have forgotten that up until several years ago, very few people used pet meters -- including vets. The cost for the strips for a pet meter is about $1.00/strip. For a Walmart Relion meter, the cost is about $0.17/strip. It looks like for your meter, the strips cost about $0.38 each. Over time, that's a huge savings. I never used a pet meter. In fact, the information in our dosing methods information is all based on human meters.

I'm linking a post on helping us to help you. It gives information on setting up your signature and your spreadsheet. We can have someone give you a hand with the spreadsheet if you'd like. The post also contains information on how to use the spreadsheet. Let us know if it doesn't make sense. The signature is helpful in that it provides basic information so we don't keep asking you the same questions.

 

[Monster's Mom]

Thank you! A new day brings new challenges..... I did her glucose curves yesterday and from start to stop, food and injections, her bg stayed fairly steady (human readings) 243, then 2 hours after 2u at 10am, it was 239, the lowest she got was 222 at about 730pm. This morning I just tested her AMPS, BG 73. I have never seen it that low preshot. Her pm shot was 10pm last night.
I did add some information on my profile under the about you part, maybe I put it in the wrong spot.