Does anyone have experience using a CGM for their cat?

kccarney

kccarney

Member Since 2010
My Theo has just been diagnosed with acromegaly, which explains his insulin resistance, and his Internal Medicine doctor suggested that we use one among a few other treatment recommendations. Theo is a pretty calm and laid back 10 year old that I took in last December as a diabetic. He was on Bexacat at the time but had a pancreatitis issue so I had to transition him to Lantus. He is currently all the way up to 7 units BID which is why his regular vet referred me to the IM doctor. I don't know anyone personally that uses a CGM on their cat, so I wanted to post it here to see what y'all have to say. Thank you.
 
Ember has been using them since April. It was definitely a learning curve with learning how to interpret the information and figuring out where and how to apply them, but it’s been a very useful tool. Staci & Ivy has given wonderful advice along the way and helped and encouraged us through it all! Ember doesn’t have acromegaly but she does have IAA, so it has been so helpful to have a way to keep track of her levels since they’re so unpredictable. It takes some patience and a willingness to accept that it’s definitely not the perfect solution, but I am so incredibly grateful to have this tool in our toolbox.
Ember wears 2 patches (a Type One Style and an tegaderm over that) over her Libre and a tank top as well. She has still managed to rip off a couple of them, but for the most part, that works pretty well for us.
I still do manual testing for her AMPS and PMPS just to keep an eye on things, and when she goes low and I’m home, I’ll verify manually as well. But I love knowing what’s going on with her glucose when I can’t be home to monitor her. Dealing with FD when you’re a control freak is so hard and this makes me feel a little better about it since I at least I don’t have to worry about her crashing and me being completely unaware of it.
 
Hello and welcome to you and Theo.
I’ll just chime in but you’ve been given excellent information from Connie and Elaine.

Ivy wears a Libre since she is very feisty and doesn’t like me to manually poke her ears too often. I have found the Libre is a good way for me to manage her numbers. But it’s important to be able to still poke when you want to double check what’s going on if something seems off. Or of course, if their BG goes low and you need to know how low they actually are (since there can be a difference between the Libre and a handheld device).
Having said that, other people have found Libre readings to be very close to a handheld glucometer. So it takes some time and experience to know how your cat will read.

As Elaine mentioned, the Libre’s can be somewhat glitchy, and they are definitely not perfect.
We are using them off label as they are intended for humans. But, they are an incredibly helpful tool in trying to manage a cat with challenges and diabetes.
I’ve been using them for about three years now with Ivy.
As Elaine mentioned, we keep the Libre covered so our cats cannot mess with them or try to pull them off. Both of our cats have had successful pulling a Libre off now and then, but generally, they leave them alone.
I use a Tegaderm to cover Ivy‘s Libre and she wears a tube top on top to cover the Libre. Some cats can wear a little T-shirt or tank top but my cat didn’t like that so I had to figure out something that didn’t have anything on her shoulders.
These fussy cats 🥰

As Connie mentioned, if you’re going to be using Libre, you always want to have several extras on hand because inevitably it will fail at the worst times. Like in the middle of the night or on a weekend or when you can’t get to the pharmacy, etc..

If you have any follow up questions, feel free to ask, and we are happy to try to help 🥰
 
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