? Don't Know What To Do - Not an Emergency, but Important

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H.M. Victor (GA)

H.M. Victor (GA)

Member Since 2018
We are in a serious bind right now and need some advice. We are all out of test strips with no immediate way of getting more. I've been using the Relion Confirm meter and all the Walmarts we called don't have strips for it in stock, so after running out of those, I used the few glucose strips I had left that came with the Nova Max Plus meter that I ordered a while back - which is maybe partially why Victor's PS readings have been higher than with the Relion Confirm, in addition to the fact that I've been giving reduced doses since we haven't had enough strips for me to monitor as needed if he were to drop too much - and I used the last one of those last night, so we have nothing right now.

With basically having to live month-to-month as we do, we haven't had the money to get more test strips sooner and neither my mom nor I have credit cards or such to order online, so I talked to my dad again and he is going to send a gift card so I can order some more, but he won't be able to get it and send it off until Monday and then we'll still have to wait for the strips to get here after ordering them, so I'm seriously stressing out about it because I do not feel comfortable at all about giving Victor his insulin without testing, and I don't know what we should do :banghead: :blackeye:
 
Please don't stop insulin. The risk of ketone development would increase. You don't want that because treatment can be $$$$. Choose a very slightly lower than usual dose (from your SS data - maybe 3.5 u). and give that to him AM and PM. Watch his clinical signs. Do get it touch with DCIN through @Chris & China right away. You need their help.
 
Kris & Teasel said:
Please don't stop insulin. The risk of ketone development would increase. You don't want that because treatment can be $$$$. Choose a very slightly lower than usual dose (from your SS data - maybe 3.5 u). and give that to him AM and PM. Watch his clinical signs. Do get it touch with DCIN through @Chris & China right away. You need their help.
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I sent Chris a PM and will hopefully hear back from her as soon as possible. I will try 3 or 3.5 u and was thinking that for somewhat of a safety net we could give Victor a snack of his regular food at +2 since his nadir is usually at +4, do you think that would be okay?
 
H.M. Victor said:
I sent Chris a PM and will hopefully hear back from her as soon as possible. I will try 3 or 3.5 u and was thinking that for somewhat of a safety net we could give Victor a snack of his regular food at +2 since his nadir is usually at +4, do you think that would be okay?
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You could give a small snack at +2 if it would set your mind at rest. I see that @Squeaky and KT (GA)'s mom told you to check your inbox for a message.
 
Squalliesmom said:
Heather, where do you live? I am in Elkton, MD and can get some Confirm strips to you personally if you’re not to far away, or I can mail you some.
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I'm in West Valley City, Utah so mailing me some would be an option if you're able, but if not I understand and appreciate the offer either way :bighug:
 
Kris & Teasel said:
It's been a while ... checking in to see how you're doing. Are you feeling less anxious about all this? :)
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:bighug:
Things are going okay. The new vet we've seen is willing to switch Victor to Lantus, which we will be able to get through DCIN, but the thing that's holding me back is that I want to be sure we'll have a reliable way of getting test strips when we need them and the lady I've been in contact with at DCIN has told me that they'll only send strips with our first package they send us and after that we'll still have to get them ourselves, so I don't know what we're gonna do about that.

Other than that, the only other thing is that I need to get back on the ball with his testing after his PM shot, which I've slacked off on (shame on me :() due to how tired I've been. My sleep schedule has always been pretty erratic, along with having trouble falling asleep, and both of those have been noticeably worse since he was diagnosed.

Thanks for checking in to see how we're doing, Kris, it means a lot :bighug::bighug::bighug:
 
I'm really glad to read your report. Lantus is a great insulin for cats. Are the test strips you get right now for your Walmart ReliOn meter still available at a good price? I've read that some of these ReliOn meters are being discontinued but the ReliOn Prime is still on the market. It needs a slightly larger blood drop to give a reading but its test strips are very economical. Maybe you could research that a bit because those strips should be readily available all the time at a Walmart pharmacy.

Stay in touch! :)
 
Kris & Teasel said:
Are the test strips you get right now for your Walmart ReliOn meter still available at a good price? I've read that some of these ReliOn meters are being discontinues but the ReliOn Prime is still on the market. It needs a slightly larger blood drop to give a reading but its test strips are very economical.
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Our Confirm meter/strips is the one that's been discontinued, so the strips are hard to come by now, but since the Confirm is just one of the Arkray meters re-branded there are Arkray brand strips you can still get that will work with the Confirm and are $36 for 100 ct. I'm not sure if they're available anywhere other than online though, which is a problem because my mom and I don't have credit cards or PayPal.

Switching to the Relion Prime is something I've been considering, my concern with that is that Victor isn't much of a bleeder; we sometimes still have a difficult time getting a blood drop even with warming his ear and using a 26 gauge lancet.
 
Hi, I think that pretty much any human meter will work ( down here we do not have confirm or akay or relion prime I'm actually using accucheck active) so now that the ones you were getting are not available anymore maybe do some research in your area and get a meter that requires the minimum amount of blood even if is not one of the brands that are more used here( I think the ones that use the minimum will say it is around 2microliters ) and that the strips are the cheapest and easily available
 
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