Ebby refuses blood test!

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MelissaEbby

MelissaEbby

Member Since 2012
Getting a little discouraged. My cat put up such a fight during an attempted home blood test, I'm the one that ended up bleeding. I have been able to get a couple pokes, but there was not enough blood for the meter to read it. I was hoping to do some curves on her, rather than taking her to the vet for one. I still have yet to get a reading since she started insulin. I hope the 1 u dose is a small and safe enough to be doing without testing?
 
Melissa,

Take a deep breath. Believe it or not, you and Ebby WILL master this. If KR and I can figure it out, so can you.

I can't speak to the curve at the vet's. someone else will have to weigh in on that. As for testing, however, remember that Ebby picks up on your emotions. If you're going into this like a battle, Ebby will give you a battle. If you're calm but determined, Ebby's more likely to be, well, not necessarily cooperative, but at least less combative.

Have you tried getting Ebby used to the steps of testing without actually pricking her? Have you been rewarding every attempt? If you can describe what you've been doing, you'll get lots of good advice.

Christine

P.S. I, too, bled more than my cat when we started. One month later and while she doesn't exactly come running at test time, she does sit quietly in my lap until we're finished. There's always hope!
 
Melissa, I'm in Omaha. If you want, I could come over and try to help or you could come by my place and I could show you how I do it on Hobbs. It takes some getting used to and sometimes their ears just don't bleed and sometimes they are like Niagara Falls and you end up looking like a horror movie. There's also video on YouTube about it, I found those to be helpful too.
 
For the test I put her on the dresser with a blanket down, give her a treat and praise. Then warm her ear, and attempt to prick. I'm using 29 gauge lancet, without the pen. She either starts to get really restless at the warming stage or after I prick. The pricks honestly do seem to hurt her, as she flinches every time.

Her ear is not bleeding much so I have to press on it trying to get more blood. She doesn't like this either. I reward no matter the behavior after the (failed) attempt. I just tried another one where I wrapped her in a towel. This seemed to help. She did well up until I was trying to squeeze blood out. In the end there was not enough blood. I guess had there been it would have worked ok, granted she still does not like it.

My meter reads a 0.5 drop of blood. Maybe I should try the relion from walmart that reads a 0.3 drop of blood, but wasn't sure this was enough to even make a difference.
 
You might want to try a bigger gauge lancet. 29 might be too fine. Are you going all the way through the ear? I started out with 26 gauge lancets and switched to 28 after his ears got used to bleeding.
Do keep trying! C'mon Ebby - work with Mamabean on this one so she can help you feel better!
 
Or if you're really struggling with a super scratchy, snarling, biting kitty, you could try what I was doing to begin with, the patented "poke and run" approach!

Instead of positioning the cat somewhere to do the test, take advantage of a sleepy, relaxed moment. Don't move her, just wake her up slightly by making a fuss of her ears a bit (also this really helps to warm them up and increase blood flow - a small pill bottle filled with hot water helps as well), and then prick the ear, take the test. Praise and bestow low-carb treats upon kitty immediately afterwards to distract her from the minor annoyance.

My cat, Cleo, hates the restriction of movement involved in actually placing her somewhere to do the test and keeping her there, much more than she dislikes the actual BG testing itself it seems; this seems similar to your situation. Cleo has slowly gotten used to this, and she's now hardly even reacting to the tests at all, as long as she is relaxed enough when I do it.

This morning, however, I was unable to test her at all, as she was going through one of her manic half hours at the only point I was at home available to test her - it just wasn't happening, she wouldn't keep still, and when I tried to get her to do so I got scratched!

But this evening's test was completed whilst she was sat snoozing and purring on my lap watching TV with me, and afterwards I had to actually move her off so that I could get her a little treat, she didn't even try to leave of her own accord. If I hadn't moved, Cleo would have just shut her eyes and gone back to sleep.

I'm hoping it'll all continue to improve, so that eventually she'll be happy enough to let me test her whenever, but right now, at the beginning of regular testing, it certainly seems to help massively to do it when she's really relaxed, sleepy and chilled.

Every cat is different, but this may work for you also.

H
 
Tara & Buster said:
You might want to try a bigger gauge lancet. 29 might be too fine. Are you going all the way through the ear? I started out with 26 gauge lancets and switched to 28 after his ears got used to bleeding.
Do keep trying! C'mon Ebby - work with Mamabean on this one so she can help you feel better!
Click to expand...

Thanks Tara, I meant to say 28 gauge, not 29, but even still that might be too small. Maybe I should get the 26 gauge. So, am I supposed to go all the way through the ear? It seems like I did a couple times. Ouch! All the way through the ear just sounds so painful....do their ears handle all this poking? Thanks for the encouragement. I had another tearful day over this. The past couple days she just seems so lethargic and not herself. My instinct is maybe 1 unit is still too much. Maybe I should lower her insulin dose a touch and see if that helps.

Helene,
Ebby sounds a lot like your cat, so I will try that approach as well. Maybe I'll give Ebby a little break from all of this. I felt bad, because earlier I showed her one of her treats and she just hissed. I guess I'm reverse conditioning her. On a funny note, a couple nights ago Ebby reached up on top of the file cabinet, and pulled down her ProZinc information booklet, and walked around with it in her mouth for a little bit. I thought maybe she wanted me to look at it again. I read through it again and made sure I wasn't missing anything! Thanks everyone!
 
So, am I supposed to go all the way through the ear?
Click to expand...
No! Then the blood just pools down. A light touch and the blood comes to the top. Put a little smear of vaseline before poking so the blood will bead. Use a cosmetic pad underneath the ear for support and then roll it over after testing and hold for a few seconds to minimize bruising. To milk the ear you would stick and then hold the ear while pushing with thumb just from the bottom of the poke up, not from top and bottom. You do not have to jab, poke hard, just a light touch on a warm ear and lots of praise and hugs after.

Take Sabrina up on her offer to come over and show you.
 
We totally sympathize with your struggle to do a blood test. My cat is very strong and the first blood test went terribly, really terribly. I was very unsure and scared I'd hurt him or do it wrong and I think that energy transferred to our cat. He growled and hissed and slashed at me like a wild cat. I can't imagine there could be a cat that would be harder to test. Fought and struggled to prick his ear with the lancet and I think we drew blood but he was so strong he ran away before we could get the meter to his ear. Impossible to hold him. THree to 4 tests went just like that. I mean like really out of control wild cat drama.

We read thru posts on here and realized we had to change our human energy to a calm confidence and I had to put aside anxiety that I had to get the whole test done or the world would end. Once we changed our human energy, the whole process transformed. I also changed to 26 guage lancets, we found a diagram somewhere on the web that showed exactly where to hit the ear to get the good bleed. We often went right thru his ear but I have to tell you I think they react to your anxiety and the surprise of the prick because our cat settled into eating through his whole blood test, never even flinching. If it hurt him I think he'd flinch or move or pause eating. Over about 3 days we found a routine that seemed to work. He is very smart so we could not surprise him, we have to encourage him. So we use hunger. He is hungry by blood test time and when he hears his bowls he reports for his test. We get everything ready then put the bowl down next to us on the floor. Vaseline on his ear made a huge difference and you don't have to put it on every time, a residue will live on the ear after a while. We spread the food in a thin layer all over the bowl so it takes him time to eat it, but we keep a spoon and a little supply next to us so we can quickly refill if necessary. You will find a rythem that works just keep trying. If you keep rewarding your cat whether the test works or not he'll be more relaxed and likely to participate. Trust us we did not have a willing participant. It still took a few days to work out the bugs of keeping him sitting still all on his own while we did the prick and the quick meter. I think the holding his ear while we wait for it to stop bleeding (we count to 17) is his least favorite part. But by then we are putting a few pieces of freeze dried chicken in his bowl with our free hand and he is purring. Seriously if we can tame our wild slashing growling cat into purring, its really doable for just about any cat. breathe and relax. We did make a video of the whole thing because we were so astonished how easy it all became. Have not yet put it on youtube, but we mean to do it.
 
A dab of Neosporin antibiotic ointment with pain relief may be applied to the ear a few minutes before testing, then wiped off just before testing. It helps the blood bead up, helps the pricked area heal, and reduces some of the annoyance of being pricked.

Also, my signature link for Secondary monitoring tools has some supplemental techniques that will provide you with some information about how your kitty is doing. These techniques are helpful when the gold standard of blood glucose testing is still being mastered..
 
Thanks everyone! I did PM Sabrina, and will probably have her show me. Very appreciative of this resource and Sabrina's kind offer. I'm first going to get 26 gauge lancet, a meter that takes the smallest drop, use petroleum jelly, and try to not worry about hurting her; like the last post said, attempt an attitude change. I'm going to also reduce her dose to .5 until I can start getting her tested, or into the vet later this week. She has just been acting so weird on 1 unit, and until I have numbers to back up that dose, I think .5 or .75 might be better. Thanks again for the support and advise!
 
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