Getting ready to home test

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occhi

occhi

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Hey everyone,

We are getting closer to being able to test Dude at home and I have a question. What should we set the lancet to? My neighbors daughter has diabetes and she says she never sets it any higher than 2 for herself. I looked at setting one and tried to figure out how deep it would go but I couldnt' really tell it poked so fast. Is it supposed to go all the way through the cat's ear? That seems unlikely. Is one short enough to not go through his ear? I'm skeered :P

tmjn
 
I always start with the deepest setting. After a short time the ears tend to lean to bleed and you can reduce the depth. Also, make sure that you firmly backup when you are going to poke. Otherwise, the lancet will deflect the ear vice piercing the ear. Good luck.
 
I have to set mine on the deepest setting but if I get right up against the edge of the eat, it sometimes does go all the way thru. I wrap a gauze pad tight on my finger inside the edge of KT's ear then poke on outside. That way, when I get the draw, I let the pad loose and can clean it easily. I can also use the same pad to handle to strip and lancet. All nice and clean for both of us.

GOOD THOUGHTS YOUR WAY!
 
I started at the deepest setting too, but as his ears have learned to bleed, I now have it dialed all the way back to the shallowest setting.
 
colossal failure. Dude's ears wouldn't bleed at all. We poked him like 6 times and then had to give up. To make things worse, he wouldn't eat last night so we didn't shoot him. When we woke up though his food was gone so he ate it sometime in the night while we werre sleeping. He wouldn't eat again this morning either but I didn't think we should skip two doses and I think he's figured out that if he doesn't eat in front of us we don't give him the shot. I'm really not sure what to do. I know there are other places to draw blood from, are there any videos of dew claw testing anywhere? This is not fun.

tmjn
 
PLEASE DO NOT TEST VIA NAIL CLIPPING! It is cruel and should never be done.

If you cannot get the ears to bleed, please post what you did and perhaps we can help. If not, you can try the PAW, not the claw.

Also, consider posting your location incase someone lives nearby and can help
 
Don't give up yet - it WILL happen. When it finally does, the ride will be MUCH less stressful! BIG HUG to get over that terrible down feeling you've got 'bout now. It's OK....
 
are you warming the ear?

It's very easy and will help

Take one sock

add 1/4 cup of rice, beans or oatmeal (not instant)

Knot the top

place in microwave - 15-30 seconds (until warm to touch)

place behind cat's ear and hold, this will warm ear and blood vessels

once warm, try poking again.

also, just to start out, you may want to use a larger lancet - say 29 guage or lower (the lower the number the bigger the lancet).
 
Yes, I second larger gauge lancets (26-28g) and warming the ear. This was the only way I could get blood in the beginning. If you don't have the stuff to a make a rice sock, you can also warm a damp washcloth in the microwave and put it in a plastic baggie. Also, make sure you're backing the ear as you poke with a tissue or cottonball, and that you're pressing the lancet device firmly to the ear, if you're using one, and that it's on the deepest setting.
 
You want to aim for the outer edge of the ear.

I started with a depth setting in the middle and increased. The next to the highest setting works for me.

When I use the lancing device, I do not see a droplet of blood. I massage the ear, trying to move blood through the vein in the outer edge. Eventually I see a blood drop form. You must hold onto to the ear tightly because cats react by shaking their heads and your prized blood drop may end up somewhere else. You may need to massage the ear also - and you must warm the ear before you lance. Warming thins the blood and causes a puncture to bleed when it might not otherwise.

Lana
 
I forgot about warming the ear. We will try either the washcloth (probably that) or the rice sock next time we do it. The VET tech told us not to use the pen with the lancet but I think that made it harder. I think if we do use the pen it will go much faster. Here is what we did do:

Picked up Dude (essential yes :P )
Put him in comfy spot for him and hubby who is doing the poking
Massaged his ear for about 2 minutes
Took the lancet out
attempted to poke
fail

Hubby tried it at least 5 times but we were all jumpy and everytime he'd poke we'd all raise up 5 feet in the air. That didn't help I know. Dude shook his head a couple times but there wasnt any blood so it didn't matter. The end.

Next time we try I'll remember the washcloth and we'll try the lancet pen.

FYI I would absolutely never test by trimming his claw. That sounds horrible and I do know that cutting the quick hurts so that will not be happening. I had heard someone here pokes the dew claw 'area' instead of the ear so I thought we could try that instead but like I said his skin is so thick there it just seemed like it would hurt more and applying more pressure than hubby wanted to from the beginning didn't even puncture it.

Just RAWR, thats how I feel right now.

tmjn
 
Washcloth is not likely to work. The rice sock serves 2 purposes. It holds heat if you warm it for 10-12 seconds in the microwave. Secondly, it makes a solid, "hard" surface to hold inside the cat's ear. This is probably what your problem is. If you do not have a FIRM surface inside the cat's ear while you are trying to prick the outside of the ear, you will not get a prick! The lancet will just push against the ear and nothing will happen. Until you are able to make a rice sock, you could try using the washcloth to warm the ear, then you need a rubber ball or some other firm surface that will hold the ear firm but allow the lancet penetrate if it happens to pierce the ear. ( I don't like to prick that deep, myself).

Lana
 
I actually use the inner/thicker edge of the ear, about 2/3 of the way down. Always have and it works great. I have my sock with about 1/2c of rice, lightly warmed, and use it as support when poking with my softclix lancet device.
 
The washcloth would definitley only be for warming up. We would use a cotton pad held inside the ear after it gets warm but you're probably right, we're not holding it firmly enough. It looks like our lancets are 25g so we'll have to go get some bigger ones. We can probably pick up rice at the same time. We don't cook at our house (ever) so we don't have rice just sitting around. You're probably right there too though that if we could use the sock to warm and provide some thing hard to lance into it might be easier. I'm never gonna remember all this stuff.

tmjn
 
Lana & Yoyo said:
Washcloth is not likely to work. The rice sock serves 2 purposes. It holds heat if you warm it for 10-12 seconds in the microwave. Secondly, it makes a solid, "hard" surface to hold inside the cat's ear. This is probably what your problem is. If you do not have a FIRM surface inside the cat's ear while you are trying to prick the outside of the ear, you will not get a prick! The lancet will just push against the ear and nothing will happen. Until you are able to make a rice sock, you could try using the washcloth to warm the ear, then you need a rubber ball or some other firm surface that will hold the ear firm but allow the lancet penetrate if it happens to pierce the ear. ( I don't like to prick that deep, myself).

Lana
Click to expand...

The washcloth does indeed work. You first use the washcloth to warm the ear, and then you use a tissue, piece of toilet paper, paper towel, or cottonball to "back" the ear. I've been poking Bandit like this for years. I prefer it to the rice sock because I can immediately use the tissue to put pressure on the area to stop the bleeding quickly.

However, you do have to hold whatever you're using to back it it firmly underneath--don't worry about the lancet poking through the ear and the tissue to poke you. I use the next-to-deepest setting on my device and it has never poked through to where I'm holding it with my finger, even when I'm using a thinner piece of tissue. The lancet doesn't extend that far.
 
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