Girl was 234 @ 8am got 1unit Lantus and 70 @ 2pm

[Veronica & Babu-chiri]

I think the problem with the spread sheet is getting it set up, Girl mom has a Mac, and is probably not familiar with google docs, I am not familiar with Macs so not sure what browser, and if maybe a plugin is needed. Hoping we have a member with a MAC. I am assuming that Girl's Mom computer / online application skills are limited (I apologize for the assumption).

To use the spreadsheet on a Mac you need to download the Google Drive and the Google sheets (look for them in the app store) once you have them you can open the SS and save it with a new name

 

[Red & Rover (GA)]

I access google drive through a gmail account on my mac. You log into google drive just like you log into gmail.

 

[Marvin's Mom - Nat]

I see the spread sheet

 

[Veronica & Babu-chiri]

I can see the spreadsheet too

Her numbers look a lot better than Babu's at the beginning take a look at his numbers on 2016

 

[Girl]

Yes, I see you were on a roller coaster ride. That's why I want to learn from YOU Veronica. I want girl to do what Babu did. How can I help her? At this moment I can't get blood. I keep poking her ear and no blood comes out. I got the cat ones that are 28 gauge and I still can't get blood. The human ultra thin worked better. Where do you poke to get blood? IDK if I should just give her .5. That's couldn't hurt, right? The vet wanted 1 1/2 2x daily without any blood checks. I just can't get myself to do that, or talk to him.

 

[Marvin's Mom - Nat]

It takes a while to get used to the pokes, there are days that I have a hard time too with Marvin. You will get used to it. As for testing before shots, a human would never shoot without testing themselves first, so why would you not test an animal first. You are doing the right thing. Better safe than sorry. It is easier to get blood if their ear is warm, I just play with his ear a bit before poking, there are other tricks people here do, unfortunately I don't know them.

 

[Marvin's Mom - Nat]

 

[Girl]

The ultra thin ones work the best. She was 248 and I gave her 1 unit. Now I have to figure out how to put that on the SS.

 

[Marvin's Mom - Nat]

You just need to open the file you created earlier in google docs, and add the numbers. I booked marked mine so I didn't have to go looking for it. Do you know how to get to your google drive?

 

[Marvin's Mom - Nat]

click on the little boxes
then click on drive



click on the spreadsheet file you created for BG

 

[Marvin's Mom - Nat]

sorry here is the first image that didn't show up above

 

[Veronica & Babu-chiri]

Yes, I see you were on a roller coaster ride. That's why I want to learn from YOU Veronica. I want girl to do what Babu did. How can I help her? At this moment I can't get blood. I keep poking her ear and no blood comes out. I got the cat ones that are 28 gauge and I still can't get blood. The human ultra thin worked better. Where do you poke to get blood? IDK if I should just give her .5. That's couldn't hurt, right? The vet wanted 1 1/2 2x daily without any blood checks. I just can't get myself to do that, or talk to him.

Finding the right spot is not easy but once you do I'll get better. In my case I poke Babu around the middle of his ear and very close to the edge, I found the approximate place by trial and error because Babu has sooo much hair (dark) in his ear that even now I can't see the veins not even with a big lamp.

One thing I always do is I warm his ear (cold ear is equal to no blood) with a warm pice of cloth, I wet the pice of cloth, warm it in the microwave, just a few seconds, I put it inside a plastic bag, I test it against the back of my wrist like you would do with a baby's milk to make sure is not too hot and I press it against his ear and I use it as a support for the poking

Also I hold the lancet in a 45 degree angle

I think you are right not dosing that high until you can test properly and you are sure of the real dose she needs better safe than sorry

 

[Veronica & Babu-chiri]

I just looked at your SS and with those yellows I would certainly hold the dose of 1unit for a few days ( 1 week) unless she earns a reduction.

You definitely want to find the dose that will allow you to shoot twice a day having to skip shoots is not good

I also think you will have to monitor her closely take as many mid cycles tests as you can because as the depot starts forming she could go even lower (we don't know yet)

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

Two questions/concerns:

Her 6 hour after glargine BG is 250! I'll have to take it again tonight around 8 to see if I need to give her another unit.

Did you mean that you would give Girl a second shot this cycle? If so, with Lantus this is a bad idea. If you give a 2nd shot, you will have a second nadir (low point in the cycle). This could coincide with your next shot time and numbers will be unpredictable. With a long acting insulin, you want to shoot every 12 hours. Should there ever be a need to get high numbers down, you would use a different kind of insulin but this is not something most of us ever need to do.

With regard to what you're feeding your cat, are you adding supplements to the raw food? You mentioned adding taurine, etc. You may want to look at the recipe for raw food on Lisa Pierson, DVM's site on feline nutrition. There are also pre-mixes you can add to raw food that contain all of the necessary nutrients so you don't have to buy all of the supplements. If you were just grinding up meat, your cat's diet won't be nutritionally complete.

 

[Girl]

Finding the right spot is not easy but once you do I'll get better. In my case I poke Babu around the middle of his ear and very close to the edge, I found the approximate place by trial and error because Babu has sooo much hair (dark) in his ear that even now I can't see the veins not even with a big lamp.

One thing I always do is I warm his ear (cold ear is equal to no blood) with a warm pice of cloth, I wet the pice of cloth, warm it in the microwave, just a few seconds, I put it inside a plastic bag, I test it against the back of my wrist like you would do with a baby's milk to make sure is not too hot and I press it against his ear and I use it as a support for the poking

Also I hold the lancet in a 45 degree angle

I think you are right not dosing that high until you can test properly and you are sure of the real dose she needs better safe than sorry

Thank You for the help with testing. I will use that warming and poking technique. I have to psych myself up to poke her. I use the pen that snaps the needle and that probably hurts more.

 

[Girl]

I just looked at your SS and with those yellows I would certainly hold the dose of 1unit for a few days ( 1 week) unless she earns a reduction.

You definitely want to find the dose that will allow you to shoot twice a day having to skip shoots is not good

I also think you will have to monitor her closely take as many mid cycles tests as you can because as the depot starts forming she could go even lower (we don't know yet)

I don't understand. Do I stop giving her 1 unit insulin/lantus for a week or until she's higher than yellow, or shoot 2x a day at .5 if she's in the yellow? I need to do more testing.

 

[Girl]

Two questions/concerns:


Did you mean that you would give Girl a second shot this cycle? If so, with Lantus this is a bad idea. If you give a 2nd shot, you will have a second nadir (low point in the cycle). This could coincide with your next shot time and numbers will be unpredictable. With a long acting insulin, you want to shoot every 12 hours. Should there ever be a need to get high numbers down, you would use a different kind of insulin but this is not something most of us ever need to do.

With regard to what you're feeding your cat, are you adding supplements to the raw food? You mentioned adding taurine, etc. You may want to look at the recipe for raw food on Lisa Pierson, DVM's site on feline nutrition. There are also pre-mixes you can add to raw food that contain all of the necessary nutrients so you don't have to buy all of the supplements. If you were just grinding up meat, your cat's diet won't be nutritionally complete.

The vet prescribes 1 1/2 units of lantus every 12 hours, and NO blood testing. I gave up on that 2 weeks ago.
I'm not giving her anything without testing and never more than 1 unit 12 hours apart.
Yes, I know about supplementing raw food.

 

[Girl]

Finding the right spot is not easy but once you do I'll get better. In my case I poke Babu around the middle of his ear and very close to the edge, I found the approximate place by trial and error because Babu has sooo much hair (dark) in his ear that even now I can't see the veins not even with a big lamp.

One thing I always do is I warm his ear (cold ear is equal to no blood) with a warm pice of cloth, I wet the pice of cloth, warm it in the microwave, just a few seconds, I put it inside a plastic bag, I test it against the back of my wrist like you would do with a baby's milk to make sure is not too hot and I press it against his ear and I use it as a support for the poking

Also I hold the lancet in a 45 degree angle

I think you are right not dosing that high until you can test properly and you are sure of the real dose she needs better safe than sorry

She doesn't like the bag near her head, or the warm cloth out of the bag. I will have to warm her by petting her. She's very independent and not a lap kitty. Everything is on her terms. If I can't get a BG test done what's the harm in giving .5 every 12 hours as long as she eats regularly? At this point, both of us are SO FRUSTRATED with all of this, I'm beginning to understand why the vet said just give the insulin without testing.
I'll keep trying to test her BG, but not when it's a fight, like it is now. I just don't know whether or not to give her .5 . I need to read more stickies. What I really want is to do what you did with Babu so her pancreas kicks back in, but it's not that easy.

 

[Marje and Gracie]

She doesn't like the bag near her head, or the warm cloth out of the bag. I will have to warm her by petting her. She's very independent and not a lap kitty. Everything is on her terms. If I can't get a BG test done what's the harm in giving .5 every 12 hours as long as she eats regularly? At this point, both of us are SO FRUSTRATED with all of this, I'm beginning to understand why the vet said just give the insulin without testing.
I'll keep trying to test her BG, but not when it's a fight, like it is now. I just don't know whether or not to give her .5 . I need to read more stickies. What I really want is to do what you did with Babu so her pancreas kicks back in, but it's not that easy.

I'm glad you got the SS up and running. I developed it on a Mac so it is very Mac friendly

One thing I want to urge you to do is study other kittys' SSs to learn from them but don't expect that Girl will do the same thing or that what Girl needs is the same thing that Babu needs. We have a saying here: Every Cat is Different or ECID. And so we must find what works for Girl but you can learn lots about bounces and different patterns from other SSs.

FD takes a lot of patience. Testing gets easier for you both over time. Here are some Testing and Shooting Tips that might help you.

The harm in giving any dose without testing is the possibility for a symptomatic hypo and potentially death. I've seen cats on less than 0.1u (that is one tenth of a unit) drop into hypoglycemic numbers. And because the syringes are extremely inaccurate (some up to almost 0.5u), than you might be shooting more than you realize even though you drew the dose correctly.

This is a process and so we read the stickys and ask questions to learn and every question is a good question. We find a method of testing that works for our kitty. I never held my girl in my lap and she would have easily sat there. I sat down on the floor and put her between my legs. Some members have a testing table and the kitty sits on a towel on the table and the caregiver is standing.

If you have an old sock, cut it off about three inches from the toe, put in long grained rice, sew it up, and then you can heat it for a few seconds in the microwave to warm her ears. i also massaged the ears before just for a little relaxation and then warm them with the rice sock and poke. Put a dab of Neosporin ointment with pain relief on them and give her her favorite FD friendly treat like freeze dried chicken or liver.

The more nervous you are, the more nervous she will be.

Right now, I think you should hold the 1u dose and see where she settles when she clears this bounce.

And .....we hope you post often. This is a warm and friendly community and we have lots of things to share that will help you. I also think we have the best and most knowledge about treating FD. Welcome...and if you have any SS issues ever, please just send me a private message through the inbox at the upper right corner.

 

[Veronica & Babu-chiri]

I don't understand. Do I stop giving her 1 unit insulin/lantus for a week or until she's higher than yellow, or shoot 2x a day at .5 if she's in the yellow? I need to do more testing.

First of all take a big breath, and remember dealing with diabetes requires a lot of patience.

When I mentioned about the yellows that's a good thing is good that you are seeing those numbers, but still we have to learn how she acts with this dose that's why I mentioned it will be good that you keep shooting 1u every 12 hours and collecting data.

I wouldn't recommend shooting with out testing is dangerous for her and you will not be able to adjust her dose properly.

 

[Girl]

I just read about ketosis. I'm so sick of doctors and I should know better than trusting them above myself. My poor cat has been suffering for so long because I believed the doctor that she was mentally ill. I thought it was cute to have a nutty cat vomiting because "she wanted to be skinny". He said she was bulimic because she had "body issues". I hate myself for believing this ****. I know better. She probably had ketosis.
She was so sick but she was still eating a lot, funny, and mean to the dog as usual, and loved certain people-MEN. I thought her 'mowing' the hair off her tummy and back legs was part of her body issues, and people were saying they had cats do that too. The more I think about it the guiltier I feel. I changed her food and she got a little better, but it was still full of grain carbs or starch.
This vet, a different one, was so sure she didn't have diabetes, probably because she was so happy purring and loving him, he said he would BET it wasn't diabetes. I had to insist on a blood panel. I wish I put money on that bet. Now he wants me to give her 1 1/2 units of insulin 2x a day without testing her blood, because he says it's useless because getting it stresses them out and makes their BG go up. He said don't listen to the people online!
In here you say I need to test her before insulin every time and more inbetween, and many of you have cured cats. I want her cured and I was doing it but it's ****ing HARD. She doesn't sit still, she's not a lap cat, and most of the time I poke her 3-4x before I got enough on the test strip. By then we're both stressed out. I give up. I'm tapping out.
I know you all mean well, but it's too overwhelming. I'm going to figure it out on my own slowly. There's too much contradictory information.
I'm giving her .5 units 2x a day and hope for the best.
She's so sick. She's eating canned food but she vomited twice after I gave her the shot. She wasn't vomiting at all for the 2 weeks when she wasn't getting any insulin and eating raw food. This is exactly what I mean. It's INSANE. Too much up & down. Nothing makes sense. I think a little stability will help us both.
I may be gone for a while. Thank You all and good luck.

 

[Veronica & Babu-chiri]

I'm sorry I haven't replied earlier because I'm at the office (at a meeting actually).

We know this is a very stressful desease believe us we've been where you are.

It can be confusing, our babies are after all cats which means they are not going to react as expected, unfortunately diabetes and insulin are not like other deseases or medicines that you know exactly what to expect, there are many variables that get into play , each cat is different and that makes predicting very hard, the best we can do is take each day as it comes.

You've already seen some of our spreadsheets and you can see how a kitty that was doing ok at a certain dose today changes and either goes to high or too low the next day, they all have good and bad days, that's why we have to make so many tests, specially before shooting to keep them safe, because sometimes even with a very small (and I mean a drop small) dose they can dive and get too low or the dose may no be enough and unfortunately the only way of knowing is testing, even if they look ok right now ( funny thing is somehow their bodies get used to living with high glucose levels so they appear more o less ok ) on the long run, they may get very sick eventually.

I get it about testing and needles I mean when everything started, I would sweat out of nerves every time I had to test him and even now I'm seriously afraid of needles, but the truth is that not knowing how Babu was doing and thinking that he may be going hypo did the trick for me, one day after I shoot him he acted a little bit strange and scared the hell out of me so I tested him and decided I couldn't live not knowing and thinking that I could make him seriously ill on a shoot or by not shooting a big enough dose to really help his body.

Every cat is different and a trick that worked for me may not work for you, for testing I grab Babu wrap him "taco" or "burrito" style leaving only his head out so he can´t move, at first I had to wrap him tight, now is more like symbolic he knows he has to be still as soon as he feels the towel.

It is important that you consider she may be having other issues besides the diabetes that are making her sick, I'm not a big expert but I haven't heard of insuline provocking vomit after shooting, the vomiting is probably related to other issues, ketones comes to mind or some other type of infection, that you may want to check for

Remeber you can ask all you want we will try to help you and answer all your questions

In any case I'm sending you lots of hugs and vines

 

[Marje and Gracie]

BTW, when we say "hold the dose" as Veronica and I both said, we mean don't change it right now. In other words, continue to give her 1u twice a day and do some testing at random times both cycles making sure you get a preshot test every time before you shoot. From that, we can tell if 1u is too much or too little.

If she gives you a preshot test of 150 or lower, please don't feed her or give her insulin but post here and ask for help. We can teach you to shoot those mid blue numbers safely.

There are a couple of other issues with you giving 0.5u. If it's not enough, you will be leaving her at high numbers which can cause her to build insulin resistance. This, in turn, will mean the dose that will work for her will have to go higher to break through the resistance.

Secondly, and more importantly, you take the chance of putting her at risk for developing ketones and diabetic ketoacidosis which can be fatal. DKA results from not enough insulin, not enough food/water, and infection. So it's important to work towards the best dose while checking urine ketones each day.

I can pretty much guarantee you that you won't be able to do this by yourself without input and help. We are also a support group for when it gets tough emotionally. But we have a really, really good reputation for helping members get their cats well regulated and, in many cases, into remission. I'm afraid that you don't have the knowledge to be able to do that on your own and I promise you that you do not want her to have a hypo episode.

 

[Veronica & Babu-chiri]

I can pretty much guarantee you that you won't be able to do this by yourself without input and help. We are also a support group for when it gets tough emotionally. But we have a really, really good reputation for helping members get their cats well regulated and, in many cases, into remission. I'm afraid that you don't have the knowledge to be able to do that on your own and I promise you that you do not want her to have a hypo episode.

This is absolutely true, you asked me how I did it, well I couldn't have done it without the help of the very very experienced people of this group, for which I will be eternally grateful.

 

[Tuxedo Mom]

Please listen to the members that have been posting.

My first vet, who was apparently dealing with 15 FD kiities, could not answer even the basic questions I asked when I was just starting.. My second vet...when I had learned a LOT more already because of this forum, said she would work with me. It has been over 2 1/2 year with 2 FD kitties and the best advice I got was from the dedicated members on this forum who live and breathe FD 24/7. When I first joined this forum, I had already joined a few others forums. I was a "lurker" for almost 3 months but when I finally started to post my questions and concerns I got "THE answers" I needed, mainly because this is a peer reviewed group and the cross-section of information proved to be invaluable.

FD is not a case of a few insulin shots and your kitty is "fixed". It is on ongoing process where real life experiences give such great input.

Please stay and continue posting. You are no obligation to take the advice...but I will say that the advice here trumps the few hours that most vets get in their training.
\

 

[Marvin's Mom - Nat]

I hope you do take a look here, I think the .5 unit two times per day is probably a good dose since you got a 70 on 1U the other day.

With all the information on here please take it one day at a time, and one thing at a time. Soon you will see and understand it is a journey and not a sprint. I am sorry if we all gave too much information all at once, I know it can be daunting. Everyone is here for you if you need, I was just as scared and overwhelmed just a few months ago.

 

[Marje and Gracie]

I hope you do take a look here, I think the .5 unit two times per day is probably a good dose since you got a 70 on 1U the other day.

With all the information on here please take it one day at a time, and one thing at a time. Soon you will see and understand it is a journey and not a sprint. I am sorry if we all gave too much information all at once, I know it can be daunting. Everyone is here for you if you need, I was just as scared and overwhelmed just a few months ago.

That 70 was most likely due to the depot from the 1.5u dose and not the 1u dose but it's hard to definitively tell without more info. Remember the depot from a higher dose can affect up to six subsequent cycles.