Glucose levels all over the place- I’m a NEWBY

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BabyJade44

Member Since 2014
Hi everyone, this is my first time posting to the forum! :smile: I have been struggling with my cat’s glucose levels for a while now and have tried two cat specific vets with little answers. Hopefully someone can shed some light.

My cat was diagnosed exactly one year ago. She is a 9 year old indoor only domestic short hair. She was never really overweight and the diabetes came out of no where. I had her on a wet food only-- Prescription Hill W/D and giving her Lantus insulin injections. This was working great, I was keeping her glucose levels around 70 to 100 (which I read was a good level to be at) and was very happy. I was able to go a few days without an insulin injection. Sometimes going 8 days at the most without her one unit injection. Her levels started dropping dramatically low. I would inject her and within a few hours she would be weak and dizzy, her levels would be at 16. I would panic and give her a little corn syrup.

I took her to a different cat only specialized vet who thought she may have started to go into remission since she was reacting so strongly to just the small dosage. She told me to stop giving her insulin for one week and to switch her to a high protein wet food. Her levels got into the high 300-400 range and did not level out, so we put her back on regular shots of insulin. I also switched her back to the high fiber Prescription Hill wet food since that seems to work best for her. Ever since we tried the week without insulin her levels are ALL over the place. She will be 70 in the morning and then 380 in the evening. She also reacts again very strongly to the insulin now. I usually wait till she is over 200 to inject her and she will still drop to 20 within hours. (I have not changed the insulin dosage-she still only gets one unit, i have even tried just half a unit and she still will drop low) I worry with her getting so low.

I give her raw chicken breasts twice a day as a treat and that is all (this has always been so this isn’t a changing factor). She gets fed at 6:30 AM and 6:30PM every day and we check her levels 30 minutes after eating. I am concerned though because I just found out that I should not be using insulin after about 6 months of using. I thought the insulin stayed good till the expiration date. (I keep the Lantus in the fridge.) I still have my original insulin vial from a year ago. Could this be causing the drops in levels so drastically?? And that is the reason she was responding so well in the beginning? Any experiences or help would be much appreciated! Thank you!

Jade
 
Welcome to FDMB.

Yes, a vial of insulin, refrigerated lasts about 6 months, then needs to be replaced. We suggest using the Solostar Lantus pens, or if you're in Canada, the cartridges, and use them like 3 mL vials. Just draw the insulin out with a syringe.

For safety, always test before you shoot. With Lantus, test between +5 to +7 hours after the shot to see how low the glucose goes (the nadir period). With a human meter, you want that to stay above 50 mg/dL. With a pet meter, above 80 mg/dL is safe.

Chicken breasts are not nutritionally complete and you could be feeding enough of that she is at risk of some nutritional deficiencies.

The right food can help control the glucose. Per Dr Pierson of Cat Info, that means low carb canned or raw food - never dry food. There's a terrific food list in the right hand column where you can look up the foods you've been feeding. Hint: you may get better numbers with over-the-counter canned low carb foods like Fancy Feast Classic Pates, Friskies Pates, or Wellness pates, among numerous others.
 
Welcome. To better understand what is happening with BGs it is recommended that you setup a Google spreadsheet document and post a link to that in your posts. The SS has entries for does, BG and when BG taken with respect to shooting. There is also a play to write other things. Here is how to setup the SS
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=50130
 
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