Head shaking

Blitzy's Mom

Blitzy's Mom

Member Since 2025
Hi I'm fairly new, a couple of months, to this diabetes journey and I've been feeling pretty good about Blitzen because he's been in the green pretty solidly for the last few days, to the point where I talked to my vet and asked what I should do because he's usually under 160 even after feeding and I'm afraid to give him insulin because of it. So the doctor said that if I felt like he was too low, I could skip a dose. So I did that yesterday and all day long he remained in the green. However he's done this weird little shaking his head thing occasionally and I read that this could because he is experiencing hypoglycemia. So last night I kind of freaked out because he was doing the head shaking thing, just a little shake, even though he was acting normal every other moment. I bought the ReliOn premiere blue glucometer yesterday and so I figured out how to test him, and it read 140. His libre 3 plus CGM was reading 150. So I relaxed a little bit and gave him some food. I monitor him when I go to sleep with a surveillance camera because he usually stays in the living room most of the time. So on one of the times when he got up and was walking around I saw him shake his head again. It's definitely behavior that is not normal for him. Anybody have any advice on this?
 
Hi and welcome to the group. I never saw my boy Hendrick doing that so I can't speak to it specifically, but considering the wonderful numbers you are getting with Blitzen I strongly urge you to setup a spreadsheet, track every dose, and pick a dosing method like Tight Regulation. The dosing methods help guide you in whether to increase, decrease, or what. And they can help a cat go into diabetic remission! Which is what I did with Hendrick, by following Tight Regulation.

It is really great that you got a meter and you can test at home, the Libres are great but being able to double check manually is even better, and typically a lot more accurate. Blitzen is beautiful, look at that shiny coat! How old is he? What are you feeding him?

-Kyle
 
Hendrick Cuddleclaw said:
Hi and welcome to the group. I never saw my boy Hendrick doing that so I can't speak to it specifically, but considering the wonderful numbers you are getting with Blitzen I strongly urge you to setup a spreadsheet, track every dose, and pick a dosing method like Tight Regulation. The dosing methods help guide you in whether to increase, decrease, or what. And they can help a cat go into diabetic remission! Which is what I did with Hendrick, by following Tight Regulation.

It is really great that you got a meter and you can test at home, the Libres are great but being able to double check manually is even better, and typically a lot more accurate. Blitzen is beautiful, look at that shiny coat! How old is he? What are you feeding him?

-Kyle
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Thanks for the compliments! Blitzen is eating friskies pate. He's an immaculate groomer and his sister helps as well, so I attribute the beauty of his coat partly to that. 😁

Every time I sit down to do a spreadsheet I get overwhelmed but I will definitely make a point to do that this evening. Thank you for the advice!
 
Welcome to FDMB
It looks like you are doing the right things, you did not mention what insulin are you giving and what dose, as Hendrick Cuddleclaw explained w would like to see the days development by creating Blitzen's spreadsheet and creating your signature, links below, ProZinc and Lantus are the best insulin for cats they are a 12-hour insulin, they are easy in a cats' system, also what are you feeding? it seems to me that you are feeding low carbs considering the 2 digit glucose levels, is good that having the ReliON is a good idea, the CGM tends to read low numbers lower than reality, so since Blitzen is having greens, if is with the CGM, test again, the real GL will be the ReliOn reading. a non diabetic cat glucose levels are between 50-120, so he still may need a dash of insulin, I do not give dosing advice, but if you post the insulin he is using I can tag the members that can advice you, and also your concern about Blitzen's head shaking, Corky has been in the green levels for over a year, yet he will be a lifetime diabetic, he needs his insulin see Spreadsheet below in blue "Corky's spreadsheet" to get an idea, now all cats are different of course 🤗

Sticky - New? How You Can Help Us Help You!
https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/how-to-create-a-spreadsheet.241706/
 
He's on Lantus. And he's taking two units currently. I feed him friskies pate and he's eating about a can and a half to two cans a day.

I thought I'd build a signature but apparently I didn't. Is there something that shows me how to do it? Also, I'll get my spreadsheet finished today hopefully. It's a lot.
 
Yes the links are in post # 4 the first one, I will tag a member that can answer any concerns or questions you may have with Lantus and dosing😉
 
Thanks for the info on how to do a signature.

My vet believes that he's trying to go into remission based on his numbers.
 
Blitzy's Mom said:
He's on Lantus. And he's taking two units currently. I feed him friskies pate and he's eating about a can and a half to two cans a day.

I thought I'd build a signature but apparently I didn't. Is there something that shows me how to do it? Also, I'll get my spreadsheet finished today hopefully. It's a lot.
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You should feed besides the two main meals before shot, 3-4 small meals or snacks during the day as well are important to keep the insulin depot in check
 
Tell me how I'm supposed to do that when I work from 8:00 until 5:00? I don't work from home, I work in an office. I'm open to suggestions. I also have two other cats, so I have thought about a timed feeder, but I know that if I do that, the other cats are likely to eat the food.
 
Most people that work away from home use a wet food feeder, some have cameras even chips here are a couple of examples
 

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Thank you for the suggestions. I will look into that. I just can't afford the chip feeder where it only opens with certain pets. Perhaps if I could train my cats to know that they had a certain special feeder for themselves, they won't be interested in eating blitzen's food. That is the challenge. It's not really about putting a timer out, it's making sure that the other cats are not trying to eat his food.
 
I see there are inexpensive feeders look into Walmart and Chewy.com they both have large selection ad different prices 😉do all you cats eat the same?? , with multiple cats is good to have them all eating the same, not only it avoids future health risks but I’m sure Blitzen will at least be able to get some food even if is just 1-2 tsp in his stomach
 
Awesome! Thank you. I will check those out tonight. I had been thinking about trying to get some feeders so the cats could eat during the middle of the day but I just didn't know how to fix that problem.
 
Perhaps during your days off, the weekend you can train them, I have found that cats are easy to train, I have Corky and Coco 1/2 Main Coon, I feed them every 4-5 hours of course I’m home all day, but when Corky was diagnosed and changed his diet from MEAUMIX for 10 years, Coco as well for 2 years, I put them both on the same régimen they grazed, after a few days when it was meal time they began to sit in front of the sofa staring waiting for me to get up like 10 minutes before it’s time I used to set my phone alarm for every meal, now they are my alarm, and I laugh every time, I have to keep saying not yet, not yet, is really funny
 
Blitzy's Mom said:
Thanks for the compliments! Blitzen is eating friskies pate. He's an immaculate groomer and his sister helps as well, so I attribute the beauty of his coat partly to that. 😁

Every time I sit down to do a spreadsheet I get overwhelmed but I will definitely make a point to do that this evening. Thank you for the advice!
Click to expand...

to make a tracking spreadsheet, there's a pre-built Google sheets template you can use and just plug in Charlie's info, not sure if you realize that or not.

Corky posted the link earlier: https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/how-to-create-a-spreadsheet.241706/
 
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