? Help! Stalling for 1 hour... what do I do next?

FarmKitty

FarmKitty

Member
Hi everyone. I am very new to all of this. My cat Dixie has just been diagnosed one month ago. We started to test a few days ago and have done two glucose curves (see spreadsheet for more details). Her preshot value has been around 12.7 to 16.6. Tonight, she tested at 9.5. I've been trying to read as much data on this site as I can to figure out what to do, and I decided to stall and keep testing. Testing 15 minutes later, she tested at 11.5. Then 20 mins later, she tested at 11.5 again.

It has now been an hour and we are thinking of giving her either a reduced dose or the regular dose since 11.5 looks like it is in the acceptable range for the SLGS method.

Does this sound like a good plan? Also, what do we do for her next meal? Usually we give it to her at 10am and 10pm. Since it is now 11pm, does her new shot and feeding time have to be adjusted to 11am and 11pm? Is there a way to gradually move it back to the 10am/10pm slot?

Thank you for reading this.
 
I have just tested her again (so now we are 1h 15mins stalled) and her number was 10.2... so it has gone down? Now I am really confused. She still has not been fed or given the shot.
 
I'll add some extra info in. Before being diagnosed she was on Whiskas canned food and grazing Whiskas dry food all day. We switched over to the Purina DM wet food, but we feed her 1 tbsp of the Purina DM dry food after each meal for her teeth because she has pretty bad teeth (no canines) and the vet was worried about an all wet-food diet. She now gets 200 calories a day. We did this switch of diet pretty much at the same time as starting the insulin, so maybe the insulin and switch to low carb diet has been too much of a change for her? Could that cause her values to drop like this?

We've only had her for a month and a bit, and she is my first cat. When we got her, she was very lethargic and would have small tremors. After being treated for the last month she has done a lot better. She is more active, playful, and is occasionally jumping up on things. She still has the little tremors, but it seems like it is much less.

Since her numbers are going down, I am now considering skipping this shot and just feeding her. Then tomorrow at the usual time we will test again and give her the next shot.
 
She has now been fed, but I skipped the shot. I will check back here before 10am PST. Otherwise, I guess I will do the usual test and feed and hope for the best.
 
Sorry no one was here to help you Since you skipped the shot you can go back to your regular schedule of feeding and shooting. YES. The change of food alone can dramatically change BG values for some kitties. When coupled with a newly diagnosed kitty that just started insulin the effect can be even greater. Please get your regular Ps test in the AM and if the number is questionable, post again. Hopefully there will be someone on to further advise you. You are doing great, especially as a new cat mom having to deal with FD :bighug:
 
Thank you for the response! I will check her values tomorrow and hopefully everything is fine :cat:. I have also just ordered some ketone test strips since I read that skipping insulin shots could increase the risk of those.
 
Her tremors/twitching (not sure what to call it) appeared much stronger last night and she was purring (this has happened once before) and I was worried her BG might be too low or high, so I tested her I tested her at +5 (so really +17 since I skipped the shot) and her value was 15.2.

In the morning, her AMPS was 13.1, so we gave her a full dose (1 unit of ProZinc).

I have a vet appointment scheduled next week... hopefully they aren't disappointed if I am skipping shots like this!

Do these numbers seem typical for missing a shot? I hope things go fine tonight with her PMPS :nailbiting:
 
I would have expected the high BG from no shot although I was hoping maybe she was adjusting to the food change and she’d stay lower. My kitty twitches too and I think the same.. is BG too low or too high?!! I literally googled twitchy cat and everything I’ve read says it’s quite common during deep sleep. In some cases it can be seizures but google and watch the videos of sleeping and twitching To see if that’s what’s you’re experiencing. I’ve had a cat that had seizures and the 2 are markedly different. As for your vet getting mad- you need to do what YOU are comfortable with so if you didn’t feel safe giving a shot then you did the right thing. Just learn from the result and use it the next time you Have to make a decision.
 
Thanks for all the replies!

I tested her +4 @ 9.4 and then +6 @ 10.5. These should be the lowest values (nadir) in her curve but they are a lot higher today!! She has been pretty lethargic today as well.

I'm glad to know that the twitching isn't too unusual, although for Dixie it happens when she is awake and it is in her head and sometimes includes her front body. Before treatment, she would do a small twitch very often and sometimes every 15 seconds. This is one of the reasons I took her to the vet. After being on the insulin for a few weeks, it seemed like her twitches were becoming few and far in between and she seemed very stable (it was hard for me to catch her twitching at all). However last night the twitching was definitely more pronounced and more often for around 30 mins... I hope they aren't seizures but they very well might be. My vet mentioned we may need to put her on Gabapentin. I am hoping they might go away completely if we get her BG levels stable!
 
Final update: Her PMPS was back to 15.8 and we gave her a full dose. Hopefully everything will be back to normal now :D. Maybe next time this happens I will try a 'token dose'. Thanks for all the help.
 
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