Help with Hypo - to treat or not to treat?

Gizmodo

Gizmodo

Member Since 2026
Hi all

So my Libre is reading 56, I checked on my human glucometer and it was 47, but then I checked on my alpha track and it was 119!

So do I treat the hypo based off the 47 human meter, or hold off based on the Alphatrack being >70?

I have suspected for the last week or two that my human meter might be reading lower than it should do, even when considering for the difference between human and pet specific meters. Now I’m wondering if his sugars have always been higher.

Edit: I rechecked on the human meter and it was 41, his Libre also continuing to downtrend to 52, I’ve given him some low carb wet food (but one which is ever so slightly higher carb than usual). He is eating that, seems asymptomatic he was just having a nap before, but definitely not lying on his sensor. I’m just not whether to go in with full blown hypo treatment because of the alpha track reading being fine? But normally I would not have checked on the alpha track, it’s just because I have a couple of spare strips I decided out of curiosity.

Edit 2: rechecked again, still 41 on human meter, 103 on AT3 and it dipped to 43 on the Libre but within minutes back to 59.

Also he ate most of dinner and then most of his supper 2 hours later. But his glucose has just shot right down since his pre-shot level of 274 on human meter


Edit 3:
09:42 - 47 (human) 119 (AT3)
09:54 - 41 (human)
10:07 - 41 (human) 103 (AT3)

I gave 1/3 pouch 6% carb wet food at 21:50ish

22:37 - 34 (human) 54-58 (Libre) - given ~1 teaspoon honey mixed with 1/4 pouch 10% carb wet food.
This is +4.45h into his Prozinc insulin dose

23:04 - 42 (human) and also checked on my other human meter which was 49. Libre is up to 68
 
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Hopefully someone with more experience will respond soon - but in the meantime, are you sure that your AlphaTrak is calibrated to feline and the strips are working (if you still have the control solution)? I know it’s borderline impossible to convert between the two from personal experience but it shouldn’t be that far off.

Honestly if this were my cat, it’s safety first and I would just act as though the 40s number is correct. I would probably feed Moonie MC or HC starting with 1-2 teaspoons and keep checking every 30 mins until her number stabilizes. And I would get a test 2 hours after since the food effect will have worn off by then and you want to make sure your kitty is still holding stable.

In a pinch you can also mix honey or karo with his LC food but that doesn’t last long so if you have a higher carb wet food, that’s probably the better route.

Normally I wouldn’t be giving advice but I figured something might be better than nothing while you wait for someone more experienced to step in.
 
Connie & Parker & Moonie said:
Hopefully someone with more experience will respond soon - but in the meantime, are you sure that your AlphaTrak is calibrated to feline and the strips are working (if you still have the control solution)? I know it’s borderline impossible to convert between the two from personal experience but it shouldn’t be that far off.

Honestly if this were my cat, it’s safety first and I would just act as though the 40s number is correct. I would probably feed Moonie MC or HC starting with 1-2 teaspoons and keep checking every 30 mins until her number stabilizes. And I would get a test 2 hours after since the food effect will have worn off by then and you want to make sure your kitty is still holding stable.

Is he showing any symptoms?
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There’s definitely some doubt regarding the AT3 strips. The vet just gave me a few spare in a urine bottle wrapped up in that dressing tape to try to keep the light out. I don’t have any control solution unfortunately.

He’s asymptomatic, seemed happy enough to eat some food.

The funny thing was I thought I might have given a fur shot this evening when I gave insulin. I definitely have my answer now though!
 
Especially if the AlphaTrak strips are questionable I would just go with the human meter. Worst case if you feed him based on the human meter, you made his numbers temporarily a little higher. But if you don’t, he might keep dropping lower into dangerous territory.

41 is pretty low.

I’d just act as the 41 is right and you can always figure out later which meter is correct after he’s stable.

Because his number is so low I’d also ask for dosing advice before you give him your next dose? This probably isn’t the right one for him anymore though I definitely can’t advise on that!
 
What did you feed? And when?
How long after the +3 were the second tests?
People helping you will need to know.

You can check the human meter on yourself. The same number range applies.
Don't know if you can do that with an AlphaTrak (which is pet specific and measures blood a different way).

Unfortunately, I am unable to stay online. You are doing great.
Waving from Canada.
 
Connie & Parker & Moonie said:
Especially if the AlphaTrak strips are questionable I would just go with the human meter. Worst case if you feed him based on the human meter, you made his numbers temporarily a little higher. But if you don’t, he might keep dropping lower into dangerous territory.

41 is pretty low.

I’d just act as the 41 is right and you can always figure out later which meter is correct after he’s stable.

Because his number is so low I’d also ask for dosing advice before you give him your next dose? This probably isn’t the right one for him anymore though I definitely can’t advise on that!
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Funnily enough I was already asking for dosing advice in the last few days and just set up my spreadsheet. I gave a slightly reduced dose of 1.25u this morning because his preshot level was a bit low, but then tried to resume his 1.5u dose this evening because he’d held steadily above 250 during the day.
 
Keep us posted! And sorry for the long night (or day) ahead. The tough part about feeding in this situation is that you also have to retest 2 hours after feeding to make sure he’s ok without food in his system.

And if you get a chance when all of this blows over, it might be good to get some higher carb stuff (I have 13% carb for MC and 25%+ for HC) just in case. The tough part about relying on LC is that it requires more volume to get to the same amount of carbs in the kitty’s system and at some point, the cat might get too full.

Sending you lots of hugs! You’re doing an awesome job. And hopefully you’ll get better advice particularly on dosing soon!
 
Good catch tonight! You definitely should reduce the dose by 0.25 units. A comment, the two lines per day the last few days on the spreadsheet are confusing and hard to read. Best to try to combine it all on one line. For example for +4 today, I would put 59L, 47 to indicate that 59 was the Libre. You can put AT comments in the Remarks column.

I'm not familiar with the Neon GK meter, so don't know how it compares to other human meters. But best be safe for now.
 
Connie & Parker & Moonie said:
Keep us posted! And sorry for the long night (or day) ahead. The tough part about feeding in this situation is that you also have to retest 2 hours after feeding to make sure he’s ok without food in his system.

And if you get a chance when all of this blows over, it might be good to get some higher carb stuff (I have 13% carb for MC and 25%+ for HC) just in case. The tough part about relying on LC is that it requires more volume to get to the same amount of carbs in the kitty’s system and at some point, the cat might get too full.

Sending you lots of hugs! You’re doing an awesome job. And hopefully you’ll get better advice particularly on dosing soon!
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Thanks, he was back up to 56 on the last handheld reading 15-20 minutes ago. His Libre is also trending upwards now and is at 95.

Luckily when he’s low he gets pretty hungry and he seems to always have room for the 10-12% carb food. And also has no objections to honey being mixed in.

The dosing advice I was getting was fine, you just don’t know if a dose is too high until you get a result too low!
 
Wendy&Neko said:
Good catch tonight! You definitely should reduce the dose by 0.25 units. A comment, the two lines per day the last few days on the spreadsheet are confusing and hard to read. Best to try to combine it all on one line. For example for +4 today, I would put 59L, 47 to indicate that 59 was the Libre. You can put AT comments in the Remarks column.

I'm not familiar with the Neon GK meter, so don't know how it compares to other human meters. But best be safe for now
Click to expand...
Somebody else did suggest that I just hadn’t had the time to go through and try to reformat everything a manually colour code all the cells
 
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