? HELP!

[Terry and Casey]

I did my first curve on Casey today. The last two, +10 167 and +12=109. She has never been this low! The only thing I can think happened is that I took up her food bowl. Normally, Casey was always free fed dry. After developing diabetes, she was ravenous and ate whole serving...about 1/2 cup. Lately, as I guess the insulin is working, she is not as hungry. Lately, she hasn't wanted to eat so I have mixed in some FF fish....which is the only canned she will eat. I was waiting to get better at blood testing and do a curve before I started the transition to wet or low carb dry. Presently she's on IAMs high carb. All I did different today was give her 3/4 dry and a tablespoon of FF fish so that she would eat it prior to her shot....also before I added the canned in, I had added a little EVO low carb dry. She left some dry in her bowl so mid day I picked it up....normally I am at work and don't do this. Was it that she wasn't grazing on the remaining dry that made her levels drop? What do I do from here? I know you are not supposed to shoot if below 200. Should I feed her the regular dry with a little canned mixed in??

 

[Kitty mom]

If it was me I would skip tonight's shot and retest in the morning before you feed, I would not shoot a 109 .
I hope this helps.

 

[Terry and Casey]

Thanks. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm too afraid to shoot.

 

[Kitty mom]

Another thought I would continue with the low carb food and see where her levels go on that. You may be able to reduce the amout of insulin once she's on only low carb food.
Take a look at my SS you can see what numbers I didn't shoot at.

 

[Mogmom and Goofus]

I did my first curve on Casey today. The last two, +10 167 and +12=109. She has never been this low! The only thing I can think happened is that I took up her food bowl. Normally, Casey was always free fed dry. After developing diabetes, she was ravenous and ate whole serving...about 1/2 cup. Lately, as I guess the insulin is working, she is not as hungry. Lately, she hasn't wanted to eat so I have mixed in some FF fish....which is the only canned she will eat. I was waiting to get better at blood testing and do a curve before I started the transition to wet or low carb dry. Presently she's on IAMs high carb. All I did different today was give her 3/4 dry and a tablespoon of FF fish so that she would eat it prior to her shot....also before I added the canned in, I had added a little EVO low carb dry. She left some dry in her bowl so mid day I picked it up....normally I am at work and don't do this. Was it that she wasn't grazing on the remaining dry that made her levels drop? What do I do from here? I know you are not supposed to shoot if below 200. Should I feed her the regular dry with a little canned mixed in??

Actually, the 167 and 109 are pretty good numbers! I use ProZinc, my vet says to give the 2 units we normally give for anything over 100 as long as he eats well. The lowest he's ever gone with this method is 60, which isn't a hypo number.

 

[Terry and Casey]

Another thought I would continue with the low carb food and see where her levels go on that. You may be able to reduce the amout of insulin once she's on only low carb food.
Take a look at my SS you can see what numbers I didn't shoot at.

Unfortunately, I had already fed her before I got your message....that was a good idea. I fed her 3/4 cup dry with a little canned mixed in. She was so hungry she wolfed it down and then threw up. I was really glad I hadn't given the shot. This morning her amps was 306. I gave her 2 units of prozinc. I need to transition her to the lower carb food but I am not sure how to handle it. This morning I gave her the regular dry which she ate some of ...I then mixed in a little canned so that she would eat more and I would be able to shoot. This is so scary and confusing. She left some of the dry. Should I pick it up like I did yesterday? When should I retest her?

 

[Kitty mom]

I wish some of our more experienced folks would help . I can tell you what I did but I'm far from an expert.
I wouldn't mix the food, feed her a 1/2 can of wet low carb food and then after she's done and you leave for work leave her a low carb hard food down . My boys get the Young Again zero carb food I buy on line through the company....I get the regular not the mature. EVO didn't work out for them but it's better then a high carb hard food. Is there any chance of having someone come in and feed her wet food mid day to get her through?

As far as testing, I tested in the morning before I feed them and then I would try and get a few reading thru the day but not everyone can do this. I would do the AM , when you get home, and then before her evening shot. My cats were on Lantus so I'm only filmilliar with that. If you can't get other readings you must get the blood glucose before you shoot.

I will do my best to help you.

 

[BJM]

Switching to a new food is best done gradually, about 20-25% different per day or two, until completely changed over. You might start by phasing out the high carb dry, replacing it with the Evo dry over the next week. Then start reducing the dry food and increasing the canned food. Or skip straight to reducing the high carb dry and increasing the canned available.

Many of us either feed mini-meals to keep the glucose level more level by avoiding large meal spikes or allow our cats to graze. This keeps them from getting so hungry they scarf 'n' barf.

 

[Terry and Casey]

Thanks for responding. Yes, I guess I'll start adding the lower carb EVO in with the current food. So far, she'll only eat fish canned food so I think it's best to go to a lower carb dry first because I know it's not good to give them a lot of fish. Then maybe I can get her to eat some other canned varieties and transition that in. I did read the info at catinfo on changing diets. Some mornings though she won't eat so I started adding in a little of the canned...just so I could give her her shot. It's just scary transitioning food and worrying about her glucose levels.

 

[BJM]

What has been observed here is that switching to a low carb diet from a high carb diet may drop the glucose 100-200 mg/dL and may drop the insulin required from 1-2 units lower.

A cautious approach, if the glucose numbers were good, would be assuming you could have the maximum reductions from food change and as you reduced, ro educe by the same proportion of the insulin dose. So if you swapped out 25% of the high carb, you might reduce the insulin by 25%, assuming the numbers were well controlled. If, however, the numbers were still high, you wouldn't reduce the insulin at all until you got mid-cycle test data showing it was needed.

 

[Squeaky and KT (GA)]

Just another piece of info for your pocket - it takes many hours longer to digest dry food than for wet to go thru the body. When you feed dry, you'll have dry food influenced numbers for at least 12-18 hours and some even more. The less dry she eats, the better numbers you'll see quicker. I'm looking forward to seeing how she'll respond when that hc dry is gone!

HUGS!!!

 

[TigzMom]

Hi there, the others are the expert here, and I'm certainly very new to this all, but I can very much relate to how challenging this all is. Tiggy was just dx 4/14/15 and started on Lantus 2 units x 2, he was dropped to 1 unit x 2 (per the vet) on 4/29/15, but currently hasn't had an insulin injection for the past 4 days.

He started out on dry food (free-grazing during the day), in addition to a higher carb canned food. After his dx, I transitioned him from his higher carb dry to low carb dry immediately. I then changed his high carb canned food to low carb canned food. Over a period of 3-4 days, I transitioned him off of the dry food altogether. I also did away with fish too. I only feed him chicken, turkey, duck or beef. There are a number of foods on that cat food list from BJM, but for Tiggy, I feed him mainly Tiki Cat (O carbs) and Weruva [cats-in-the-kitchen] (the ones with 2-5 carbs). If he gets finicky, I switch it up with FF pate classics, Wellness canned meat (GF - grain free) pate (4 -5 carbs), Merrick pate (2-4 carbs), and Gerber baby food meat [2 carb]. I was told that Beechnut baby food meat has (O carbs), but I can't find that brand so far.

I'm certainly not saying that this will work for everyone, as all cats (and people) respond differently to medications (insulin), but Tigz numbers have dropped dramatically from 421 on 4/14/15, to 121 as of tonight. His AMPS was 117. He hasn't had any insulin for the past 4 days and his diet has not changed since I got him off of the dry food. If his numbers don't continue to stay within range, he may need to have an insulin injection at a later date, but I can feel relatively confident that the diet has truly helped him. It is very challenging to manage this, but this group is fantastically supportive! They all know so much. Hope this helps just a little.