Hypo -- BG 44

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KaitlynandScamper

KaitlynandScamper

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As I have been posting all day, Scamper has been in the high 400s all day. 3 hours after his second insulin injection (which was 2.5 up from 2, and administered into the side rather than the scruff -- all advised by a vet friend of a friend) his BG was 75. Now, 4.5 hours after the dose his BG is 44. He had just eaten some dry food about 10 minutes prior, and I've gone ahead and put some sugar syrup on his gums. Please advise! I also only have 4 test strips left and will have to use them wisely until I can get more and/or get him to the vet.
 
Is he showing any hypo signs?
Do you have any high-carb wet food, something with gravy maybe?

Carl
 
You have gone from the 400's?? Take him to the vet now, the insulin hasn't hit it's peak and you don't have enough test strips to keep him out of a hypo .... this is serious, really. Please take him.
 
Is there an ER vet close---if so I would go


How many hours are you out from the dose....4?
 
Thanks all. I am not close to an ER vet, but I just got a call back from the emergency line advising me to give him some more sugar and dry food and retest in 15 minutes and call back. He was encouraged that Scamper is not showing any hypo symptoms at all. He was ravenous about an hour ago but even now he seems sated. I'll keep you updated unless I get an even lower reading, in which case I am heading straight out to the vet.
 
Kaitlyn,
Keep a very close eye on him. Let us know the test result in 15 minutes. that'll leave you 3 strips.
I've got a couple more hours left in me and will be online. We won't leave you alone with this. If you do need to run out the door, if possible, let us know.

carl
 
Is there anyone who can get to a 24 hour pharmacy and pick up strips for you?

What insulin are you using?

Do you have any canned food that has gravy -- high carb canned? It takes a while for dry food to kick in (and a long time for it's effects to wear off). The gravy in canned works more quickly.
 
I'm around too. Will be up for another half hour until I have to do Shaikha's PMPS tests and feeding.
 
He is rising because of the food and he still is not at the lowest point of the insulin .... isn't there someone who can get you strips?
 
Round 2 tonight.
I'm here.
I think this is ok if she is 4.5 hours in and the lowest was 44?
Am I misreading?
 
Most importantly now is that whatever number you see tomorow amps...you need a dose reduction.
And you will likely see a high number.
Your baby is going to be insulin sensitive for a bit.
So cut your dose, and I do not know what you are shooting in terms of dose...so if you want i'll go take a look.
Still here ok.
Lori
 
Lori---the cat went from over 400 to 75 in 3 hours. She started feeding him dry food at that time--next retest was 44 +4.5. She rubbed syrup on his gums. He is now eating canned food and is at 60. She only has 3 strips left.

He got 2.5 units of Prozinc in tonight.
 
Little more info---the cat had stayed above 400 all day on 2 units of prozinc--she changed injection sites tonight and moved from the scruff to the flank and increased to 2.5 units.
 
well,,,,how long has mama been shooting this? is this a long term thing with any records or just a starter.
I do think she can pull it off with her 3 strips and the right foods.
and yikes...that is a scary drop, but she is close to nadir yes?
 
Two weeks....here is the history from yesterday....


My cat Scamper was diagnosed about 2 weeks ago, and has been on 2 units of ProZinc twice a day. He seemed very well for the first week, but is now peeing like crazy and very thirsty, same as just before I took him to the vet. I just got the glucometer in the mail today (cannot thank you enough, Lori!) and the first reading I got from him is 422 mg/dl. This is 1 hr 45 min after receiving the 2 units of ProZinc and eating one can of Fancy Feast Classic. This seems outrageously high and I wonder if there is anything I should do immediately? Now that I've got the glucometer, I will set out to make a curve, but for the time being should I increase to 3 units? He is 11 lbs, btw.
 
i just went back and read all of her posts. it could be kitty has been getting too much insulin right out of the gate and maybe doing chronic rebound? a STARTING dose of 2u?
well, keep him well fed tonight with the high carb gravy (do you have that?) and lower dose to 1 unit tomorow.

I think a can of h/c gravy is going to become on of the newbie kit items from now on.
 
Kaitlyn you did an amazing catch with Scamper tonight. With a big ole' drop like that Scamper could have easily been in trouble. But you have got him on the rise now. It would be good to feed a non sugary food. If you do not have high carb cat food...wet, do you have bread and honey? A nice mix is dip a little balled up piece of bread in milk and roll it in a little honey. You then have sugar AND carbs. a bit more....long lasting.
A hypo kitty at 29 got thur nicely useing only that.
Also yogurt is a good food.
 
Sorry, I'm back! Was on the phone with the overnight tech, who said wait until 1:30 to test since my supplies are dwindling.

Lori -- I have only been giving him insulin since 7/10. He was at 1 unit BID for about 5 days, then after the vet tested him again he upped it to 2 units BID. The jump to 2.5 units was after the day full of 400s and was recommended to me by another vet who reviewed all the previous blood and urine work as well. I should also point out I had huge issues with this first vet and decided not to go back again, so I am not surprised you think 2 U is too much. However, Scamp was peeing like crazy the past few days, as well.

For sure, in the morning I will test before dosing and decrease to 1 U. I don't know if I should inject in the scruff or flank -- I feel like changing the site had a lot to do with the massive drop. Either I did it wrong or I've been doing the scruff wrong.

In any case -- Scamp still seems totally happy and normal right now, except for getting shifty when I try to touch his poor ears...
 
flank/ scruff....should not be THAT different.
unless your scruff shots have never been making it all the way in!
yes, get the hc FOOd rather than just sugars into scamp and do by all means start over at 1u.
and can we start a spread sheet tomorow?
are you working?
 
He's at 158 right now! WHEW.

I do work, so I won't be able to test him all day again tomorrow, but I will at least use up my last 3 strips. However, I'm taking him to a new vet as soon as I can get an appointment. On Saturday and Sunday I will be able to do full days of testing again.

Thank you so much, everyone! I don't even want to think about what would have happened without all the testing and all of your advice. I know we're not out of the woods yet!
 
yes, hon, you are out of the woods.
more than a vet visit, i'm thinking putting up a spread sheet like we all have would be relly helpful
like tom's

look down below for the link. tom's spread sheet.
 
Hello Mrs. Katilyn & Scamper,
The 27 that Ms. Lori mention was my sugar Bean, and it was sooo scarry... I just saw the last 2 post of this conversation (have not even read the rest) and I am sooo glad that he is doing good and has pulled thru! OMG! This is a scarry thing for our furry family... I did honey w/ bread, honey w/ bread and milk, milk and bread...cereal with milk.....I did not have much to get her out of hypo..... since then, we have a kit!
We have a jar of baby food, we have yogart, we have whip cream, we have a deal of microwave mac/chez and meat,and honey and kyro syrup! Never ever again will we not be prepared!
Glad things went well w/ you and Scamper...BTW... he is beautiful! Now, I will go back and read the rest ~ lol
 

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Hey all. Unfortunately I am in another fix with my little guy. When I came home at 8 and tested him he was at 592 :o Pretty sure he got into the other cat's dry food today.
I've just given him 1 U of insulin in the flank again (this morning was scruff -- pretty sure it's not working up there for some reason) and I am holding off on giving him his dinner. Is there anything I can do to settle the hyperglycemia immediately? Is there a REALLY low carb/high protein food you can recommend that I can buy at the super market right away?
 
Kaitlyn, you can give him his dinner. No harm in that.
And are you SURE it was the dry kibble he got into? Not just a bounce from the low numbers the other night.
Lori
 
Could very well be the bounce -- I'm still learning these things / have no idea what I'm doing, seems like.
However, we have an affirmative on his eating some kibble today. Roommates are not being so cooperative on separating the food.
Won't he spike after eating dinner? I'm about to retest, as well.
 
You are probably seeing a combination from the low # and the dry food, unfortunately you will need to ride it out .... he goes really low, the normal things people use to reduce BG#'s would send him into hypo. I would feed him.
 
Have you looked at Janet and Binky's food chart? There are a lot of options for food.

The high reading is probably a combination of the lows last night and the possible dry food.
 
Wow!
Just found this thread. I'm so glad to hear you guys pulled off another great intervention.
Good job guys. You did great.
drinking24
 
Kaitlyn,
You're probably a bit p.o.'d at the roommates. Try to calmly sit them down and explain, make them understand, that Scamper's life depends on having a proper diet and proper insulin doses, and that's why it is imperative that they help out by making sure he has NO access to dry food. I'm sure they'll cooperate if they understand how critical it is.

Carl
 
+3.5 and he's at 267. Should I be on the lookout for another hypo tonight or is this a good drop? Important to point out, I gave this injection in the flank as well. No more scruff shots for me until the new vet corrects my technique.

Had a chat with the roommates and we're switching both cats to something yet to be agreed upon from Binky's chart. Sometimes it takes a few girl tears to soften up the guys I live with...
 
Kaitlyn, I can't honestly say a 300 point drop in 3 hours is what you are aiming for...but I do not think you are in danger of hypo.
What I will say is your cat is sensitive to his insulin.
If you are going completely off of the dry food, you may very well need to drop dose further.
Your on PZI right? I better go check. These different insulins carry out differently.
BRB.
 
Yep, it's PZI and I just made a post on that board with his preliminary data. Working on my SS.
I also think in the morning I will give him .5 or .8 instead of 1. Luckily, someone will be home with him all day so he'll hopefully be able to monitor BG a few times before I get home that night.
 
ok, pro zinc. after you clear this high carb high...i would 'suggest' lowering your dose. these drops are quite powerful...i think it would be wise to take some of the 'punch' out of it.
altho' you likely won't hypo tonight, and it is a bummer to stay up again...it would be nice to see how low he does go.
possible?
what do you think? maybe a +6? i mean i know you were up last night so you can do this another time. but you need to get a curve in sooner rather than later.
i think this kitty is gonna do good things. :razz:
 
I'm going to try for the +6. It's no skin off my nose, but his ears are looking ROUGH from so much testing. He's started to wimper and squirm a lot, so I'm getting pretty worried about that :-\
 
Kaitlyn,
where on the ear do you poke? the vein runs a good ways around it. If needed you can pick a spot higher on the outer edge or even go around the side closest to the middle of his head...this assumes you are normally poking the lower part on the outer edge...
carl
 
lori and tom said:
ok, pro zinc. after you clear this high carb high...i would 'suggest' lowering your dose. these drops are quite powerful...i think it would be wise to take some of the 'punch' out of it.
altho' you likely won't hypo tonight, and it is a bummer to stay up again...it would be nice to see how low he does go.
possible?
what do you think? maybe a +6? i mean i know you were up last night so you can do this another time. but you need to get a curve in sooner rather than later.
i think this kitty is gonna do good things. :razz:
Click to expand...

Great advice from Lori, here. After looking at the numbers you posted in the PZI board I think a dose decrease would be a good idea. Stay with shots in the same area (flank) so we can get better comparisons. Make sure you are also giving under the skin vs. in the muscle. I think a 0.6U or 0.8U dose might be a good thing if you can eyeball that on your syringes. If not, try 0.75U. Depending on how your syringes are set up, tinier doses can be pretty tough to measure accurately. I also think the drop was a bit too strong. If you can get another reading at +6 as Lori suggested that would be great.
 
KaitlynandScamper said:
I'm going to try for the +6. It's no skin off my nose, but his ears are looking ROUGH from so much testing. He's started to wimper and squirm a lot, so I'm getting pretty worried about that :-\
Click to expand...

Get some neosporin ointment with pain relief and rub it on his sore ears. What size of lancets are you using? Try to use the smaller gauge you can get. I use 33 gauge ones and my cat's ears have appreciated the change from the 31G ones. The Neosporin also helps.
 
Recap of the cycle:
PMPS 592 (due to eating kitty crack today) 1u
+1 579
+3.5 267
+5.5 370

so he dropped 325 points in 3.5 hours, and also ate during that stretch.

Look back over Lori and Wendy's posts. I think you might consider dropping the AM dose to .75 or so, but stay in the flank. He actually dropped as far today as he did last night (although his inflated number was due to dry food intake). That's still a pretty steep drop.

Carl
 
Scamper had another hypo today after his am dose of 1 U. This time he went down to 29 at +4. Just gave him his pm dose and only gave him 0.75 U. He was 564 ps. We're going to the vet tomorrow (Angell Memorial, not that bonehead from before), so that's some consolation, but I have to say... I'm feeling like a big fat failure :-\
 
Kaitlyn, time to stop and reassess.
Start much lower. You can always work your way back up.
start at 1/4 of a unit.
that's right
1/4 of a unit.
you may not even need that much.
for all we know...scamper may be otj already.
 
You know, I thought that for a moment -- maybe getting him off the dry food had a really huge impact on his ability to regulate his bg naturally. I wish I had posted before I administered the 0.75, but I will test him in a couple hours and decrease the dose in the am.
 
Kaitlyn, keep me posted please.
Post your numbers tonight k?
And don't overeact to the fall, you may be giving him those big numbers with over feeding high carb.
 
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