I know the ear poke topic is overdone, but...

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DaniCoz

DaniCoz

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I'm frustrated to the point where I'm stomping around the house muttering obscenities to myself. Charlie does well except for one thing...he jerks his head either when I poke or right after. So if there's a small drop I'm unable to massage the ear quickly enough to get a big enough drop, and if there's a big enough drop it gets flicked or smudged. Once I was lucky enough to get enough blood on my finger when he jerked to get a test. Once I tried to scoop it up with my nail quickly, but the drop wasn't enough. Everything else is going perfectly...he'll follow me over to the spot, let me warm his ear, then massage a little, then apply the neosporin. I just don't know how to keep his head still! Has anybody else had this problem?
 
Has anybody else had this problem?
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:-D ...yep, most of us...time will solve it but KT still does it sometimes. There are others that still do it and share your 'clog dance' over it at times. I have no tips or tricks other than peroxide cleans up blood spots...
 
I find it helps when I firmly hold Poopy's ear against the paper towel until I'm ready for him to move. Sometimes he'll try to pull away, but can't get very far. Most of the times he just sits and purrs now, even after I've released his ear, waiting for me to say "ok" before he tries to leave. ECID though.

Edited to add: I scoop up the droplet on the back of my fingernail so Poopy can escape while I finish testing.
 
hi there. first while i'm thinking of it because i feel like i'm walking in my sleep today :-) (damn vertigo!), there's another member in your neck of the woods that just joined, Doug & Libby. how far away is creedmoor and would you recommend your vet? they are looking for a good vet recommendation.

wonder if that member is testing and/or is doing it successfully already. maybe the two of you could work on the testing together and finding them a vet if yours is good?

now, back to the question for you :-) i have to hang on for dear life with my girl. have had to for nearly 5 years now. the first time i touched her much was upon her diabetes diagnosis and finding a cool vet. initially it took my fiance and i both to catch her and hang on to her long enough to do what we needed to do. i'd say within a month or so i figured out a way to do it by myself. because she's not too fond of humans i had to half scruff her with one hand and reach up and hang onto her ear with a couple of those fingers. then i do the lancing & putting the strip in the blood with the other hand. the scruffing got her to sit still better and i hung on very tightly to the ear so she couldn't flick it away from me. although it still happens occasionally to this day.

i will say that maybe for the last year or there abouts i don't have to do the half scruff thing. she for the most part does sit still for her testing now, but i still hang on to that ear like it's the last one on earth :-) just last night she got away from me before the bleeding stopped and was leaving drops across the kitchen counter. try convincing a semi feral girl to come back for a second go 'around so i could stop the bleeding. LOL! she did, with the help of a treat, but boy was she extra squirmy.

i guess i'm trying to say don't give up. it just takes a bit to work out a trick or a routine.
 
Musette is famous for the ear flick, my solution is to hold her so that I'm testing the ear furthest away from me, with her laying across my lap. I use the rice sock to back her ear, so I reach across her with that hand and gently hold her head against my chest, then I poke with the other hand, then either keep the rice sock in place to hold her head against me, or drop the rice sock and start scratching her cheek while I reach for the meter. I've also found if I don't raise the lancet pen immediately but kind of push down slightly on the ear with it right after the poke it will usually bead up enough to test, if I do have to message her ear to get a big enough drop that is when I use the cheek scritches to keep her head in place.

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang.
 
That topic will NEVER be overdone! My Bean girl still will twist her ear backwards and there goes that! GRRRRR! :evil:
Are you trying to get the blood drop on the back of the finger? I found that was a bit easier to rub my nail right across the drop and there it was. I also hold my left hand under her chin while I have the meter in the right hand. then quickly release once that meter beeps.... is a challenge for us and especially since she is in remisson. Makes those spot tests even harder, but I WILL GET THAT TEST!
Bean would also get sooo worked up over the treats that she will not sit still.... so, treats after pokey is what we do now.

Keep up the good work.... Frustration is normal! :shock:

Charlie: you beeee gooood! or no treats!

Furry patience sent your way
 
This is MY WORLD EXACTLY!!! It's so frustrating that I have been known to cry in the mornings out of frustration! Every little detail that you mentioned is exactly what goes on in my household. Exactly to the tee.

Most days, emotions are over the top trying to get a handle on this. You are definitely not alone. I
 
SO glad to hear I'm not alone in this! And thanks for all the tips. I held him a little closer tonight, and was going to try the fingernail again, but when he jerked I reflexively let go of his ear. BUT...I got the blood!!! He growled at me when I was pinching, but all was forgiven once I gave him a few more bites of treat.

I'm so relieved that I got the test because it was great news. 101 at +64!!! (and this was 4 hrs after dinner)
 
your little charlie is looking great.

just fyi - if he continues in these great numbers, and these are NOT diabetic numbers, continue to skip any insulin. and if it stays this good, you just need to know that you would consider him a diet-controlled diabetic, so he needs to remain on low-carb canned food for the rest of his life. and hopefully, you're one of the lucky ones! wahoo!

oh yeah, and cats are the MASTERS of the ear flick! well-timed so you look like a crime victim! :lol: i burritoed punkin for about 2 weeks til he gave up fighting me. but he still is the master of his ear, even though i have a vulcan death-grip on it! ;-)
 
GLAD you got that test!!!! Should we get out the party hats and celebrate OTJ??????? party_cat
 
Hahaha... Scooter has only done it to me once, when I was trying to squeeze his ear to get a bigger drop... he flicked it and it ended up smeared all over my fingers. :lol: I usually slick the hair on the edge of his ear back with the neosporin, and that's the irritating part for him, so he gets all the ear flicks out at that point. I don't have long enough nails to do the back of the nail collection, so I just let his ear go when there's enough blood so I can grab the meter and not smudge it with my fingers.
 
I think they know whats going on by the third or fourth ear test. I only have to give my kitty something yummy he's normally not allowed to eat and the next time he's hungry he goes to sit in the spot where I produced the forbidded food. He keeps going back there for days. They learn much faster than they like us to know - you can be sure your kitty knows what you are doing and what he/she is doing re the ear flicking (his protest perhaps?). I would suggest lavish praise when you get the reading. And as stupid as this might sound I would tell your kitty her/his number and talk to her about it as if she understands - as I think they understand voice tone - if it's good or if it's not so good etc. This way you are getting your kitty involved and making her feel positive about the experience. I suppose I'm suggesting a form of training. One of my vets told me once that it's all about praise when they do well and ignoring their mistakes (she was talking dogs and husbands but that's another story)

In the early days I tried the clothes peg to the back of the neck. I used a very old wooden peg that didn't have too much spring left in it so it wouldn't grab too tight. Then you have both hands free to hold the ear while you use the other hand for meter to collect the sample. If your kitty is big you might need to use a couple of pegs next to each other. It tricks them into to thinking they are being held and it's a feeling they don't mind coz it is instinctual for them to be scruffed by the neck ( their mothers did it they were kittens).

I also used to try to time it when my kitty was sleepy - or resting. He more relaxed. My boy actually pads during it now. He does opens and shuts his paws - he seems to like it. I don't usually disturb him but hang over the back of couches and twist myself thru garden bushes to do it. I don't give treats coz he's smart enough to know it's being done for his own good.

hang in there!
 
Yep. I'm frequently splattered in cat blood. Hobbs has gotten a little better in the short time I've been doing this. But only moderately. I kind of hold him against me with my left arm, hold his head, ear, and tissue, in my left hand, and then poke/test with my right hand. I have him on the table with me sitting at it. It seems to work the best. Just remember to wipe the table down when you're done. LOL (And careful of scratches)
 
LOL at Anyname!!!!

Bean and I do a whole song song ~ me singing (I cannot sing) her numbers to her....'oh ya, you be a fifdy seben....oh ya, you be the one and only girl, mamma sooo proud of youzzzie'...etc ;-) She knows the sound of my voice and loves the praise...
 
ohbell that is the very best song i've ever heard! you must be an awesome bean!!!! :lol: i think i want to come be your cat and have to sing a sweet little thing to me! :-D
 
So I showed him the meter tonight and talked to him about his results. He looked at it and then looked at me like "sooo.....are you gonna give me more treats or should I leave now?" :lol: I swear, I think both of them understand a lot more than they will ever let on! One more week of these #s and then... party time!! flip_cat
 
Forgive me for not reading ever reply, so someone may have posted this response. I have the same trouble, but what helps me with MIkey is to use the rice sock. I hold it inside his ear enough that he can't "flick" his ear, get the test and them absorb the excess blood with the sock. It's like a cushion in addition to warming the ear. I don't know if I gave enough of an explanation. I am a "newer" bean to LL also. So someone else might explain it better ;-)
 
LOl to Julie & Punkin.....not soooo sure about that ~ Bean looks at me sometimes like...'do I really have to be poked and then listen to this singing tooooo? just for a treat????'
But I do think she absolutely knows when my singing is happy happy happy~
Btw.... if you turn yourself into one of my kitties, family & friends will swear you will be a queen around here :lol:

DaniCoz, I think they know exactly what we want of them once the routine is down... I think they also know how to push our sympathy buttons like no other :smile:

I believe Bean would never ever leave my lap if I did not put the lid back onto the treat container...once I do that ~ bye bye mommabean
 
Hello! My first ever post. Akbah was diagnosed in November last year, and I cried a lot over this business of the ear test. I could have sworn he had no blood. We both hated the test. I gave it a rest for awhile because it was so bad. But this year, I got determined, and praised him a lot, and I use THE BRUSH as the treat afterward. Ak loves the brush. But he still flicks his ear, not when there is a drop of blood there (he's very good and waits for me to finish)... he flicks just as I do the prick. It probably hurts. I'm not surprised, because he flicks his ear and pulls it against the prick, if that makes any sense. So that solved the problem of me not getting any blood out, when he does that, I get blood, no worries. And because he does the flick before any blood has come out, well, no blood lost. As this is my first determined "glucose curve", its been a real challenge, but I already find that it is getting easier. I read somewhere that it takes about 10 goes to get used to it. And I think we're getting there. He's a good and patient cat, but this is a lot of stuff changing at once. I don't sing, but I do talk him through it and I think I'll start telling him the numbers too. Good idea!
 
Welcome :) I'm pretty new here myself. I found the pokes super stressful at first too, Scooter did NOT want to sit still and his ears did NOT want to bleed, but I was determined... I wrapped him in a towel and poked him as many times as it took... and he howled and cried in the towel wrap, scratched and drooled all over me, and his ears were bruised red and swollen... and he would hide every time I called him... and it broke my heart and made me want to give up because it was stressing us both so much...

But then we had a breakthrough! Scooter started to realize that the less he struggled, the easier it was on both of us... and hey, there were treats in the end! He started to hold still during the pokes, and we dropped the towel. And then there was a day where I got enough blood on the first poke every time! And then it happened the next day, too... and the next... and it's been like that ever since.

Our kitties are a lot smarter than we think sometimes, and they will learn very fast that all the pokes are making them feel better... Scooter is almost coming to find me for poke times now... I still have to call him and shake the treat bag sometimes, but he always eventually comes to the kitchen and lays right down on the floor in the spot we always tests and waits for me. He lays across my lap, rests his head in my elbow, purrs through the whole process and looks at me like "why are you stopping?" when I let him off my lap.

It will get better. :-D
 
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