Lee Lu and what happened last night - yikes

[pandabur]

So, last night her PMPS was 76 (her AMPS was 181), so I dosed her with the 1.5u as usual. Fed them all Wellness turkey & salmon (first time for them to have Wellness). All seemed to yum it up. About 15 min later, Lee puked all her food up. Alright, her body just didn't agree with the food change. I did add a FF can into the mix of Wellness but OK, not alarmed. I went to bed.

Woke up around midnight to some thumping around. Found her on the stair landing unable to walk well. She was not listless but her back legs were definitely overdose hooker, not just drunk hooker. So I carried her downstairs, found where she had peed on the floor (still rare for her to do that, she can 99% make it to the box), saw that she had diarrhea in the box, and then tested her. BG level was 30! Yikes!So, I grabbed some FF and some honey and hand fed her. She seemed fine, back legs came back to full use almost immediately. Waited a solid 45 min and tested her again, she hit 50 that time. So, I fed another FF can, got back into bed, read for a while then fell asleep. She slept with me the whole night, just getting off the bed once to use the box then back on the bed.

Weird enough, when her BG was 27 last weekend or so, she didn't have this lack of mobility.

I'll test her this morning to update. I'm hoping this is isolated with the fact that she puked up her entire meal.

 

[MommaOfMuse]

Just watch her really carefully today, they can be more sensitive to insulin after they've gone low like that. Hopefully it's just that she had no food in her stomach. But if she goes even down to 60 I again I think I would see if she can hold another dose reduction, just to be on the safe side.

Mel and The Fur Gang

 

[BJM]

Food changes may go better if you do them gradually with 20-25% different food each day. It tends to help prevent diarrhea, vomiting, and food refusals. Plus, if there is a significant difference in carbohydrate, gradual changes allow you to monitor for that and adjust as needed.

 

[pandabur]

Thanks all. I fed them half a 12 oz can of Wellness and everyone was fine. I tested her at her usual time of 8am and she was at 225. Bounce? I gave her the usual 1.5u.

So, this brings up a good question - My order is feed, test, shoot in the AM and test, shoot, and feed at night. They are pretty demanding in the AM to be fed at 7am then I test/shoot at 8am. Is that OK? I see that the preferred method is test, shoot, feed / test, feed, shoot. But I am doing that better order in the PM.

Thanks

 

[KittyMom777]

Hi. From everything I've read on here it's better to test feed shoot not feed test shoot. They mention food spikes -their BG goes up after eating. My cats demand to be fed immediately I wake but they adjust to s new routine very quickly. You call the shots -no pun intended - not the kitty

My cat walks like a drunk all the time lately and I started giving him Methyl B12 and a week later he's able to sit. Previously he lay down all the time not able to sit.

Juliet and Silver

 

[phlika29]

Those numbers are scarily low. I would be very wary of giving the same dose and would follow the protocol for reducing it. My cat remi was ill last weekend and because he was sick went lower than 50. That meant he earned the reduction even if it was just because he was unwell. He held the reduction just fine and if he hadn't as mel advised me I would have just increased the dose again.

I would make sure you get lots of readings in tonight. Normally when a cat goes below 50 you give food and then monitor after twenty minutes, retest, feed again, etc and repeat. The problem with going to bed and just monitoring visually is that you don't know what is happening inside their little bodies and you could have woken to a dead cat. Cats will often drop again once the honey has worn off so you need to keep monitoring closely.

You must always test, fed and then shoot and as BJM said any food changes should be gradual so as to avoid issues as you experienced. Ideally you would also get in a +1 or +2 both in the am and pm in order to see where she is heading. That way you can pick up if your cat is diving into dangerous territory.

 

[BJM]

Caution: When you get numbers below 50 mg/dL on a human glucometer, you are hitting numbers dangerously close to hypoglycemia, which can kill. Symptoms may not show up. I would reduce the dose 0.25 units. You'll need to eyeball 1.25 units as syringes don't mark 0.25 or 0.75 units.

Here is one protocol for managing hypo/near hypo situations.

I wouldn't call 225 much of a bounce; more like a low normal pre-shot for a diabetic cat.

...My order is feed, test, shoot in the AM and test, shoot, and feed at night. They are pretty demanding in the AM to be fed at 7am then I test/shoot at 8am. Is that OK? I see that the preferred method is test, shoot, feed / test, feed, shoot. ...
)

Test, then feed and shoot in any order within about 15 minutes when using a depot insulin. Its OK if the cat grazes over the next 10 hours , rather than eating a big meal.