LeeLee and low BG numbers

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supervix56

Member Since 2012
Hi,

I'm getting really paranoid about giving LeeLee her morning shot and then leaving for the day. Last night, 4 hours after her shot, her BG was 58 which seems quite low to me, especially considering I think her insulin (Lantus) peaks a couple of hours after that. Luckily she was hungry and ate a fair amount of food, so three hours later, her BG was at 151.

This morning her BG was at 284, pre-shot, and then she ate a reasonable amount (between 1/4 and 1/2 of those little FF tins), so I gave her her shot. There's also canned Wellness and a bit of dry M/D left out for her. Will she be OK for the next 10 hours? I just found it quite worrying that it went so low last night.

Thanks,
Erin and LeeLee
 
With the food you've left out for her, I think she'll be fine. I know that 57 looks scary, but it's actually still in the normal range.

The dry M/D is not good for diabetics, and you'd likely see a reduction in insulin or possibly remission if you ditch it. It might also be contributing to the bouncing from the high to low numbers, especially if her pancreas is still producing some insulin. I was gone all day when giving Bandit insulin (11 hrs), so I got an auto feeder and set it to release canned food at Bandit's usual nadir (lowest number of the cycle) 6 hours after his shot to give him a little boost in case his BG went a little low.

As long as you're testing and getting daily nadirs and preshots, you'll know how the insulin is working and it's unlikely a severe hypo incident will happen while you're gone. Having low carb food available while you're gone and home testing several times a day will help prevent hypos. Also, once you have a few more weeks of data under your belt, you'll be able to better predict how the insulin dose will affect her.
 
I keep telling myself that the dry M/D is better than the dry she USED to eat, but yes, I need to get rid of it. I just worry that she'll be really hungry while I'm out and refuse to eat the canned. That said, she hasn't been eating much of the dry M/D at all. I put a small bowl of it out a week now and it's still a quarter full (and I saw one of my other cats eat of bunch of it). So maybe it's time to just put it away and use it only as reward treats for shots/ear pricks.

I don't think an auto feeder would help me. There has still been canned food out when I got home the past few days, plus LeeLee is out with two other cats that would probably hover around the auto feeder, waiting for it to release something new and exciting. LeeLee is too laid back to wait in line for food :-)

Thanks for alleviating my worries :-)
 
When cats have lower blood sugar they naturally get hungry and eat most of the time, so I think you'll be ok as long as the food is out. You're probably already doing this but if you add water to it, or even leave out frozen chunks, it stays moist and appetizing to them a little longer throughout the day. My Gabby wouldn't touch canned food if it was too dried out, but Bandit gobbled everything in sight anyway so we had to go the feeder route. :-) I got two and set them to go off at the same time at opposite ends of the kitchen where I fed them all their meals so that they would each run to their "spot" when they heard it go off.
 
That's so cute that they each had their own automatic feeder! I'll keep that in mind if I start coming home to discover that someone has eaten all the canned food I'd left out.
 
When you do ditch the dry, I would do it on a weekend or when you have a couple days off to test both cycles. Most cats need a dose reduction or even sometimes go into remission once the dry is gone! :-)
 
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