LOW numbers and vet out of town Help!

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kaw

Member Since 2010
Scout has been on a high protein, low carb diet for a week and his numbers are much lower. Did a blood curve today and his numbers are as follows -

7:30 - 334
9:30 - 227
11:30 - 112
1:30 - 140
3:30 - 188

I placed a call to my vet and she is on vacation. Does anyone have any advice on how I should adjust his insulin (Lantus). Scout weighs 16 pounds and is currently on 4.5 units 2x a day. Im a little nervous to give him such a high dose. Another vet has been asked to call me back but thought Id post in the mean time.

Scout has also been on Methyl b12 for a week. I notice the weakness in his back legs has improved but the neuropathy remains. He is on 6 mg a day.

Thanks for all who reply.
 
How soon are you due to shoot? Actual times are confusing here as we are in many different time zones and we don't know where you are. We post times in hours after the shot. +1 is 1 hour after shooting, +2 is 2hours after, ...... etcetera.

Cats insulin needs can drop dramatically once switched to low carb wet food, so you are correct to be concerned. Let us know when you are supposed to shoot and more experienced members can give you advice. Some one should be by soon.
 
First off, what can we call you? I would like to tell you a few things about this board and hope to persuade you to join us and post daily....
When was Scout diagnosed?
Does he have any other medical issue or on any other meds?

The BGs will fluctuate during the day and from day-to-day. Congratulations on doing the home testing! That is a most important tool. Do you have plenty of strips on hand?

Now, we do have a handy spreadsheet that we use here. There are instructions for creating a SS and attaching it to your signature line in your posts. Here are the instructions for doing that:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18207
It is from the board entitled "Tech support"

In order to help you, we do need to see a SS attached to your posts so that we can see how the insulin is working on your kitty, okay?

We post a new thread each and every day. In your condo (thread) you will post the heading:
Date, Kitty's name, AMPS=________
and update with any new BG tests you get during the cycle. We also include in our first post of the day a link to the previous day's condo.

At the top of the page are starred stickies that you will enjoy reading. Start with the "New to the Group..."
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=18139 and if you can, print out the section on HYPOS and also be sure to have the supplies listed in the HYPO TOOL KIT.

We usually suggest starting off at a much lower dose than what you vet prescribed. Information about our dosing is here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1581

Those are good numbers today....however, that is a lot of insulin that you are giving Scout. We suggest starting at 1.0 unit twice a day. We increase the dose by .25u so that we can be sure to not pass over the ideal dose.

Please read the stickies and feel free to come back here and ask any questions you may have. For now, if you could work on getting that SS up and running that would help us and we can then offer suggestions to you. I am so glad that you posted here and I look forward to watching Scout's progress...
 
Kaw
Listen to what these folks tell you....it priceless advice...
Debie and Jezebel who is OTJ only because of the advice given here...
 
Scout was diagnosed this past June and was slowly increased from one unit 2x daily to his current dosage. His numbers have never been this low, normal for him is, on average, 250 . Been trying to figure out the SS, so thank you Pat for posting the instructions. I will get that done ASAP and post.

Scheduled to shoot right now, not really sure what to do and obviously the vet working today has left and wont be calling.
 
Sorry for inundating you in questions..

How long has Scout been on insulin? I'm assuming that this was not your starting dose. How did you get to your current dose? In other words, when you increased Scout's dose, how much did you increase each time?

We've been asking for test data. Do you have more than what you posted?

The numbers that you posted are not even close to dangerously low, so don't worry. However, if you have changed Scout's diet to low carb food, his insulin needs may change dramatically so you are appropriately concerned. It's great you are home testing and can keep an eye on things.

If you don't have a great deal of test data, if you can even list it out here, that would help. It would also help if you could use the notation that Ann/Tess suggested (i.e., using +hours to note how long from shot time) since we are from different time zones and in some cases, different continents.

We're cross posting. What was your pre-shot test?
 
Forgot to mention Scout has neuropathy and has also been given 6 mg of Methyl B12 for about a week. Sort of took matters in to my own hands, the vet had him on Science Diet w/d. Did not mention wet v.dry food, protein and carbs or anything Ive learned on this site. Anyway...

I will give Scout his insulin but lower the dosage to half (2.5 units) tonight and test in about an hour. Not sure what else to do at this point.

Thanks for all your advice.
 
Our vet was also ignorant of the wet vs. dry food difference, too. In fact, she wanted our cat to eat Hills Prescription W/D wet when we suggested switching Blackie to wet food. I wanted to feed her Fancy Feast. Long story. She's now on FF wet. No more dry.

Vets know only a small amount of information with regards to cats and diabetes. Basically how to treat it with insulin, or Glipizide pills or whatever. They're not really educated when it comes to diet, other than the fact that they try to push what is in their front office.

Here's Binky's Page of canned foods, and their carbohydrate content:

http://binkyspage.tripod.com/CanFoodNew.html

This should help you to find the one that fit your needs. :)
 
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