Moving over to this forum

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Rosemary Oconnor

Member Since 2018
hope this is correct forum. Came from intro. Approx 14 yo male, neutered dsh mix, part Siamese, part tabby. Blind, vet thinks from high blood pressure, now diagnosed diabetic. Started with 1 unit, increased to 2 units, then 3 units. Been feeding md/wd, however understand that is not the best. Have decreased units back down to 2 units and will start home testing and different food, probably Fancy Feast classic per advice from this site. My question today, how often and when do I test??
 
Make sure to test before every insulin shot, so you're not giving him too much. Remove the food 2 hours prior to your test/shot, so you're getting a more accurate reading. I usually test about 4 hours post-shot or whenever my schedule allows for it and more frequently when I'm home. I'm new to this, too, but I'm sure the more experienced members here will have some advice for you. My cat comes willingly for his tests, because I reward him with a freeze-dried chicken breast treat. He doesn't seem to mind it much.
 
Yay, Rosemary! You made it. If you like, you can make a signature with all the kitty info, so you don't have to retype/repeat. Go to your name in the upper right hand corner of the page and select. Then a menu will come up, select signature and type kittys name, age, weight, dx date, insulin type, doseage, meter type, what kind of food, etc. Then people can see the stats before making recommendations. I found that changing Idjit's diet to all low carb wet food lowered his BG. It's good to test between shots to get that nadir, low measurements, so you know what's going on.
 
Welcome, Rosemary! Here's the basic testing routine we recommend:
  1. test every day AM and PM before feeding and injecting (no food at least 2 hours before) to see if the planned dose is safe
  2. test at least once near mid cycle or at bedtime daily to see how low the BG goes
  3. do extra tests on days off to fill in the response picture
  4. if indicated by consistently high numbers on your spreadsheet, increase the dose by no more than 0.25 u at a time so you don't accidentally go right past a good dose
  5. post here for advice whenever you're confused or unsure of what to do.
 
Thanks will do, gotta get ready for work now. Experimenting with glucose meter on myself before I attempt with kitty. Wow, those sticks hurt. Did three but still couldn’t reading. So back to the drawing board later tonight or tomorrow. Will keep sticking myself until I get it right. Thanks for all the encouragement.
 
Rosemary, I started out testing my own blood too. In the beginning, I tried just jabbing the lancet into my finger. That did hurt and didn't draw enough blood to test. Later, after watching some of the videos of people testing their cats, I tried pressing the tip of the lancet into my finger at an angle. That gave me nice, little blood drop and I hardly felt it at all. That's how I test Cleo too. She whines when I do it, but I don't think it's painful for her. She just doesn't like me messing with her ears.
 
Rosemary Oconnor said:
Blind, vet thinks from high blood pressure
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Quintus is blind from high BP too. Is yours on amlodipine or something to lower the BP? if not, worth getting the BP checked and meds -- my view is that if you can remove one "misbehaviour" from an ageing organism, it's worth it.

Glad you found the forum and are getting great advice to get started testing! It gets easier :-)
 
Rosemary Oconnor said:
Thanks will do, gotta get ready for work now. Experimenting with glucose meter on myself before I attempt with kitty. Wow, those sticks hurt. Did three but still couldn’t reading. So back to the drawing board later tonight or tomorrow. Will keep sticking myself until I get it right. Thanks for all the encouragement.
Click to expand...
Keep in mind you put the blood drop on the edge so it can be sucked up like a straw.... Not on top of the strip
 
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