new and very confused on numbers

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Dawn and Jessie

Member Since 2014
Hi everyone! First post but lurking a little while. Jessie is my extra sweet kitty. He is 11 years old. Diagnosed end of July. Before I started him on insulin I wanted to change food to only canned. So now all the cats eat fancy feast or friskies. I took him back to the vet 3 weeks after taking away their dry food. He was still high at 500 so we started the insulin. Vet never said anything about home testing so I took it upon myself and went to walmart to get the lantus and picked up a relion confirm meter. First home test was Saturday evening August 23. He was 220 so I gave him the 1u shot. The next morning he would not let me test him so I gave him the 1u shot anyways. Bad decision cause he dropped to 36 by 4pm. Gave him some high carb food and his numbers raised the rest of night. Anyways I stuck with the 1u for the week until friday when I decided he was going to low so I decreased dose to .5. That seemed to work. Here are his numbers since friday.
Friday amps 237 gave .5
+3 85
+5 73
+7 69
+9 109
Pmps 225 gave .5

Saturday amps 293 gave .5
+2 140
+7 85
Pmps 145 so skipped shot

Sunday amps 142 skipped again
Pmps 154 skipped again

Monday amps 83 skipped shot
Pmps 128 skipped again

Today (Tuesday) amps 75 skipped again
3 pm test 85

He hasn't had insulin since Saturday morning since his numbers were good. Im very confused. Can he go into remission in a week?? Thanks for any info you can offer
Dawn and Jessie
 
So he can go into remission that quickly? Can you imagine if I just did what the vet said and gave him the insulin twice a day and bring him back in a couple weeks for a curve and not be home testing? I probably would have a dead cat! Why wouldn't vets insist on doing home testing? His number lastnight was 90. How often do you suggest testing him?
 
Lucky you! We generally consider a cat in remission if they range from 40-120 for 2 weeks, off insulin. And he will then be a diet controlled diabetic, so no more dry food, ever! I'd test a couple times a day, after eating, to make sure the number goes down after food (a sign the pancreas is working) for the next two weeks. Then randomly after that.

It would be nice if your vet would understand the value of home testing and a wet low carb diet, based on your experience. That would sure help all the diabetic cats who come into his practice in the future. And yes, your cat would certainly have hypoed!
 
Its been a week since I posted. Jessie's numbers having been dropping daily since then. No insulin since Saturday August 30th.

September 5th..74
September 6th..54
September 7th..57
September 8th..38
September 9th..47

I'm very thankful for this site! Without it, I would of never known about dry food and home testing. I'll see all these people at the stores buying bags of dry cat food and I just shake my head. Thanks again for this site and all the hard work that goes into it! This coming Saturday it will be 2 weeks and officially in remission. Go Jessie! You've been a trooper through this and we are very proud of you!
 
Thanks for sharing this but it has got me thinking now...

I have only given my cat two shots so far with the recommendation of the vet to change nothing food wise. After reading the posts I would also like to cut out the dry food but I believe I need to wait until I start testing or she could hypo if I remove her carbs. I wonder if there is a chance she could have a hypo anyway if there is no testing in place particularly as already she doesn't seem so ravenous today? I'm guessing it is more dangerous to go over the dose than under it so shall I go a fraction under the vets recommendation and play it safe until we go back in a fortnight, or is she likely to tolerate the dose in any event as she has just started? Her reading at the vet was 25 which I believe is approx 450.

I would love to end up in the situation you and Jessie are in with no more injections...
 
My suggestion would be not to remove dry food until you can test at home. Taking her off dry will lower her numbers which in turn will lower her dose. And her number will be lower at home then at the vet. If you can go get a meter and test that would be awesome, it could possibly safe her life. Im no expert at any of this but I do know testing at home is very important.
 
It's vital to be home testing before changing to low carb food. BG levels can come down very quickly even when a mix of high carb and low carb wet are being fed. When I made the switch with Saoirse, her BG was at 25 (450) on her last day of w/d Dry only (on ALPHATRAK). I was advised to hold her dose of insulin and on the third day she hit 4.3 (<80). Because I was home testing during the changeover I caught the hypo range level and kept her safe. She went from 3 IU of Caninsulin down to 0.5 IU in the space of a week. :shock:

Congratulations Dawn & Jessie! :thumbup
 
My cat also went from 3u of insulin on dry W/D food to no insulin in less than 2 weeks when I switched to wet food. Do NOT do it if your cat is already on insulin unless you are testing your cat multiple times a day at home and are ready to make rapid adjustments to their insulin needs (using the expertise of the people here on this board).

Chances are very slim that your vet will be able to respond in the time needed in order to safely make the adjustment for your cat (since you'll test at night and need to make a decision about whether to inject within hours if not minutes). I honestly believe that's part of the reason that vets tend to be so hesitant about recommending anything other than the dry foods that keep cats so high. There's far less chance of a cat dying of hypoglycemia if they're on dry food because they're riding so high already and food spikes them crazy high right away if they do start to dip. But, it also means that you're essentially dooming your cat to a lifetime of poorly controlled diabetes.
 
Members who have switched to dry food have found the glucose level drops around 100 mg/dL and the insulin may drop 1-2 units.

If your current dose were 2 units per day with dry food, removing the dry might (or might not) reduce the insulin requirement to 0.

See my signature link Secondary Monitoring Tools for additional assessments you may use to evaluate your cat, especially testing for urine ketones. Ketones form as a by-product of fat breakdown for calories. Too many ketones may indicate diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), a potentially fatal, expensive to treat, complication of diabetes. If you ever detect more than a trace level in the urine, you should have a vet see your cat asap.
 
Hi all! I just talked to my vet and she was very concerned on Jessie's low number that are in the 40s and 50s. She told me they shouldn't be that low. She knows he hasn't had insulin since the 30th. She thought he would be having seizures. I told her he is acting great. My question is, are readings in the 40s to low in a cat not on insulin? She was saying the numbers should be between 70 and 120. I'm using relion confirm
Thanks guys!
Dawn
 
Those are normal numbers for a non diabetic cat off insulin. Lots of cats here run in the 60s and 70s but lots run in the 40s and 50s. This is good news!
 
When a cat is on insulin those are scary numbers, but when they're not on insulin it's fine. Vets probably rarely (if ever) see tests that low in a non-diabetic cat because cats are always slightly elevated when tested in the office whether it's from stress or illness or a combination of both.
 
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