Kira & Max
Member
Hi Everyone,
This is my first post and first of all, I wanted to say thanks for all the information here. So far, I've learned more here than from my vet, and that's made this whole diabetes thing much easier to understand. God bless whoever came up with rice sock on the ear idea, that made testing a snap.
My 10 year old kitty Max was diagnosed last Thursday with a bg of 426. Last Friday he was at the vet's all day for a glucose curve with 1 unit Prozinc, and the lowest bg reading they got was over 500. The vet sent him home, said 1.5 units BID and come back in a week. We also switched his food at the time, per the vet, to Hill's wet M/D. I had already ready Binky's food list, and so I'm mixing that with okay foods from the list for now. Max was on Iams kibble. Once we get him regulated, we'll probably ditch the M/D, but for now, I want to do what the vet says.
Some background: there are 5 cats in the house and 2 ferrets. My 15 year old cat is on K/D, and the rest were on Iams kibble, which has now been banished from the house. My only prior experience with pet diabetes was with our dog when I was a teenager, and all I knew was how to give the shot and that she was to only eat her rx food. The dog lived for 8 years post-DX. I've had ferrets with all sorts of health issues and so was used to injections. Cats are way easier to inject than ferrets, thankfully.
The vet wants to see Max Friday for another curve, but Max is a total scaredy cat and I think doing a curve at home will be more accurate and get him on the right dose faster, especially since his first curve results were so high.
Yesterday the AlphaTrak glucose meter arrived, and we started home testing. (I've read here that lots of people use human meters, but the vet wanted the AlphaTrak, no matter where we bought it, and if he's more comfortable with that, so be it.) Our first bg reading, right before Max's meal, was 54. My husband and I were suspicious of that result, so we tested ourselves to see if the result was consistent two times in a row, and it was. Max's next reading, 30 minutes post-food, was 54. We were reluctant to give the shot at that level, so called the emergency clinic (it was 9 pm) and they said wait two hours, test again, then give the shot if the number came up. Two hours later the number was 175, so we gave the shot. This morning, pre-food, the bg was at 125, so we gave the shot as normal, but we're wondering what the heck was up with that 54 reading last night. That seems so low when Friday the bg was over 500, we were pretty concerned. Does anyone have any ideas on what could cause that?
Max is acting fine, more active than he's been lately actually, and the weight loss has stopped. There are still big bricks of urine litter clumps in the box, but less than before the insulin.
So we're doing a glucose curve ourselves today, and I have some questions. Is it better to test the bg every hour or two hours? What about treats after the tests--what's safe to give and will treats skew the results and should be avoided until he's regulated better?
Has anyone had experience with Prozinc insulin?
Thanks for taking the time to read this post, I know it's long.
Kira & Max confused_cat
This is my first post and first of all, I wanted to say thanks for all the information here. So far, I've learned more here than from my vet, and that's made this whole diabetes thing much easier to understand. God bless whoever came up with rice sock on the ear idea, that made testing a snap.
My 10 year old kitty Max was diagnosed last Thursday with a bg of 426. Last Friday he was at the vet's all day for a glucose curve with 1 unit Prozinc, and the lowest bg reading they got was over 500. The vet sent him home, said 1.5 units BID and come back in a week. We also switched his food at the time, per the vet, to Hill's wet M/D. I had already ready Binky's food list, and so I'm mixing that with okay foods from the list for now. Max was on Iams kibble. Once we get him regulated, we'll probably ditch the M/D, but for now, I want to do what the vet says.
Some background: there are 5 cats in the house and 2 ferrets. My 15 year old cat is on K/D, and the rest were on Iams kibble, which has now been banished from the house. My only prior experience with pet diabetes was with our dog when I was a teenager, and all I knew was how to give the shot and that she was to only eat her rx food. The dog lived for 8 years post-DX. I've had ferrets with all sorts of health issues and so was used to injections. Cats are way easier to inject than ferrets, thankfully.
The vet wants to see Max Friday for another curve, but Max is a total scaredy cat and I think doing a curve at home will be more accurate and get him on the right dose faster, especially since his first curve results were so high.
Yesterday the AlphaTrak glucose meter arrived, and we started home testing. (I've read here that lots of people use human meters, but the vet wanted the AlphaTrak, no matter where we bought it, and if he's more comfortable with that, so be it.) Our first bg reading, right before Max's meal, was 54. My husband and I were suspicious of that result, so we tested ourselves to see if the result was consistent two times in a row, and it was. Max's next reading, 30 minutes post-food, was 54. We were reluctant to give the shot at that level, so called the emergency clinic (it was 9 pm) and they said wait two hours, test again, then give the shot if the number came up. Two hours later the number was 175, so we gave the shot. This morning, pre-food, the bg was at 125, so we gave the shot as normal, but we're wondering what the heck was up with that 54 reading last night. That seems so low when Friday the bg was over 500, we were pretty concerned. Does anyone have any ideas on what could cause that?
Max is acting fine, more active than he's been lately actually, and the weight loss has stopped. There are still big bricks of urine litter clumps in the box, but less than before the insulin.
So we're doing a glucose curve ourselves today, and I have some questions. Is it better to test the bg every hour or two hours? What about treats after the tests--what's safe to give and will treats skew the results and should be avoided until he's regulated better?
Has anyone had experience with Prozinc insulin?
Thanks for taking the time to read this post, I know it's long.
Kira & Max confused_cat
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