New in Hamburg, NY

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thoothayer

Member Since 2014
My Berto was diagnosed 5 days ago. He is my second diabetic cat, but things have changed in 7 years. New vet, too. I have decisions to make in a hurry regarding vet and diet. Vet discourages home testing and wants to run an all day curve on Friday. Should I find a new vet? How? She sent me home with canned and dry Hills m/d, but I understand I can do better and cheaper.
 
Yes, your gut is right on. Just start testing now and on Friday, send her the numbers you have collected. (We have a color coded spreadsheet that you can share with her.) She can't force you not to home test; you just say you are not comfortable giving shots without knowing the bg level and that you know numbers gotten at the vet are inflated because of stress. If she absolutely refuses, then yes, I would look for a new vet.

Take back the food and tell her he won't eat it. You can also take along food info from this website: www.catinfo.org and tell her you are going to try all wet low carb first. BUT DON'T ELIMINATE THE DRY UNTIL YOU ARE CONFIDENTLY HOMETESTING. The blood glucose levels can drop fast and you want to be monitoring.

Do you want a food chart and shopping list for home testing? We have taught hundreds of people how and can teach you.
 
Thank you, thank you! I'd like the food chart, though I'm already trying to digest everything on catinfo.org. Shopping list for home testing would be good, though I already have a couple of recommendations. My Rocky was a breeze to test. I don't expect such cooperation from Berto.

I'll return the canned, keep up the dried for now as you suggest and feed low carb canned as soon as I pick out some possibilities. And I'll shop for monitor. Thank you again.
 
Here's the shopping list:

What you need to start hometesting

A human glucometer. Any one that sips and takes a tiny sample is fine. Some members stay away from any meter with True in the name and the Freestyle meters. Some people think they are unreliable and read lower than other meters. The meters are often free at drug stores; it’s the strips that are expensive. You can, however, buy them on ebay at less than half the price of stores. Lots of people here also like the ReliOn from Walmart. It is an inexpensive meter and its strips are the cheapest around. Try the meter out on yourself or someone else before you try it on your cat. You want to be familiar with it before you poke the cat.

Lancets and a lancet device. Usually, until the ears “learn” to bleed, a 26-28 gauge is good. Any brand will work as long as the lancets match your device.

Ketone strips. (Ketostix) Just like human diabetics use. You will sometimes need to test urine if the numbers are high.

Rice sack. Make this out of thinnish sock, filled with raw rice or oatmeal and then knotted. You heat this in the microwave until very warm but not hot. Then heat the ears before poking. You can also use a prescription bottle filled with very warm water. It provides a good surface to poke against.

Also nice to have. Flashlight: so you can look at the ears and find the little capillaries that come off the vein running down the ear. Vaseline: Put a tiny smear where you want to poke. It will help the blood bead up.

And some lo carb treats to give your kitty, successful test or not Lo carb treats

And the food chart

http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf Pick a food you can afford, that your cat will eat, in the 8-10% range or below.

and here is the spreadsheet. It's a little tricky, so if you need help, just ask.

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18207

What insulin are you using? What is the starting dose?
 
Hi there! I'm in Williamsville NY and my Heffernan was diagnosed last October.

You definitely want to home test. We use the Relion Confirm Meter & strips from Walmart since they require the smallest amount of blood/test sample. I also went to Canada to buy his insulin since it was $70 a vial vs $200+ at Walmart. I got my syringes from Target, but Walmart has the lowest price so Target price matched.

We feed Fancy Feast Classics mostly poultry flavors, but add in Wellness Turkey & Chicken grain free varieties.

Heff likes Young Again dry food. it's mail order only and very low carb, but he only gets a teaspoon or so on his wet food if he's not eating. You can email or call them and they are generous with samples.
 
I'd be suspicious of YA dry. Even though Max was given a tiny amount, I think it might have raised his BG. I can't be sure but I now top his food with either Stella & Chewy's freeze dried chicken or honeyville human freeze dried chicken. The latter I bought on line and it is so much cheaper than any cat food freeze dried. It is 100% chicken or turkey and you get over 1 1/2 pounds for $39 which compared to what, 2 oz for $16 of Whole Life fd. It will last months. I use it as an after ear prick treat too. Haven't found a cat that doesn't love them so far.
 
Thank you all. I'm on overload but will be back with questions as I progress. Bought the Relion Prime today. Hope it works as well as the Confirm reportedly does. The strips were a lot cheaper. Have bought Fancy Feast Classic and Friskies classic pate to consider as replacement for Hills m/d. Additional challenge: transitioning Battista, my other cat, who thinks he prefers dry food. I live in a small motorhome and separate dining areas are a luxury that I don't have. Besides, I'd like them both on canned food for their health.

Berto is on 1 unit ProZinc every 12 hours as a starter dose, and yes, I've already found it cheaper online from Allivets, syringes, too.
 
The Relion Prime does need a slightly larger blood drop, 6 microliters for testing whereas the Relion confirm only needs 3 microliters.

This linkhas some pictures of what those blood drop sizes look like. It can take time to become proficient at getting the blood to come. Be patient. Three tries and stop and come back later to test. Stay cool, calm and collected and don't make a big deal out of testing. If you are calm, almost blasé about the process, your cat is more likely to accept the testing.

Rice sock to warm the ear or rub vigorously to get the blood flowing, alternate site lancets (25-28 gauge) and lots of treats for your kitty and you, successful test or not.

Transitioning Feline Dry Food Addicts to Canned Food, by vet Dr. Lisa Pierson. I think I used almost every trick in this document to get my dry food addict Wink switched over from dry to wet food. It took me about 6 weeks to complete the process, but he rewarded me with going OTJ (off-the-juice, insulin being the juice). He's been diet controlled for 15 months now.
 
We suggest using an inexpensive human glucometer with pet-specific reference numbers. One many of us use is the WalMart Relion Confirm, or Confirm Micro, which is also sold at American Diabetes Wholesale as as the Arkray USA Glucocard 01 or 01 Mini (same manufacturer - Arkray USA). It uses a tiny blood droplet and the cost is significantly lower for test strips (like $0.36 each).

Comparing a human glucometer to a pet-specific glucometer is like reading temperature in Celsius vs Fahrenheit. Both are correct. You just need to know the reference ranges to interpret what the numbers mean.

[Glucose reference ranges are unsubstantiated and have been removed by Moderator]


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *​
Examples of using the chart:

Ex. You are a new insulin user and you test your cat before giving insulin. The test is 300. It probably is safe to give insulin.

Ex. You are an established user of Lantus, following the Tight Regulation protocol. You've tested around +5 to +7 to spot the nadir. It is 200 mg/dL. You probably need to increase the dose, following the instructions for the protocol.

Ex. Your cat is acting funny. The eyes are a bit dilated. You are concerned and test the glucose. The number is 35 mg/dL. ACK! The cat may be in a hypoglycemic state. You quickly follow the HYPO protocol linked in the glucose reference values chart. (which we really, really, suggest you print out and post on your refrigerator.)
 
Beginner's Luck?

Just did a successful BG test. It read 150 and was about 4 1/2 hours after his insulin shot. That was the soonest I was ready to tackle it. Berto reacts strongly to the ear prick, but on second try I was able to fill the strip. I'll try another this afternoon before his next shot and meal. Thanks for all the support. More later.
 
Welcome to the Vampire Club! :mrgreen: 150 is not a bad number for +4. Maybe not the lowest point of the cycle(more typically +6 or so) but nice.

Don't forget the treats after every test, successful or not.
 
Howdy! Just wanted to welcome you to FDMB. I am sorry but I didn't catch your name or your kitty's name. I am sure it is buried in the posts somewhere. I don't have anything else to add other than you found a great place to get information. Hopefully you can get your spreadsheet up and running. It is so helpful in keeping track of the data and giving you an overall picture of your kitty's health. If you have any questions, just holler.
 
The extra sweet kitties name is Berto but you're right, the bean (human being) had not introduced themselves.

Would you share you first name with us please?
 
Sorry, I don't have any experience with posting to message boards. My name is Molly and my sugar cat is Berto. My "resisting-all-efforts-to-be-converted-to-canned-food" cat is Battista. There must be a way to put that info into my profile or my byline or my intro or whatever it is.

Had the dreaded discussion with the vet who doesn't approve of home testing or anything but Hills m/d and she didn't kick me out. She agreed to cooperate.

Home testing is going fine. It helps that years ago I did it hundreds of times with my very cooperative cat Rocky. Berto is not so easy.

Most pressing projects now: get the spreadsheet going and find out what the testing schedule should be.

Thanks for all support.
 
Hi Molly! Welcome to FDMB! Glad the home testing is going well. Since you've got it down, a spreadsheet is the next step!

The instructions are here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18207

They're step by step...easy to follow. Let us know if you need help!

As for the testing schedule, you ALWAYS want to test before each shot. We call them AMPS and PMPS. That way you can make sure the number isn't too low to shoot. You also want to test at nadir, or the midpoint, of the cycle. That is usually somewhere in the +5 to +7 hours (+ means that many hours after a shot) but could be something else. With a new sugar cat, you have to experiment to find nadir. A couple curves help...I did every 2 hours testing on curves. Then a test a few hours after PMPS to see where he's headed at night. So 4 tests a day are helpful, but the more you get...especially at first ...the better. We are all data junkies here!

ProZinc dosing is based on both preshot numbers and nadir so those are super important to get.

I feel I may have overloaded you here so I'll stop. :mrgreen: Let us know if you have more questions! We'd love to help!
 
Thanks Rachel. Downloaded the spreadsheet no problem.

I appreciate the testing schedule advice. Since I'm shooting at 5 am and pm, I haven't felt awake or competent enough to test in the am, but I think I'm ready for that now. (The vet said my cat would hate me and become impossible to catch. Not so!) I'll run a curve in a couple of days when things have settled in a little bit more.

I noticed that you sometimes dosed in fractions of units. My U40 3/10cc syringes are graduated in whole units up to 12. If my dosing gets more refined, is there a different syringe I can use? I'm thinking ahead of where we are right now, but I like to be armed with information.
 
U40 syringes only come in 1 units markings. The 12 unit U40 syringes are best you can use if yo want to use u$0 syringes for a U40 insulin.
WIth a U40 syringe if yo use U100 syringes yo have:
Filling with a u$0 insulin a U100 syringe syringe to the 1/2 units marking is 0.2 units of the U40 insulin
Filling to 1 unit is 0.4 units U40 insulin
Filling to 1 1/2 unit is 0.6 units U40 insulin
Filling to 2 units is 0.8 units U40 insulin
Filling to 2 1/2 units is 1 units U40 insulin
 
Yep, I used u 100 needles. I eventually only bought those to keep it simple. As you probably noticed, my girl needed a sliding scale and her dose was very low. If you get to that point, we have a conversion chart you can print out and keep with your syringes. Larry posted part of it. Pretty simple really.

Glad the SS was good! The next step is getting it in your signature. Great info to include:
Your name
Your sugar cats name
Diagnosis date
Insulin (including how much if not a sliding scale)
Meter used for testing
SS
any other health issues your cat has

This gives each post a nice summary so people don't have to search to see it. :mrgreen:

You're doing excellent!
 
Hi Molly! Thanks for introducing yourself. Like many new members, you gave your cat's name but not your own. It's ok, we're use to that.

Rachel gave you some information on what we like to see in your signature. To get there, go to the top of the screen and you should see the words User Control Panel, so click on that.

Then click on the Profile tab.
Select Edit Signature from the list on the left hand side.
Start typing in your data.
Submit to save it.

While you are there, it would be helpful if you could also click on Edit Profile from the left hand list under the Profile tab and enter in a location. Since we all live in different time zones around the world, it's nice to know where you live so in case of emergency, we know if we can stay up with you to help you out. Nice to see are country, state/province, closest city. Be as general or specific as you feel comfortable sharing your data with us.

Right now we know you live in Hamburg NY but you won't always have that as part of your subject header. The Location field in the User Control Panel will have it there permanently until you decide to change it.
 
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