New to home testing, running borderline high

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emilyofwaco

Member Since 2010
BeeGee is a 17 yr old DSH I adopted from our shelter 2 years ago. I'm
Not sure how long she has been diabetic, much longer than I have had her. Her vet went through a lot with her and her owner before the owner passed away, then Beej went missing for a year, then was dumped at the shelter. Previous caretakers had randomly stopped her insulin several times before, but she is super kitty! At one point she lived at the vet's office for 6+ weeks to get her re-regulated (her first owner was dying and thought it wouldn't be fair for Beej to have to find a new home, so she thought it would be better to stop the insulin and let BeeGee die first). She is missing an eye, from URI picked up at the shelter, but otherwise not bad. Her probably the best in town for diabetics, but he warned me that home testing might not be possible with her because she can get very touchy - they even had problems testing her.

Beej has been on 3 units of PZI BID since I have had her. I tried to test her a couple of times, but could never actually get blood. Well, my AC went out a couple of weeks ago, which did two things. It's thrown her off her food, but also increased her blood flow, so I can test now if I can get her to hold still - very hard to tell where to prick her ears because they are dark brown. We had a weird hypo episode a few days ago which precipitated the testing. My dogs started barking and woke me up - I looked at Beej and she was not sleeping but nearly unconscious and would barely rouse. I HAD to test to see if she was low or high, the reading was 25. I quickly gave her a dose of Karo and some pedialyte, she perked up right away and I gave her some dry Whiskas, which I knew she would scarf. We got back to 98, then I had to go chase the dogs down the street - I'd had to put them in the yard while I was working on Beej, and one of them can get out of anything.

So I've been testing in the morning, when she eats dry food - right now anything I can get her to eat. I got 112 Thursday, 195 on Friday, 225 Saturday and 205 Sunday. The vet said no insulin at 195, at 225 I gave her 1 unit, I held off today and she's been perky for her. I just started a second job, so I'm not home long enough to run a curve, but she seems to be ok as long as she is eating. I know my mom has been on a sliding scale for insulin, but I have no instructions on how to do that for Beej. The 1 unit seemed to be appropriate - didn't want to go higher since I couldn't be at home to monitor her. I'm also having challenges getting her to eat enough, she eats very slowly and I have to put the dogs outside to keep them away from her food, which often results in chasing the dogs down the street. (I have foster cats in all the rooms that close, and my dogs can open crates.

One other interesting thing - Beej will often come up and "demand" her insulin, but lately she'd been running away from
It. Obviously that should have been a clue!

So am I on the right track? If I can't run a curve, is there any way to tell?
 
Bless you for adopting this sweet BeeGee. She deserves a loving home after all her trials. You are certainly on the right track, dropping to one unit. We suggest, until you have some history of doses and how she reacts to them, to not shoot under 200 at preshot but to wait 20 minutes, without feeding and retest. This way you can make sure the number is rising, not falling and shoot at a little safer number above 200. The other important number, besides the preshot, is a mid cycle number around 6 hours after the shot. That tells you how low the dose took her and whether you need to further reduce the dose.

The big variable here is dry food. We feed wet low carb food, under 8-10% carbs. See this website by a vet to understand why: www.catinfo.org. When we switched Oliver from dry to wet, he dropped 100 points overnight. So we would urge you to switch her over, BUT you will need to be very careful with the insulin when you do. (if we hadn't been testing and had given Oliver his regular dose that morning, he would have hypoed.)

Keep reading and asking questions. We'd love to help you help your BeeGee.
 
So, we didn't get to test this morning...couldn't get her ear warm enough and she was really fighting me. I did get a tiny bit of blood, just not enough to test (error message). At the point where I was having to pin the cat down with my body, trying to keep her scruffed and pricking the ear one-handed - and pricking myself more than her! I gave up. If she was feeling well enough to fight me like that, she was doing ok.

Also, some of the choices I make for her, or let HER make, are because she is 17. She has survived so much, that I just want to keep her as comfortable and happy as I can. If she's going to fight me on a procedure and it's taking half an hour with no success in sight...it's not really necessary. I consider her a hospice case, which means I give insulin unless she obviously doesn't need it, I'll test when she allows it, and if she gets sick I will medicate her, but I also feed her what she will eat, rather than pushing to find the BEST diet, and if she won't let me test or give fluids or whatever, I will let her make that call. I may still have quite a few years with her, maybe a lot less, but every day is a "bonus" day and she has earned the right to do what makes her happy. For a younger cat looking tonestablish a routine, different story,
 
I hate to see you give up so soon. Very few of us got this on the first try. We struggled for an entire weekend before we got a drop. One of the things that helped us was a kitty burrito. We wrapped him up in a towel so only his head was showing. We oly had to do this for a week or so. Once he realized treats were coming after the poke, he was fine and would sit still.

Do you live in Waco Texas? There is a chance we have a member who lives nearby and could help you get started.

The problem with not testing is that if you give too much insulin and she hypos, that can be a horrific result. If you give too little, she can suffer DKA which is expensive and difficult to treat. Shooting blind is much more scary than working to get her tested.

If you want more help, ideas, tips, we all have them. This can be hard, no question. But the feeling of control you get, the knowledge that every shot will be safe is so comforting.

If you really give it a try and it is not possible, there are alternative ways but none are able to tell you that it is safe to give the shot.
 
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