NEW TO HOME TESTING

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mariko

mariko

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Hello. I am new here and hoping someone can help me.
My cat Lucy was recently diagnosed with diabetes, and has been on Lantus for about a month now.
She is given 1 unit twice a day as prescribed by the vet.

I was getting too paranoid about how much water she was drinking and how enthusiastic she got about food, which was difficult to tell, so I started testing her BG at home about a week ago.
In the begenning I had a lot of difficulties getting enough blood, so I could not test often enough.
I am getting better at it, and today, for the first time, I was able to test 4 times between meals.(!!!)
But I realized I don't know how to interpret the results except that it should not go too low or too high.
Could you please take a look at her today's results and let me know what you think?
I give her insulin shot right after her each meal.

10:30 am : 8.0 mmol/L (=144 mg/dL) --- 4 hrs since last meal & insulin shot
11:30 am : 7.6 mmol/L (=137 mg/dL) --- 5 hrs since last meal & insulin shot
02:30 pm : 4.9 mmol/L (=88 mg/dL) --- 8 hrs since last meal & insulin shot
06:00 pm : 5.9 mmol/L (=106 mg/dL) --- 11.5 hrs since last meal & insulin shot (right before next meal)

What concerns me is that her BG dropped to 4.9 mmol/L at 2:30 pm, but went up slightly to 5.9 mmol/L at 6 pm.
Is it OK that her BG elevated even a little bit when furthest from the last time she ate?
I thought I would get the lowest BG right before the meal.... No?
Does this mean that the effect of Lantus wore out sometime between 2:30 pm and 6 pm?
Shouldn't BG decrease steadily as time passes since last meal?

I am new to caring for a diatetic cat and very concerned if I am doing things right.
I just discovered about this forum today, and will read the past log to lean more about feline diabetes before I ask more questions here (I have a lot!!).
But for today, please let me know what this slight increase of BG between 8th hour and 12th hour since last meal & shot indicate.
Is this normal or bad?

Thank you very much for reading this. Hoping to hear some advice.
 
Welcome! Fantastic job testing at home. You are doing a great job for your kitty.

We have a lantus support group on this site. viewforum.php?f=9. Be sure to take a look and read the starred info at the top. It will give you great info about dosing, and what numbers to look for, etc. You can also post on that page and ask about your numbers.

We use US numbers to have a common reference. If you multiply your numbers by 18, people will be able to respond better.

What food do you feed Lucy? We feed wet lo carb between 8-10% carbs to help bring the numbers down.
 
mariko said:
Hello. I am new here and hoping someone can help me.
My cat Lucy was recently diagnosed with diabetes, and has been on Lantus for about a month now.
She is given 1 unit twice a day as prescribed by the vet.

I was getting too paranoid about how much water she was drinking and how enthusiastic she got about food, which was difficult to tell, so I started testing her BG at home about a week ago.
In the begenning I had a lot of difficulties getting enough blood, so I could not test often enough.
I am getting better at it, and today, for the first time, I was able to test 4 times between meals.(!!!)
But I realized I don't know how to interpret the results except that it should not go too low or too high.
Could you please take a look at her today's results and let me know what you think?
I give her insulin shot right after her each meal.

10:30 am : 8.0 mmol/L (=144 mg/dL) --- 4 hrs since last meal & insulin shot
11:30 am : 7.6 mmol/L (=137 mg/dL) --- 5 hrs since last meal & insulin shot
02:30 pm : 4.9 mmol/L (=88 mg/dL) --- 8 hrs since last meal & insulin shot
06:00 pm : 5.9 mmol/L (=106 mg/dL) --- 11.5 hrs since last meal & insulin shot (right before next meal)

What concerns me is that her BG dropped to 4.9 mmol/L at 2:30 pm, but went up slightly to 5.9 mmol/L at 6 pm.
Is it OK that her BG elevated even a little bit when furthest from the last time she ate?
I thought I would get the lowest BG right before the meal.... No?
Does this mean that the effect of Lantus wore out sometime between 2:30 pm and 6 pm?
Shouldn't BG decrease steadily as time passes since last meal?

I am new to caring for a diatetic cat and very concerned if I am doing things right.
I just discovered about this forum today, and will read the past log to lean more about feline diabetes before I ask more questions here (I have a lot!!).
But for today, please let me know what this slight increase of BG between 8th hour and 12th hour since last meal & shot indicate.
Is this normal or bad?

Thank you very much for reading this. Hoping to hear some advice.
Click to expand...

I am going to translate this to american numbers for any experienced eyes that pop in to check this out:
+4 = 144
+5 = 136
+8 = 88
+11.5 = 106

The increase is normal, but should ideally be actually happening at around 6 hours after you give insulin to your cat. At that point it should slowly creep back up to close to the same number it was before you gave the insulin, and then at 12 hours you give the second shot of insulin for the day.

I will post in the lantus forum for more experienced eyes to come help you out.

They will want to know a few things like what are you feeding your cat and how many times a day you are giving insulin.
Have you given another shot since the 11.5 reading? Cause that is a low number to be shooting.

Do you have any other test readings you can tell us about.

Oh, and hello and welcome! This place is wonderful and please don't be intimidated by the information or people. This all can be overwhelming at first, but these people are great and have a wonderful knowledge pool.

Edit: Haha - I didn't notice you had already put the US numbers. Good job. Oh, and great job at getting into home testing! It's so empowering to know what is going on with your cat.
 
those are actually beautiful numbers....most would kill for!
please post on lantus to let them help you continue this wonderful trend.
lori
and tomtom
 
I am going to translate this to american numbers for any experienced eyes that pop in to check this out:
+4 = 144
+5 = 136
+8 = 88
+11.5 = 106

The increase is normal, but should ideally be actually happening at around 6 hours after you give insulin to your cat. At that point it should slowly creep back up to close to the same number it was before you gave the insulin, and then at 12 hours you give the second shot of insulin for the day.

I will post in the lantus forum for more experienced eyes to come help you out.

They will want to know a few things like what are you feeding your cat and how many times a day you are giving insulin.
Have you given another shot since the 11.5 reading? Cause that is a low number to be shooting.

Do you have any other test readings you can tell us about.

Oh, and hello and welcome! This place is wonderful and please don't be intimidated by the information or people. This all can be overwhelming at first, but these people are great and have a wonderful knowledge pool.

Edit: Haha - I didn't notice you had already put the US numbers. Good job. Oh, and great job at getting into home testing! It's so empowering to know what is going on with your cat.[/quote]

Thank you very much for your reply. I am very grateful for your help.
And thank you very much for posting my question in the lantus forum.
I will add more details about Lucy's feeding, etc. there.
 
Again, thank you everyone for replying to me.
I am feeding Lucy one can of Royal Canin / Medi-Cal Hypoallergenic a day.
I used to feed her 3/4 can of Medi-Cal Hypoallergenic plus a scoop of Hypoallergenic dry, but since diagnosed with diabetes I feed her canned food only.

She is now 14 years old.
Up until she was about around 6 years old, she was fed only kebbles.
I tried raw meat diet for a while after that but she did not do well.
Although she loved it, she was losing weight rapidly and occasionally vomiting and having diarrea.
After an ultrasound test in 2005, I put her off raw meat per the vet advice and she has been on either Medi-Cal Hypoallergenic or Hill's z/d, whichever she eats.
Since then she has also been on prednisolone (5mg every other day) and ursodiol (0.5ml a day).
Around October last year, via another untrasound, I found out that she has a small gallbladder stone...
And then the end of last year, she had pancreatitis which caused her a lot of pain.
She got over the very painful pancreatitis, but she may have mild but chronic pancreatitis.

I am thinking about changing her food to more high protein/low carb can such as Wellness, but I am a little scared to do it due to all the other problem she has got.
I don't know exactly why she could not digest raw meat because she is not allergic to the kinds of meat I was giving (chichen or turkey). Maybe too fatty?
My other cat Ginger still eats raw meat and also canned Wellness alternately.
Lucy steals Ginger's Wellness sometimes, but has not reaction, so maybe OK to change?
I will not put her back on raw meat, but maybe a good idea to change to more high protein can?
I am worried because I don't know what part of raw meat was causing her the problem.
Do you think it would be safe for me to change her food to Wellness as long as ingredients do not contain what she is allergic to (venison, egg, lamb, etc.)?
 
Have your vet read up on treating asthma using a puffer (flovent, albuterol) and an aerokat chamber. This won't affect Lucy's diabetes like prednisilone will. Maverick was on a puffer for two and a half years and extremely well controlled. Its so easy to get them used to a puffer but a lot of vets just aren't up on the latest info, and don't think their customers will pay to medicate with a puffer. I bet Lucy could be in remission without the pred very quickly and diet controlled. It could save you a lot of money in diabetes supplies.

There are two great yahoo groups to become educated on feline asthma:
Feline inhaled meds
Feline asthma relief

Please join them.

You are in great hands.
 
Also - in Canada they call the inhaled meds something different - I don't have any of Maverick's old puffers. Albuterol is Salbuterol or something like that. I'm in Ottawa.
 
Thank you, Sue, for the helpful information on pancreatitis.
I have a vet appointment this Friday for Lucy's blood test for both diabetes and pancreatitis.
I'll talk to the doctor about Lucy's diet change then, but it looks like having both conditions makes the choice much narrower... Plus Lucy can't eat raw meat. I really hope I can find the right food for her...

Thank you, Karrie, for your information too.
Yes, Lucy's doctor and I did talk about puffer when she was diagnosed with diabetes.
We talked that I may have to consider using a puffer if insulin does not work well because of steroids, but thankfully it doesn't seem to be the case.
So, so far we are keeping her on prednisolone because the doctor thinks that it is helping not only her asthma but also her other immune system problem.
And when she had a pancreatitis flareup, the pain medication used was Buprenorphine.
It worked but was incredibly difficult to give (under the tongue).

I'd like to say, I'm really thankful for all your help.
Since coming here, I feel a little bit better and a little less in the dark about Lucy's condition.
- Mariko & Lucy -
 
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