Newly adoptive diabetic mama-having a slight situation!

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fatesrelease

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Hello! My name is Christine. I recently adopted a 8.5 year old diabetic kitty named Lucy. She is a total love bug and a chatty girl. I had received an alpha tracker when I adopted her and have been testing her levels every day. I am completely new to having a diabetic cat and while they did go over some things with me I realized I had unknowingly been testing her on the wrong code for a few weeks. I thought her levels were on the low range of normal. The shelter told me she had been completely off insulin for several weeks and now I'm worried she has been needing to be on insulin this whole time! I tested her with both the alpha strips and freestyle lite strips and they came to 216, and 221. I had been testing her and her average was around 70-100. So obviously this large jump on the correct code is startling. I feel like an idiot for not figuring it out sooner and am unsure of why the shelter did not show me how to change it when they saw the code when they showed me how to test her blood. I am supposed to leave for a memorial service in a few hours and I don't want to leave her, but the service is 2 hours away and I have to go. Any advice is really appreciated. Thank you!
 
fatesrelease said:
Hello! My name is Christine. I recently adopted a 8.5 year old diabetic kitty named Lucy. She is a total love bug and a chatty girl. I had received an alpha tracker when I adopted her and have been testing her levels every day. I am completely new to having a diabetic cat and while they did go over some things with me I realized I had unknowingly been testing her on the wrong code for a few weeks. I thought her levels were on the low range of normal. The shelter told me she had been completely off insulin for several weeks and now I'm worried she has been needing to be on insulin this whole time! I tested her with both the alpha strips and freestyle lite strips and they came to 216, and 221. I had been testing her and her average was around 70-100. So obviously this large jump on the correct code is startling. I feel like an idiot for not figuring it out sooner and am unsure of why the shelter did not show me how to change it when they saw the code when they showed me how to test her blood. I am supposed to leave for a memorial service in a few hours and I don't want to leave her, but the service is 2 hours away and I have to go. Any advice is really appreciated. Thank you!
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Hi Christine,

Since you are not giving Lucy any insulin at the monent, she will be fine while you are away because there is no need to worry about hypoglycemia. Her BG level is not terribly high right now, so you can start insulin after you get back. There are many experienced people here who will be able to get you started.

Patricia
 
she will be fine while you are away today.
tomorrow/monday is a better day to figure out what to do about insulin which i would start using personally UNLESS she is not on low carb food. i would switch her food to all low carb first and see how that goes for a week or so. if BG stays in 200's than i would use insulin but, some vets think 200's is good so you may have to convince them she needs it.
 
PPCW said:
Hi Christine,

Since you are not giving Lucy any insulin at the monent, she will be fine while you are away because there is no need to worry about hypoglycemia. Her BG level is not terribly high right now, so you can start insulin after you get back. There are many experienced people here who will be able to get you started.

Patricia
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Thank you for the response Patricia, sorry-saw your message and was unable to respond yesterday. I did my first insulin administer this morning and it went fairly well for a first try. Going to try to test her blood later to see if her glucose goes down. I took her to the shelter yesterday and they monitored her for me while I was in Newton.
 
Sylvie said:
she will be fine while you are away today.
tomorrow/monday is a better day to figure out what to do about insulin which i would start using personally UNLESS she is not on low carb food. i would switch her food to all low carb first and see how that goes for a week or so. if BG stays in 200's than i would use insulin but, some vets think 200's is good so you may have to convince them she needs it.
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Thank you. I went to the rescue I adopted her from and they went over how to administer and gave me some insulin/syringes. I did my first insulin shot this morning and it went fairly well I think. She is on fancy feast classic pate and flaked. The rescue I adopted her from gave me $100 worth of fancy feast and I also got a lot in bulk at our local BJ's. Her glucose this morning was 198, and it was 198 when they tested her at the shelter so they told me to administer .5. Thank you for your help/advice!
 
JanetNJ said:
Good you figured out the error. Don't worry about it today. What are you feeding
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Well, I wish I had realized it sooner, but I'm glad I did before something bad happened. I am feeding fancy feast classic pate, and flaked. She gets 1 can in the am, and 1 can in pm.
 
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