Possible pain with home testing attempts?

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Shenandoah

Shenandoah

Member Since 2015
Hi all,
I'm finally trying to start home monitoring. The vet took her back off the insulin (she was too low to give insulin for her curve at 2 weeks -- the diet change and getting rid of the UTI got her glucose levels way down). I want to make sure I monitor that she's staying low enough going forward, or if she needs to go back on insulin. I don't think a spot check with the vet in a month is nearly sufficient, so I need to get my own monitoring happening to figure out what's really going on with her.

I've watched the videos, read the pages, etc. But every time I poke her, she lets out a yowl. I've tried it both in the outer edge of the ear (about 2/3 of the way up, between the vein and the edge) as well as towards the middle of her ear (where the vet tech did it yesterday in the office when they were demonstrating). She yowls in both areas, both with the lancet pen and with me handholding it. She did not scream for the vet tech in the demonstration, but I know she was being difficult for the later ones -- don't know exactly how she was acting and if it was similar to this, or if she was just mad about being handled (she doesn't like strangers). They just told me she had had enough of them.

Here at home, she doesn't complain about me holding her ear and messing with it, she is just fine until the poke.
So far I have not even gotten enough blood for a reading, so I don't think I am overdoing anything. I have the ultra-fine needles that came with the monitor, though - so later I'm going to pick up some 28 gauge to try. And I know sometimes the first few tries are the most difficult. So I'm not as worried about the lack of blood yet as I am about her yowls.

Everything I've read says it shouldn't be painful. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?
 
have you tried both ears? My Patches II does not like testing here left ear.
Test has not bother the other 15 diabetic cats I have had.
 
Thanks, now that you mention it, I've been using her right ear, and that's the one same the vet techs were using yesterday. I'll try her left next time.
 
Okay, I was able to get a successful reading off her left ear (yay!). However, she still yelped and jumped when I poked her. Made me make a hole a bit bigger than I intended since she pulled back in the middle of the poke :( - that was handheld, so maybe I should try the pen again next time, since it can move more quickly than I can, and hopefully be out before she can react.
I still would rather not be hurting her at all, though :(
 
You might dab on a bit of Neosporin ointment w/ pain relief a couple minutes before testing, then wipe off to test. It helps the blood bead up and may reduce the annoyance of testing.
She's probably protesting the indignity more than she is protesting any discomfort.
 
I tried freehand with just the lancet when I started. However, GrayGhost moved with the lancet was still in his ear and ripped the ear tip. The bathroom looked like a crime scene with all the blood. I only use the lance pen. However, some pens work better than others, I found that my good ones wore ut after ten years or so.
 
My kitty did not yowl but she pulled away every time I tested her for about the first five days. I started freehand but found it much easier to use the lancet pen. Now when I rub her ears to warm them and poke her, she purrs the whole time. Give it time and you will both adjust!
 
Thanks all. We'll keep at it. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong and hurting her unnecessarily. Hopefully in a few days it'll get better.
 
Day 2 went better. At first she tried to run as soon as she saw the monitor, but I put her in the cushy chair and brushed her first until she was purring.
She did give a small yelp, but did not jump this time.
Should I be concerned that the Relion Confirm gave a 39 reading at food+3? She has NOT had insulin since Wednesday. She has been eating her Fancy Feast Classics just fine.
 
I have not been doing this long enough to answer that question with complete accuracy. If I were you I would maybe give her a tbs. of her low carb food and recheck her in 15 minutes or so to see if that brings her up a bit. I think you would like her to be closer to 50. Also, you should change your thread message so others know you have a question. At the top on the right, click on edit thread title. Then with the drop down prefix options, put in a question mark and then change the title to your question as well. That may get a few more experienced members to take a peek!
 
That is a low end of normal reading for a cat not on insulin. In other words, she's fine.
I hope she gets better for the testing, for you. But you don't need to do it so often if she's in remission.
Did you try giving her favorite treat afterwards? Kitties will do almost anything if they know a yummy snack is to follow.
 
Andy & Pimp said:
That is a low end of normal reading for a cat not on insulin. In other words, she's fine.
I hope she gets better for the testing, for you. But you don't need to do it so often if she's in remission.
Did you try giving her favorite treat afterwards? Kitties will do almost anything if they know a yummy snack is to follow.
Click to expand...

Thanks.
I want to test now because I don't think we really yet know what's going on with her. She was diagnosed two weeks ago with BG 420. She also had a UTI. We cleared up the UTI, changed diet, AND put her on insulin (looking back now I think doing all 3 at once was a bad idea). When she went back for her two week curve, we couldn't give insulin because her BG was only 59. So the vet told us to stop insulin completely. I feel like everything has just been guesswork up through now.
She goes back to the vet in a month for a spot check, but I just don't feel like that's sufficient to understand if we have a problem or not. So I want to test her at least once/day for a week or so to really understand what's going on, and to have better data to show the vet when we go back. Then I'll probably switch to once every week or two once we have a baseline established.

She won't eat treats. Never would eat anything other than her dry food for her entire 17 years. No cat treats, no bits of meat, no tuna, nothing. So just getting her switched to wet food was a challenge! She gets lots of pets and brushes as a reward.
 
You're sort of doing an OTJ trial, so you might find the following helpful.

OTJ Trial instructions (These are the criteria we use when following an OTJ Trial.)


Here are the instructions for an OTJ trial:

  1. Test at your normal AMPS and PMPS times. Feed multiple small meals throughout the day as much as possible (smal meals are less likely to overwhelm a newly functioning pancreas). The morning test is now called the AMBG. The evening test is now called the PMBG.
  2. If your cat is green (0-99 mg/L human meter, 0-130 mg/L pet meter, 0-5.5 mmoL) at your normal test times, no need to test further until the next "PS" time, just feed small meals and go about your day. If the numbers are blue (100-199 human meter, 130-230 pet meter, 5.5-11 mmoL), feed a small meal and test again after about 3 hours. Food raises BG's. So if the number is lower 3-4 hours after a meal, then the pancreas is working!
  3. After 2 weeks, if everything is looking good, we have a party! And boy, do we party hearty.
    clip_image001.png
Sometimes, the trial doesn't work the first time and we have to give a little more support by starting the cat with a tiny dose of insulin again. I had to do that with Wink. We simply start the cat back on a tiny dose of insulin to support the pancreas with healing for a bit longer. Our goal is a strong remission and it's better to be safe now then sorry later that you rushed it. With just a little more time we will probably get that strong remission we are looking for.
 
Thank you! That is definitely helpful.
I feel like I was only beginning to understand how to deal with the diabetes, when everything was flip-flopped again. Although it is GOOD news, I feel like I was just getting over feeling overwhelmed when it all started over again.
I know this is good, I'm glad her BG is way down. But now my learning curve is back to the bottom and it's an emotional roller coaster.
 
I totally agree with testing at least once a day for a while. The hardcore beans here test their kitties 8-10 times a day or more. That's what I meant by "so often"!
Here's hoping that it was only infection and diet, and she can stay "OTJ" for you!:D
 
We were all beginners at one time in this sugardance. Happy to pass along some information.

Wink has been OTJ for more than 2.5 years now, and I still try to test him at least once a week. I'd rather catch a rise in his BG levels sooner rather than later.

I can tell when he is sick, kitty cold, tummy upset, etc just by seeing a slightly higher BG reading for him.
 
She didn't yip!! I just had to share, for the first time in two weeks, I poked her ear without her yelping! I even had to poke twice, because I didn't get enough blood on the first one. No yelps.

Now, we'll have to see how things continue to go otherwise. I was testing her in the mornings, and started noticing her throwing up 2-3 times (clear, just a tiny bit of mucus) just prior to test time. I switched to testing in the evenings and her morning throwing up stopped (so far it has not started in the evenings, crossing my fingers). She also won't eat treats after the test - I put her favorite in front of her and she just ignored it, then bolted as soon as I let her. I give her lots of pets, but she acts like they are torture. I do feed immediately after I release her, so that is part of the reward at least.
So we still have issues, but at least the lack of a yip is progress.

Once we have our checkup with the vet (1 month from her curve that ended up not being a curve) I'll reduce to checking once/week when I weigh, or if I notice anything off. But right now I want some solid data to show at our appointment. So if I can just get her through two more weeks of it...
 
So another update today for anyone following our challenging journey through the early stages of home testing - since we had an interesting (good) twist today.
I tested her this morning even though I usually do evenings (I like to switch things up sometimes, just so I have a feel for what her numbers are).
She still does grumble as we prepare and yip at the poke, but is generally pretty compliant.

So this evening, about 5 minutes before feeding, when I normally would do the test, I looked up and saw her laying in her testing spot! It's not somewhere she normally lays on her own, so she was just waiting for me. Fortunately since I tested this morning I could just tell her what a good girl she was and didn't have to give her a poke.
 
Shenandoah said:
So this evening, about 5 minutes before feeding, when I normally would do the test, I looked up and saw her laying in her testing spot! It's not somewhere she normally lays on her own, so she was just waiting for me. Fortunately since I tested this morning I could just tell her what a good girl she was and didn't have to give her a poke.
Click to expand...
:woot::woot::woot::woot:

I always tell people - they will learn. My Smokey was a drama queen. She'd yell sometimes, she'd jump and jerk like the testing and shots hurt. We'd test it by not really poking her, just making the movement and she'd still do it. She too learned to run to her testing spot and wait. It was so ingrained in her at the end that we had to continue to test and pretend we gave her a shot for a while after she went OTJ because she wouldn't get out of her spot and go eat until we did *our job*. The first week of testing included her hiding under the bed and me laying beside it crying. .. But we all got used to it and she realized how much better she felt and how much more Smokey Time testing created in a day. Cecil learned to jump into his testing spot when he heard the meter/strips too. The only one that didn't learn as well was Deandra and she learned to put up with us, just felt she had better things to do with her time.
 
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