? Preparing for hypo levels...advice?

Edit: He’s good, his levels went back up instead of further down. This is just a “looking for any suggestions you have” now thread.

Hey there. Spreadsheet is in my signature and up to date. I'm testing Loki every hour for the next bit because this evening was his first night getting insulin in 48 hours (he was sick.) I've never had him go hypo so I just want to make sure I'm prepared. Hopefully this is nothing but preventative information but just call it a feeling.
I don't have corn syrup, but I do have two types of honey. One is from a local farmer's market, the other a grocery store. Do either have the potential to do more harm than good?
I'd rub it on his gums then call the Vet, get a BSL. Is there anything else that y'all in your lived experience would suggest I do? I appreciate any thoughts you'd like to give.
I recently and suddenly lost my Lily cat (not diabetic), who was Loki's best friend in the world too, and I'm not above admitting I'm terrified to miss signs with Loki.

 

Hi Kris,
I’m not sure why your vet said not to give insulin if Loki was sick? What was the matter with Loki?

Looking at the spreadsheet Loki is quite safe with the numbers you have recorded so far, so there is no need to give any honey.
Honey (either of the ones you have) is just as good as corn syrup to treat low numbers. But there is no need to give any unless the BG drops understand 90. You can either add a few drops to food or rub he honey on the gums to bring the BGs up higher.
Do you have some higher carbs foods at home as well as the honey in case you need them? If not I would recommend you get some higher carb foods such as fancy feast gravy lovers to keep along with the honey in case of low numbers.
Are you giving snacks during the cycles?
I’m so sorry you have just lost your other kitty Lily.

 

Thanks so much for replying. When I saw him go back up to 9 I was able to shut off for a bit. But the way he was trending down made me think that 9 would be a 5 or lower (on the World sheet.)
Loki was vomiting off and on for a couple days. We suspect he ate spoiled raw potato. Vet did blood work yesterday and advised he was fine, gave him a shot of anti-vomiting meds so I could administer insulin last night.
The vet said his blood work was fine and sent me home with the papers. I noticed his EOS was slightly higher than normal range. Is there someone on here I could ask more about that? Google says that’s related to allergy and parasites but maybe that reading can be high if a toxin is ingested. I wondered for a couple days but I am now sure that he is not allergic to Weruva wet. His fur has never felt more healthy and his BSL 2 hours post eating it trends lower than with kibble. It’s helping.
Is the way he’s trending kind of weird or normal? That he would hit ideal range at +4 hrs then be back to quite high at +8 seems like whiplash for him.
I give him small amounts of kibble at particular intervals throughout the day cycle (measured out to his daily maximum each morning) but he doesn’t usually get anything at night, which increased my worry about danger levels while I slept.
I have a junk-for-him wet food still on hand that was Lily’s. Whiskas Perfect Portions would spike his blood sugar like crazy so we refused to give it to him. I’ll keep it on hand with the honey. And thanks for answering my question about the honey too. It probably sounds weird but you never know what someone else has learned first hand. Lol.
My goal is to get him to at least 90% Weruva wet, 10% Crave dry (like two Weruva meals per day and supplementing throughout the day with a small amount of dry maybe.) Crave might be the lesser of all evils for kibbles we’ve tried but it’s still not doing him any favours.
And thank you for your kind words about Lily. It shocked all of us, we didn’t even know she was so far gone. I’d love to make a post about her in Grief? Loki was by her side to the very end and there’s no doubt he’s missing her. Even though I’m sure he knew she was sick long before we did.

 

I'm hoping that someone directed you to the information on Caninsulin. This is a link to our beginner's guide. The biggest difference with this insulin is that you need to test, feed, wait 20 - 30 min, then give a shot. You need to have food on board before giving insulin because this particular insulin works quickly and can drop numbers hard and fast.

You might want to consider getting a timed feeder. Most of the members here provide one larger meal at shot time and then several smaller meals/snacks for the first several hours of the cycle. Unless you're PM shot time is relatively early, a timed feeder means. you don't need to wake up to feed your cat. I was out of the house during the day and having the feeder meant that my cat was getting food while I was gone.

 

Thank you! I always get food in him (in his case right now, kibble) and wait. Last night it was about half an hour wait to make sure he wasn’t going to vomit.
My PM shot is early enough that we’re able to feed, inject, then give him at least one small snack at the 3 to 4 hour mark before we go to bed. That helps me feel better to hear we’re doing that right.
I’ll look into options for timed feeders. He is the only cat in the house now, but sometimes my dog is here and the only creature I know to be more of a food bully than Loki, is that dog. Lol. It really sounds like a good idea though, and might save my partner’s sanity. He’s SAH while I work so even though he sees that the multiple small feedings are helpful for Loki, it makes his day a bit wonky.

 

Any kind of sugar will work: honey, corn syrup, cake frosting, regular sugar dissolved in water, etc.

When your cat has recovered, put a hypo tool kit together. A list of things to have in a hypo tool kit in this thread: https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/jojo-and-bunnys-hypo-tool-box.2354/ You'll want oral syringes to apply sugar to a cat's gums. Your vet may give you some for free or you can buy some at a pharmacy or online. 3 or 5 ml is a good size.

 

If Loki surfs your counters, putting a timed feeder there may be a way to prevent your dog from inhaling Loki's food. (I'm OK with my cats being on the counter since I know at least one of them checks things out when I'm not around.)

 

He does surf my counters, but it’s usually to heck something plastic up if he’s begging for food haha. He does that way less now that he’s on this new regime - insulin increase, Weruva once a day, kibble in intervals. I’m gonna check it out with my partner today.

 

Just wanted to check in and say we ordered it the same day, it came Wednesday (happy birthday to me!) and he’s been loving it since. It really has helped a lot.
I don’t know if a video is gonna post here but I’ll try, because it cracked me up. He was in a very deep sleep when I hit record hahaha
https://share.icloud.com/photos/03eJ0Wds6MCLx_lzlFD4AA4Sg

 

I'm glad it's working!!

It looks like Loki has been at 3.0u for more than a week. You may want to consider a dose increase to 3.25u. And please do your best to get at least 1 PM test in addition to your PMPS every night.