Rascal 9 years old

[Rascal and Jenni]

Hi everyone! This will probably be long, it's just so nice to have a community who knows what I'm going through.

Rascal was brought to me 9 years ago as a kitten about 4-6 weeks old. I was working as a zookeeper at the time so the people who found him brought him to "the animal lady." He's an orange tiger stripe and weighs 17 pounds - so definitely needs to slim down.

Last Friday I took him to the vet because I thought he had a urinary infection (he was making lots of visits to his box that morning but nothing or very little urine would come out). When the vet tested his urine for an infection she also found high sugars. His blood test was also high, but they didn't tell me the number. They wanted to start him on insulin right away (Novolin-N) and offered prescription dry food as well. He's also on an antibiotic for the infection.

After reading here and some research studies, I decided to switch him to Fancy Feast canned (he had been on Purina Naturals dry) before beginning the insulin. I planned to give him his first dose tonight. I tested at noon and it was 220 mg/dL (Relion Micro meter). Then I tested again tonight 15 minutes after feeding and it was 53 so I skipped the insulin. I work during the week so normally won't be able to do a midday test until the weekend, but I do plan to keep testing him at morning and night.

 

[BJM]

Welcome to FDMB.
Terrific job on the home testing!!! With those numbers, you may luck out and get him to a diet-controlled state pretty quickly. No shot if he is under 200 mg/dL on a human glucometer, for safety.
Novolin NPH, while inexpensive up front, is generally too short acting for cats, and wears off in 6-10 hours.
Better insulins are ProZinc, BCP PZI, Lantus, or Levemir.
Lets get you set up recording your test data. It will help us give you better feedback. Instructions are here.

Understanding the spreadsheet/grid:

The colored headings at the top are the ranges of glucose values. They are color-coded to clue you in as to meaning.

Each day is 1 row. Each column stores different data for the day.

From left to right, you enter
the Date in the first column
the AMPS (morning, pre-shot, test) in the 2nd column
the Units given (turquoise column)

Then, there are 11 columns labeled +1 through +11
If you test at +5 (5 hours after the shot), you enter the test number in the +5 column
If you test at +7 (7 hours after the shot), you enter the test number in the +7 column
and so on.

Halfway across the page is the column for PMPS (evening, pre-shot, test)
To the right is another turquoise column for Units given at the evening shot.

There is second set of columns labeled +1 through +11
If you snag a before bed test at +3, you enter the test number in the +3 column.

We separate day and night numbers like that because many cats go lower at night.

The nadir is the lowest glucose between shots. There is a general period when it will happen which is specific to the insulin being used and testing then helps make sure your cat doesn't go too low.

It is merely a grid for storing the info; no math required.

 

[Critter Mom]

Hi Jenni! Welcome to you and Rascal.

Novolin N typically has a very hard, fast onset. It's important to test early in the cycle to see how low it's starting to drop the blood gluocse levels. As BJ says above Rascal seems to be responding well to the food change and that 53 on a human meter is just above the threshold of 50 where you need to act to raise blood glucose levels so you'll need to keep a close eye on him in case the 1 unit dose might be a little too strong for him. I recommend you get tests at latest +2 hours after each dose you give to monitor the drop after the dose to make sure Rascal will be safe. If it has dropped a lot by +2 you'd need to monitor Rascal carefully for the rest of the cycle to make sure he doesn't go too low. Also, if he is likely to only need a little support from insulin to nudge him into diet-controlled remission his pancreas could start helping out (and you never know when that might happen) so again it's a pointer to it being a good plan to monitor him closely till you know better his pattern of response to the insulin.

Here are some helpful forum stickies:

How to Treat Hypos - Print This Out

What to Include in Your Hypo Toolkit


Mogs
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[Rascal and Jenni]

Thank you! I'll start the spreadsheet tonight when I get home. My phone doesn't want to download it so I'll have to do it on my computer.