scary bg reading

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lucybooz

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today beeber tested the best she has since i started monitoring and recording. now tonight she read 610!!!!! it was time to give her her shot and she had eaten maybe an hour ago, but what can be going on here!!!!!

she's not acting strange - eating, drinking, using the litter box, grooming herself, but i can't figure out these #'s, especially this last one!!!! this has to be the highest one i've ever had since i started testing.

will be testing again in an hour to see if it's dropped any.

i was to take her back friday for a checkup but perhaps tomorrow i should go back or at least call. i thought after 4 days she might be mellowing out.

are these fluctuation of #'s normal until the insulin is adjusted? what are the symptoms of an extremely high bg level????
 
fluctuations are pretty normal until 1. their bodies figure out what to do with the insulin and 2. the proper dose is figured out.

it's possible beeber dropped too low later in the day, causing her to bounce back up simply because her body isn't used to being lower and it freaked out and said whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. i'd stick with the same dose and see about getting some tests in around +6 to +8 a few times to see how much of a drop is happening?
 
What are you feeding her? Dry food will cause 500s and 600s, but you are just beginning to get insulin into her. Obviously, you don't want to see those numbers. I remember running for the insulin the first time Beau was in the 600s. Scared me.

Are you testing for ketones with ketostiks? It would be a good idea since she is newly diagnosed and the number are so high.

Oh, and good job on getting the home testing started right away.
 
What insulin is Beeber on? Without knowing how low he dropped in the AM cycle this morning, my guess is he may be experiencing a "bounce." What happens is, when a cat becomes diabetis, its body gets used to the high BG numbers, so when we start insulin and those numbers drop lower, the cat's body goes, "Oh, no, BG is dropping llow! Better do something!" and the liver dumps glucogon, a sugar, into the system, sending the BG up, sometimes WAY up. It doesn't have to be a hypo low number for this to happen. If Beeber is usually in the 400's, a drop into the 200's could trigger the bounce. A bounce can clear in one cycle, but they can take up to 72 hours to clear. If it's a bounce (and hopefully someone more experienced with high bounces will chime in), it's important to hold your insulin dose and don't increase until it clears his system, otherwise, you may give too high a dose.

A single high number, or even a high cycle, on its own, isn't immediately dangerous like a hypoglycemia is. The important thing with high numbers is to make sure the cat is getting its food and insulin, and to be safe, test the urine for ketones. You will see bounces and funky numbers on the road to regulation, and it's perfectly normal. Eventually, you will hit on the correct insulin dose for Beeber, and Beeber's body will get used to it and begin to stabilize in better numbers. It's a marathon for most cats, not a sprint, and you're doing okay so far.
 
Beeber is on Prozinc.

A couple of things stick out. Last night at +10, you got a 433. Two hours later, at AMPS, Beeber was 100 points lower. It could be that when you shot this morning, Beeber's BG was dropping rather than climbing. So the morning shot could have overlapped with the dose from last night, although the numbers last night would appear to indicate that the insulin had worn off. The 100 point drop, however, doesn't fit with that.

So, Beeber may have gone pretty low today, resulting in a bounce from a low you didn't happen to catch on the meter.

The 610, also, could be a meter error. Did you retest to make sure it was really that high?

Carl
 
i did a "test" strip check and is ok.

i took a reading an hour after this really high one and is seems to be starting to drop - 563....at least i'm hoping that's what is being indicated.

we have 3 cats and all have had access to bowls with dry food all the time. i think i may have forgotten to pick the bowl up today and she may have gotten into it, plus i fed her when i got home from work - almost 9:30 and then took her test at 10:30. i've been feeding her only fancy feast classic, which has been mentioned to be a good low-cholesterol wet food on this site.

i must pick up that dry food and i guess feed all 3 wet only.

i don't work now until monday so i can be more vigilant and get those ketone tests. i didn't get one today but yesterday and day before it registered normal.

i'm not familiar with the jargon yet. i don't understand "low drops", etc. i'm really getting a crash course on diabetes, and i want to thank all of you for helping me get thru this ordeal.
 
i took a reading an hour after this really high one and is seems to be starting to drop - 563....at least i'm hoping that's what is being indicated.

we have 3 cats and all have had access to bowls with dry food all the time. i think i may have forgotten to pick the bowl up today and she may have gotten into it, plus i fed her when i got home from work - almost 9:30 and then took her test at 10:30.
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OK, that helps explain some of that high number. If she got into the dry, that would do the trick with raising her numbers. Also, if she ate, even the FF low-carb an hour before the test, part of that high reading could be the boost from eating.

If you can convince all 3 kitties that low carb canned food is the greatest invention since catnip, that would really help not only her but the other two as well. Dry food is high carb, yes, but it's also bad for non-diabetics too.

'm not familiar with the jargon yet. i don't understand "low drops", etc.
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It's easy for me and others to forget that we do have a different language here, sorry! By low drops, we mean the amount her BG falls from the time you give her the shot, until it reaches peak effectiveness, which is usually about 6 hours after the shot, give or take an hour. That is what we call the "nadir". If a cat starts at 500, and drops down to say 200 six or less hours later, that's a big drop in BG. When that happens, it can trigger an instinctive reaction caused by her pancreas and her liver to "dump glucose" into her bloodstream. Although a 200 BG is not dangerously low, her body (used to higher numbers) can sense that the BG is dropping fast, and this just happens. The result is that it pushes the BG upward, and can give you a higher reading at the next shot time test. The term used here most when that happens is "bouncing". She goes low, and bounces back up.

The trick is to find a dose that allows her BG to go as low as possible and still avoid that "glucose dump". The best way to determine what that dose is would be to get mid-cycle tests in the first 6-7 hours after the shot, to try to catch the low point in the cycle.

Great news on the lack of ketones, and great job being able to test for them! It isn't the easiest thing in the world to do with some kitties.
Carl
 
she registered 436 at +10 since last night's shot.

as for the ketone readings.....i'm going on pot luck with those - i've stuck the stick into the litter dirctly after she's peed (she's a very private bathroom person) - holding it for at least 10-15 seconds. i'm hoping that will be enough urine to give me a correct reading. the stick did NOT change color. like i said, i'm home now and will try very hard to watch her and hold the stick under her as she goes. will also do more bg readings today as well.

promise......the dry food will be GONE!!!!!! didn't realize that stuff could increase the #'s so much!!!!

i've heard more terms and got more information from you than from my own vet. they NEVER told me to check her every so many hours. never told me these readings could be so up and down. when i left the office i thought i was looking for #'s over 200 (never anything like 300-400-500-600!!!!!) or #'s extremely under 200 (which i haven't had thankfully). i can't understand that all they said was give her 1 unit every 12 hours and bring her back for a checkup next friday. the one doctor did call yesterday (finally) to check on her - i was working and couldn't talk to her. i think i'll just go in tomorrow, and if nothing else they can check the ketone reading - they can do it so we KNOW it's been done. i will print out beebers ss and take it with me, and maybe they will want to increase the insulin....i have no clue. i have lots of $$$ invested in this, so what's another office visit!!!!! :lol: :lol: with the little information they gave me they will probably think i'm crazy for all this checking!!!!! i'm so glad you guys got me to where i am in this.
 
Hopefully you can get a full cycle with no dry food and have those numbers for the vet. (if he bases a dose on dry food plus numbers + stress at his office, the dose can be too high when she gets home.)
 
If you have a cat who is very carb sensitive, you could see a jump of 200, just on the dry food. My Shadoe would have her numbers soar like that just by getting a small mouthful of dry food.... she could not eat any dry food at all, not even treats.
 
The process is 1) test, 2) feed, and 3) shoot as soon as you know the cat is eating normally, generally within 5-15 minutes.

When you test an hour after eating normally, the glucose is a rising number, and will likely continue rising for another hour or so as a result of food. This really doesn't tell you how well the insulin is controlling things. Some cats have large food spikes in those 2 hours, even on canned food (Spitzer did). Pre-shot numbers can be high because much of the insulin may have worn off. We expect those numbers may be higher.

The nadir is what tells you how well your particular insulin is working. This is usually somewhere between 5 - 7 hours after giving one of the long acting insulins (Lantus, Levemir, ProZinc, or PZI). In a well controlled diabetic, that number may go downto between 50 - 120. We don't want it going any lower than 50 while using insulin, so when that happens, it can mean a dose reduction if everything else is normal.
 
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