Started home testing

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kmz3301

Member Since 2012
Thanks again for everyone's help. I don't have a lot of numbers, but despite being on 3u BID, Max is still running high.

9/18 - 289 (1.5 hours after PM shot)
9/19 - 273 (5 hours after AM shot); 322 (1 hour before PM shot)
9/20 - 493 (right before AM shot)

He has been on 3u since 9/11. I was happy to see 200s because since his diagnosis, that is the first time he has dipped below 300. Weight loss has stopped, but still heavy urinating in the kitty litter. Overall, he is acting fine, very friendly. He actually started fighting with our other cat (they never got a long) which he was not done in along time because he was not feeling well.

We are a month since he was first diagnosed. Do you think he might be one of these cats who's "normal" might be in the high 200s?

Could it be the insulin? I know humans sometimes don't react well to certain insulin, does that happen with cats?
 
I think you will know more about how the insulin is working once he gets completely off the dry. As you are working on that, I would watch the numbers carefully.
 
Great job on testing!
As you get more data, it will help identify insulin resonse patterns.
Always test, feed, then shoot to make sure that is safe to give the insulin.
We recommend new insulin users not shoot if the glucose is less than 200.

Some possibilities for what you've seen so far:
Regulation is a process, not an event - 8 days of treatment is just starting out. Regulation can take a while.
Are you feeding any dry? That can make it very difficult to get good control. (Sorry - using my phone & it stuck when trying to check your previous posts)
Do you pick up the food 2 hours before testing? If not, you may get a food-influenced glucose value.
What are the carb calorie percentages in the foods you are using & do they vary? Some cats are very sensitive to varying carb levels.
In some cats, Prozinc lasts less than 12 hours. There are various tactics folks have used to cope with that which are discussed in some posts in the PZI/Prozinc forum.
You may have started at too high a level of insulin & the liver is compensating with release of stored glucose.
You could have a high dose condition complicating the way insulin and glucose work. Read over the Acromegaly forum's stickie posts to see if any of those descriptions seem likely.
Pancreatitis, hepatitis, and inflammatory bowel disease may affect glucose levels.
 
To answer some of your questions BJM -

We did not start at 3 units. Max was diagnosed and started insulin on August 20th. We started at 1 unit, 2 weeks later he was still in 500s, so he was increased to 2 units. On September 11, he was increased to 3 units because his glucose curve at the vet was still 400-500.

We switched our dry food to Blue Buffalo Wilderness no grain, high protein formula since we have 3 other cats to consider in this transition. My goal is to get all 4 off the dry, but we are still trying to figure it out.
 
The Blue Buffalo dry is not low carb--I believe it's around 20% carbs, which is far too high for a diabetic. One of it's big ingredients is potato starch, which is especially bad for diabetics because it's a simple carbohydrate with a high glycemic index--potato starch will actually raise BG more than pure sugar :shock: . It's likely keeping your numbers high and causing the need for the higher insulin dose. While you're transitioning your other cats to canned food, I would not leave any dry food down for the diabetic to get into. If you're doing scheduled, portioned feedings of dry food to the stubborn cat(s) at meal time (which is key when transitioning stubborn cats to canned), then there isn't a reason to leave the dry food out for the diabetic to get into. Here's a guide on how to successfully transition: http://catinfo.org/#Transitioning_Dry_Food_Addicts_to_Canned_Food_

What sort of problems are you having with the transitioning? Perhaps one of us has some specific advice that might be able to help you out! :smile:

Once you eliminate the dry food, make sure you're testing and lowering the dose as needed, because most cats see a 100-300 point drop in BG once the dry is removed, and some even go into spontaneous remission. That means your current dose could cause a dangerous hypoglycemic incident if you're not checking his BG levels.
 
Maybe instead of the dry food you could feed freeze dried raw food instead while you work to get all the cats onto canned food? Stella and Chewy's is one brand of 100% complete freeze dried raw food. It is kibble-shaped and has a crunchy texture. Many other brands are supplement only so read the label closely for the inclusion of vitamins and minerals in the list of ingredients and the feeding instructions (some may say "For supplemental feeding only" or something similar). You can feed Stella and Chewy's dry but it is highly recommended to rehydrate the food with water before serving.

My two cents :smile:
 
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