Struggling newbie!

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4crazydanes

Member Since 2017
Noel, my 10 year old cat was just diagnosed about a month ago and I feel like I'm drowning...
For the last 3 weeks we have changed her food over to a completely canned diet (Friskies & FF pate's) She was on 1 unit of Prozinc insulin every 12 hours but after doing the 'curve' tests last weekend and really not seeing and change in numbers, the vet recommended increasing the insulin amounts to 2 units every twelve hours.
I did a curve test last Sunday (using a Bayer Contour human meter) and her numbers ranged from 16 - 22. When we compared the vet meter to our human meter the number on our meter were lower by 7. So in actuality her numbers were between 22 - 28. I noticed a lot of the BG numbers in others posts were really different...is that because they're using a different meter?
After changing her insulin to 2 units twice a day, the vet has recommended doing another curve test tomorrow. How often daily does everyone test? As I'm reading I'm seeing that people test daily, my vet never said to do that!
I'm trying to read as much as I can, but it's all so overwhelming!
 
Hi Joanne and Noel and welcome to FDMB.

The higher numbers you see elsewhere on this board are from the US. This board was set up by a US human physician and the largest membership is American but there are members from around the globe (I'm in Canada) many of whom use the same measurement scale as you do. If you take your number and multiply it by 18, you will get the equivalent of the US number. So a reading of 16mmol would be 288 mg in the US scale.

Your vet is using a pet meter which will generally read higher than the human meter you are using. The difference between the readings on the two types of meters gets larger the higher the BG so 7 points is not going to be the difference for all readings. All the documentation here is based on the use of human meters unless specifically stated otherwise. While some of us use pet meters, the vast majority use human meters because the strips for pet meters are much more expensive and the strips are the biggest expense involved in treating diabetes.

We recommend testing before every shot to ensure that BG is high enough that it is safe to give insulin. We withhold food for 2 hours prior to testing to get a true, non food influenced reading. We also recommend getting at least one mid cycle (a cycle is 12 hours) test each cycle. By doing this you will get a good overall view of how Noel is doing and far more accurate data than any curve done in the vet's office because vet visits usually cause our cats to have stress elevated BG levels.

We have a wonderful spreadsheet available that we all use to track our readings. It is viewable by anyone with the link and we keep the link to our spreadsheets in our Signatures so when we need assistance or want opinions, our data is available for others to consult before offering advice. I encourage you to set up a spreadsheet for Noel. Here is a link to the Spreadsheet Instructions and this link explains how to use the spreadsheet. Once the spreadsheet is set up, you can add it to your signature to make it accessible. If you need any assistance setting up the spreadsheet, just holler and we'll have someone help you out. It would also be helpful if you could add your general location to your signature so when providing product/food suggestions they are appropriate for you and Casey.

We normally recommend dose changes be done in 0.25u increments and definitely not more than 0.5u. Our cats are small creatures and small changes in dose can make enormous differences in BG. Increasing dose by full units often results in the best dose being passed over. Too much insulin can look like too little so it's better to make changes slowly than to increase dose too quickly.

So glad you are home testing. It is by far the best tool we have to help our furry kids! This is overwhelming right now but in a few short weeks you'll be wondering why you thought this was going to be difficult. You'll be feeling much better and so will Noel! :)
 
4crazydanes said:
I did a curve test last Sunday (using a Bayer Contour human meter) and her numbers ranged from 16 - 22. When we compared the vet meter to our human meter the number on our meter were lower by 7.
Click to expand...
Human meters tend to read lower than pet meters/vet results. However, there is no real conversion. While adding 7 may work at high BG values it would be too much for lower BGs.
 
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