Third attempt at BG testing on Joshi - success!

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LaraB

LaraB

Member Since 2015
I can celebrate another small victory - my first successful attempt at home BG testing! The trick that seemed to work for me - when massaging her ear after the prick a little bit of the blood was on my fingernail. I wasn't sure if it was enough blood, but luckily, it worked! Thanks for that tip on my post a few days ago.

I was particularly anxious to do this today because I found a pile of barf next to the food bowl this morning. Joshi has had this lifelong tendency to "scarf and barf" food if she eats something too fast, generally when it's something she particularly likes or when she has a possible hairball. I'm not sure if she's the one who actually threw-up, but it looked like one of her "works of art," so I wanted to make absolutely sure I got a successful BG reading today. Her reading was 202 (5 hours post shot - using a Relion Confirm meter). So, I think this is okay? I'll try to at least get a reading before her evening shot tonight to see if she's fluctuated. (Note: She is currently on 2 units Vetsilin twice a day. Transitioning to low-carb diet).
 
Congratulations and welcome to the Vampire club!!
vampire smiley.jpg

202 at +5 isn't bad (we'd like to see him lower though).... but without knowing where he was to start with, there's no way to know how far he might have dropped
 
Sorry I didn't provide enough info (I'll have add more info to my signature). The day she was diagnosed, she was at 458 for blood sugar (December 5). We we brought her in for followup a little over a week later - with the 2 units of Vetsulin she was getting twice day, plus some changes in diet (doing it gradually) - the 4+AMP was 205. This is before we started monitoring at home today. I just tested her again PMP (at 7:30 pm) - back up to 405. :( I would guess this has probably been the fluctuations she's had.

Here's some more details on her diet. When she was first diagnosed, our vet sent us home with Purina DM canned Savory Selects and a bag of the Dry Purina DM. That was what we relied on for the first week while we regrouped and looked at food suggestions from this board. All the dry food was replaced with the DM for all of our cats (we have six civvies in additon to our sugarcat, Joshi). Joshi had access to this and the canned DM. During the second week, I went out and picked up some FF pates. Since I'd like to switch all of our cats out to the low-carb, and because some of them absolutely hate pate food, I started searching around for some chunkier but low-carb varieties. Have tried out several of those. The dry food may be where we have the most issues as we have some dry-food addicts, so I would like to try out some options I've seen others on the board try. I would like to get Joshi off of dry food entirely, if possible.

Typing all that, I can totally see we don't have the diet quite straightened out yet. *sighs* With six other cats it gets complicated, especially when they all got the individual preferences. December has been a crazy month...really hoping January will be more calm and we can establish a routine better. At least I know now about the different insulin options.

Taking a deep breath now...doing my best but still learning.
 
IF we knew for sure he was starting out in the 400's and dropping to the 200's by nadir, that would be about right for Vetsulin...we like to see them drop by about half by nadir....as you start to get more data at home, it'll be easier to see how well he's doing on this dose

The problem with Vetsulin is that it can drop them quickly and then wear off too soon, which means they go right back up to where they started too soon (which I'm sure you've already heard from others here)

You've got your hands full with finding a food that will work for all 6 cats, that's for sure! I was SO lucky with my 3! I picked up the dry, put down Friskies pates and they all went crazy! I got some "where have you been keeping this good stuff all our lives"?? looks though.....LOL

Have you tried the "chunky" varieties of Fancy Feast? They have a chicken and turkey in "chunky"...there are lots of other foods that are low carb and are more "shreds" too instead of only looking for pates
 
The following ideas, alone or in combination, may help reduce scarf 'n' barf:
Add a tablespoon of water
Spread food thinly on a large plate
Freeze part of the meal and put it out to be eaten as it thaws
Use timed food dispenser *several with multiple cats!
 
Chris & China said:
IF we knew for sure he was starting out in the 400's and dropping to the 200's by nadir, that would be about right for Vetsulin...we like to see them drop by about half by nadir....as you start to get more data at home, it'll be easier to see how well he's doing on this dose

The problem with Vetsulin is that it can drop them quickly and then wear off too soon, which means they go right back up to where they started too soon (which I'm sure you've already heard from others here)

You've got your hands full with finding a food that will work for all 6 cats, that's for sure! I was SO lucky with my 3! I picked up the dry, put down Friskies pates and they all went crazy! I got some "where have you been keeping this good stuff all our lives"?? looks though.....LOL

Have you tried the "chunky" varieties of Fancy Feast? They have a chicken and turkey in "chunky"...there are lots of other foods that are low carb and are more "shreds" too instead of only looking for pates
Click to expand...

We've tried a few of the chunky FF's - they seemed to go over okay, so I'll rotate th0se in. A week ago I managed to score some Earthborn Holistics (about 20 cans) at a local pet store going out of business. Thankfully, Mikiri (our biggest chunky food lover) seemed pleased with this - so, happy dance on that one!

Okay, so the it sounds like the BG numbers are kind of what is expected with the Vetsulin - though I would definitely like BG numbers not to have such drastic fluctuations through the day. I haven't mentioned to our vets yet that I'm doing home testing, but I'm not worried about whether they'll object (they're pretty open-minded about things, thankfully. :) )
 
BJM said:
The following ideas, alone or in combination, may help reduce scarf 'n' barf:
Add a tablespoon of water
Spread food thinly on a large plate
Freeze part of the meal and put it out to be eaten as it thaws
Use timed food dispenser *several with multiple cats!
Click to expand...

It seems like I'm seeing a little less scarf and barf from the "population at large" in the house since bringing more low-carb stuff into their diet. Joshi and her litter mate, Hana, have both been scarf-and-barfers - so perhaps both of them may have some sensitivity to high carb ingredients. This will be interesting to see.
 
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