? Vet said don't do glucose test.

[Matt in AR]

Hello every one. Moved my post to Health since I posted it in the wrong place. New to feline diabetes and the forum.

 

[Tuxedo Mom]

Hello every one. My mom's cat Foxy, tested positive for diabetes. Her vet put him on 3 units Novolin 70/30 twice a day. I had to bring him to live with me, because she cannot give him insulin because of her arthritis. Its been ten days and I took Foxy to the vet in my town as her vet said to. I asked her about home testing him and she said no, because vets use venous blood and the human glucose tester uses arterial blood and it won't give the right results. (I may have got venous and arterial mixed up.)
So now what? I bought the ReliOn Prime tester, strips, lancets and pen so I could keep track of his blood sugar. Is it true they are not useful for cats?

First welcome to the forum.


It is true that the readings vet do is based on venous blood. However using capillary blood, which is what the hand meters use can still give a fairly accurate idea of what the insulin is doing. On this site all the protocols are written for human meter readings and many of the US people use the relion. Although the readings may be slightly different than the vet machine reading it still gives ab indication and a trend for what is happening.

A pet meter, which is supposed to be very close to the vet machine may read 68 while a human meter may read 50 for the same test. Either way those numbers are at a point where you would not want to give the insulin shot until you know whether the numbers are actually rising.

There is NO way I would ever give my kitty a shot before testing the preshot number and the rule of thumb is in addition to testing before shots to test at least once in the middle of the cycle (the time between the shots). This is the only way you know whether it is safe to give the shot and how low the shot is taking the glucose level

If you need more information and help to set up a spreadsheet to track the daily levels..invaluable tool!!!...please post on the general Health forum:

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/health-links-faqs-about-feline-diabetes.14/

There are lots of experienced people there that can help guide you along this whole experience.

 

[Matt in AR]

Thank You.