Weird: no insulin, but low BG

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Nova

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Nova was diagnosed with diabetes a month ago. We were happy when we changed his food from wet to dry because he started having much better BG numbers. Eventually the vet took him off the insulin because his numbers were getting low. Now he has been completely off the insulin for a week, but is still throwing low BG numbers ranging from 40-60. We feed him frosting to get more sugar into him, but by the time dinner comes around again his sugar is low again. The vet is baffled because he is showing no signs of hypoglycemia. We feed him Wellness Chicken & Herring wet. He eats and drinks normally, no diarrhea.

Anyone else experience this?
 
Nova said:
we changed his food from wet to dry
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I am assuming you meant that you changed from dry food to wet food?

Nova said:
throwing low BG numbers ranging from 40-60
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Those are perfectly normal BG readings for a non-diabetic cat! Put that frosting away!!!. As I understand it, meters give lower readings at low numbers than you get from a serum (blood draw) BG test. No doubt, those serum numbers are what the vet learned in vet school. So, rejoice at seeing those 40-60 BGs instead of panicking. Back when my cat went OTJ (off the juice) for a time, I would occasionally get a number in the upper 30's.

A couple of lines below the logo in the upper left hand corner of this page is the "User Control Panel." Click on it and when it comes up, select "Profile." Put your city, state (or city, country) in the field labeled "Location." Your location will appear to the right on all your posts and save you the trouble of answering the question again and again. I am wondering where you live and if it has anything do with why you are only feeding one variety of cat food. Fancy Feast Classic varieties are good. Nature's Variety, Merrill, Evo all have canned foods under 10% carb. Friskies and the Walmart store brand has good varieties. Kitty will appreciate a varying menu.

Are you home testing? You need to do a blood test on Nova once or twice a month to be sure everything remains OK.

Lana

Lana
 
We will stop the frosting! We are in Queens NY. We do home blood testing. I am glad those numbers are normal.
 
Geez Nova, hope you aren't too water-logged right now. Glad you started this thread b/c I took Cedric's reading this am (he is off insulin) and it was 39. His readings are ususlly in the 60s. I am off to give him some tuna for a dinner treat. That will increase his numbers some. glad of the reminder that the human meter is a little lower than his actual reading - I have a tendancy to forget that sometimes...
 
Bob has a vet appt in the morning, so tonight I checked his BG just so there would be no surprises tomorrow. When I logged it, I was surprised to see I hadn't checked in 4 days! He threw me a nice 55, and I was thrilled. Last one was a 78 (1 hour after dinner). The 55 was about 4 hours after dinner. I've tested him randomly since the beginning of the month, and he's ranged from 51 to 79.

Rejoice in those double-digit numbers!

Lana- I laughed out loud reading the "Put that frosting away!" line. People at work looked at me weird!

carl
 
You have a diet controlled diabetic kitty! Do the dance of joy! :lol: Those are gorgeous numbers, and without giving insulin, he can't go hypo, so relax. (We did a big survey here years ago, and normal BGs for our non-sugarcats ranged from mid 30s to mid 70s.)

May I ask how he was diagnosed? And had he ever used steroids in the past? (They are known to cause a form of transient diabetes.) If he truly is diabetic, and is diet controlled, just keep him on low carb canned food, test his BGs regularly (stress, illness, bad teeth, etc. can all push the BGs back up into insulin range again), and enjoy!

And, yeah, no frosting ... unless you miss giving those shots! ;-)
 
fermenia said:
How gradual does one have to be when changing insulin schedules? My boyfriend started taking insulin (10CCs) Tuesday, at the doctor's office, they started at 10am. The last few days he has been taking his insulin around 10am. However, he prefers to take insulin at night, because of his work schedule. Is it safe to take Thursday's insulin three hours earlier in the morning, say, around 7am, and then again, Thursday night around midnight, take "Friday's insulin" then Saturday night, take the insulin around 11pm? And continue to take the insulin at 11pm every night from then on. Or, should the change be more gradual than that? How exact do you have to be about taking it at the "same time" every day?
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This is a feline diabetes board, so i don't think anyone will be able to respond to your question, unless a person who also happens to be diabetic happens to see your post. I would tell your boyfriend to give his doctor a call and ask him this question--he/she will be able to answer it better than any of us here.
 
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