New here

Hello my name is Brenda and my cat Riley was diagnosed back in June. He is currently on 0.3 units of Lantus 2x daily. I am trying to get his diet changed to wet food as well but has been a huge challenge. He has ate Iams kibble his whole life. He is 11 years old and deaf as well. I just bought a glucose tester at Walmart (ReliOn brand) and want to start testing him myself. He has been to the vet twice since June for day testing. He has also read HIGH on the vet tester so they just raised his dose. I just tested him this morning prior to giving him insilin and it read 194. I dont know what this means or where I even want his number at. I am hoping you all can help me. Thanks

 

Welcome.
194 is not a bad BG preshot.
Vet stress can artificially raise BG by 100 or more points.
0.3 units is a small starting dose and the normal starting dose is 1 unit twice daily.
Because food tends to raise BG in a diabetic cate, if not enough insulin is give, BG could go high after feeding if not enough insulin is give.

I had a acromegaly cat and with too low dose I would get a preshot of 200-300 and he would go HI (>600 on my meter) between shots.
Most of use record our reading and other info in a spreadsheet. See:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/
This allows others to see what is happening to BG so we here can give you suggestions.

Most of us here test our cat's blood glucose at home using a human meter. We test before each shot and periodically between shots.

 

Thanks for your input. I just need to be told what to do and when to do it.

 

Hi Brenda and welcome to the FDMB!!

I've been chatting with you on Facebook and wanted to pass on that you're giving 3U, not .3

Can we get some more information?

When did you start Riley on Lantus?

It's great that you're going to be home testing too! It'll help to keep Riley safe as well as knowing what's going on inside his body!

Normal numbers for cats are 50-120, so that 194 isn't a bad "Pre-shot" number.

You always test before shooting to make sure they're high enough for insulin at all.....then if you can get tests at different times during the cycle, it'll help to show you how well he's responding. We have a great spreadsheet we all use here to help us see the patterns we look for. Larry has put the link to the instructions in his comment above but if you need help setting it up, please just let me know. I'd be happy to set it up for you

 

Good advice above. Welcome to the forum. You are off to a good start.

A lot of cats are here because of crappy diets. Kibble foods are pretty much the worst. The food chart from Dr.Lisa Pierson shows proper foods to give your cat. You are targeting higher protein and carbs less than 10%. I feed Leo mostly Fancy Feast Classic as an example.

food chart here <<<---
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