Aj newly diagnosed please help

We got the new battery put in and the meter said HI which i read means over 600 blood glucose. So i’m not sure if the reading of 291 this morning was untrue because of the battery or if he just shot up that high or if has always been this high and the reading at the vet of 630 was true. I am freaking out, we gave him one unit of novalin N for now but i feel like he probably needs more. What should i do?

 

Its currently midnight. How long do i have to wait to test how the 1 unit shot is affecting him?

 

Peace dear, hang on...Linda is watching for you and will be responding.

 

What time did you give the shot?

 

Deep breathes. Since we don't know if the reading earlier was accurate or not, I'd start off with a test at +1 post shot. Novolin can kick in pretty quick. Was that Hi reading before AJ ate or had AJ eaten within the 2 hours prior to that test? What food did you feed AJ tonight?

 

I just did the reading and give him the 1 unit shot about ten minutes ago because i had been waiting on the new battery for the meter. He ate two small cans of fancy feast classic pate and snacked on 1/2 cup of dry hill’s prescription through out the day. 1 can at 11am and 2nd can at 7pm, last bit of food he had was at 9pm 3hours ago
@Red & Rover (GA) @MrWorfMen's Mom

 

So you didn't feed him since 9pm? If not you need to give him food immediately and I would suggest a small portion of wet food and a decent bit of the dry food? What dry food is it again?

 

hill’s prescription diet digestive weight management dry food (from the first post)

 

Thanks Kel! Well it looks like it's 37% carbs so it should help keep things under control until we get the routine down and the dose sorted.

 

I’ve been trying to feed him dry food since 9pm but he won’t eat it, i try to feed him a bit every 1.5hrs until i go to bed which is normally midnight. After that, there is indoor purina dry food put out for any of the cats to eat if they need to since we have 3 cats.

 

How long until i can test again after the 1 unit shot?

 

Novolin hits fast and hard. It is important that he eats. Try some of the indoor purina dry food.

 

Test at 1 hour after the shot.

 

It has been out but he normally won’t eat it unless he has to. He likes the other hills food more.

 

Okay i will do that and try to get him to eat more

 

Do you have any high carb wet food? If so give him that. If not, mix honey or syrup (1/2 tsp) into a can of the low carb food and see if he'll eat that.

 

We are out of the canned food. Only had the four cans, two for yesterday and two for today because we were testing them out and planned on getting more tomorrow.

 

I have honey but i thought that was for the opposite when they are low blood glucose and not high. Wouldnt that make it higher?

 

Honey is for when BG is low HOWEVER, right now we need to get some food and carbs into AJ. Do you have anything in the house the cat can eat like tuna, salmon, meat only baby food, cooked chicken,? Is there a convenience store nearby that would have cat food and is open at this hour?

 

Unfortunately i have no way of getting to a convenience store right now and the nearby grocery store is already closed. We have nothing other than the dry food and some high calorie nutritional gel

 

The nutritional gel is for pets?

 

He probably isn’t eating because he is full since this is the most he has eaten recently as a 6lb cat. He is completely uninterested.

 

Yes we bought it for him when we noticed he was losing weight

 

He won’t eat it on his own though, i’d have to stick some in his mouth or something because we used to put it with chicken before as a treat before he got diagnosed.

 

Take a test now and tell us what the number is.

 

If you need to use it sometime, try putting some on the top of his front paws. Most cats can't stand to have anything on their paws and will lick it off as soon as possible.

 

Read as HI again

 

Tried this before and he wouldn’t lick it. He doesn’t clean himself lately.

 

How much more insulin should i give him?
He got a total of 8 units yesterday. Read as 291 this morning on that but i still don’t know if that was false.

 

Today he has had a total of 2 units

 

You can't give him more insulin until tomorrow around 11am/noon roughly.....at least 11 to 12 hours after the shot tonight.

Keep trying to get him to eat something and retest in an hour. Do you have honey or syrup in the house just in case?

 

With Novolin, you should test, feed and wait at least 30 minutes before shooting.

If you post here, someone should be available to help you decide how much to shoot once you have a test number.

Tomorrow morning, I'd suggest you start a new post though. This one is getting pretty long. If you need dose advice, put something like "AJ, NEED DOSE HELP" in the subject line and then in the body of your post, put the link to this thread and ask your question. You can always go back and edit your subject line later in the day.

 

We don't know if the reading of 291 was accurate but we have to assume it was for the moment. 1u may not be enough insulin but AJs BG has been inflated by the high dose he was getting. It flooded his system with glucose from fighting the insulin. Until that excess clears his system, it's impossible to know what the best dose is to get his BG down. We also don't know how much of that HI is his diabetes and how much is from the excess insulin dose.
Cautious and small methodical dose increases are the only way to figure out what the ideal dose is.

 

isnt over 600 for long periods of time dangerous though? And if that was true then why after so many higher doses and an 8 unit dose prior to this did he test at 291 this morning if he has to clear out excess to read something other than HI? Unless that was a false reading. It doesn’t add up to me right now but its also 130am so im barely awake either.

 

Does that also mean that if tests HI again in the morning that i should not give him any insulin again until he reads an actual number?

 

Yes sustained HI would be dangerous but for tonight it's not going to hurt AJ. HI just means the meter doesn't display that high a number. You would still give insulin if the reading in the morning is HI.
We don't know if that 291 was a good reading or not especially when you later tested at 20. It seems rather suspicious but we can't make assumptions with no data to know what has been happening up till now. When too much insulin is given over a sustained period of time, the extra sugar stores in the body get depleted and can cause a drop in BG. We need more data to figure out what is going on to determine the best dose for AJ.

 

How long can he be in the 600s then before i should worry? Should i just give the 1 unit if he reads HI in morning then?

 

Sorry for all the questions i just want to figure this out before i go to sleep or more like so i can go to sleep because i get really anxious.

 

Yes if he is still running HI tomorrow AM you can give AJ the 1u again. You can give AJ the 1u is he is over 250 but make sure you feed him and wait an hour before shooting. Test him at 10am and post if you are unsure what to do. Then feed AJ and make sure he eats something. The give the insulin at 11am as long as the test was over 250.

 

And test his urine for ketones please

 

Make sure there is food out for AJ to eat should he need it overnight. Good idea to get another test before you head off to bed.

 

I tested and it came back negative

 

Until AJs BG gets under better control, it's a good idea to test ketones daily especially when getting reading of HI.

 

Okay will test them again tomorrow then. Will post new forum with updates in the morning. Thank you!

 

Was that a fresh urine sample? You need to catch it midstream or if you have plastic wrap in the LB get it right away

 

Yes i put a clean container under his stream and tested it fresh

 

Terrific, that's good news!

 

We had our pajama party now..would you share your first name?

 

Ok, KoltAJ logged off, guess I'll head to bed. I hope all will be well the rest of the night and we will see you tomorrow.

 

If... when you are ready to switch to Lantus I will send you a “pen”. Send me a “Conversation”- I’ll answer any questions... what is “a Pen?” , how long will Pen last? And so forth