Cat testing problems

Hey everyone, for the last couple days my cat Jake has been fighting me when I want to test him, it took over 30 min this morning and four test strips to get it done. His ears must be sore... is there another place besides the paw or ear i can get a sample? He's really fighting it!

-Breayle

 

How are YOU feeling while all of this is going on? Stressed? Irritable? I find that when I am in a rush or have moodiness issues or I'm impatient in the least, that's when Tugger will resist. Seems like in our situation the problem always comes back to me So, on the other hand, if I am totally zen about it and just plop my rear on the floor with all the stuff next to me the little turkey will come strolling over "Ohi mom, you came down here to love on me?" *flops on his side* I always give him skritches and talk to him in the voice he likes before I go poking needles in him, so that gets his motor running and he kinda forgets what I'm doing until the actual poke.

I know how you feel though, it sucks. Try the zen approach. As long as he's coming around, rather than running away and hiding that is. Tugger's always been pretty good about letting me mess with him. I clean his ears out and clip his nails and now test and shoot pretty much all with the power of "the voice" Or... you could use the kneel and cage him in your legs trick (I have a flickr set http://www.flickr.com/photos/marvien/sets/72157623034620335/ showing how I do it, using Tug as a model since he's so laid back. It's how I have to pill everybody and how I have to clip one guy's nails and medicate one girl's ears.

 

I used to test Whistle on her paw pads. She would not let anyone touch her ears. You can hold your cat on his/her back (I always did it in the same position as if I was going to clip her claws) and warm up a back foot paw. You'll need to be very firm with the lancet pen if you use one, and you'll want to aim right for the center of the paw. After you prick, you can squeeze the paw a little to get a bigger drop of blood if needed. Hope this helps!

 

I do the paw and the ear, he wasn't having either one. I was pretty tired but not stressed... i get stressed when he bails on me or wiggles out of the hold i've got him in when i try to get his blood. Any other place other than paw/ear? He HATES the paws... and his ears are sore... can i get it from the scruff of the neck? I just want to be able to rotate my test sites but it's difficult when he wont let me touch his paws.

 

Maybe a rice sock with some catnip in it, a little aromatherapy would help. Put the catnip in with the rice, warm the cotton sock as usual, 10-15 seconds.

As mentioned, try to relax, cats feel our stress and react to it. It's great that you are hometesting, things will fall into place in time. Someday soon you'll be hometesting your kitty and think, wow, this used to be hard ;-)

 

I've not read of any other testing sites but ears and paws. Do you have a treat that he just adores that you give him after testing and shots? Tugger seems to accept just about anything if he knows there's going to be food at the end of it. I've made a practice since they were kittens that they always get a yummy treat immediately after anything I have to force them to endure and it seems to help.

I am feeling pretty mean and nasty due to Tugger's sore ears, the past two days I have tested him more than I have in the past month I think. He's starting to resist a bit at this point, just flicking his ear out of my grasp and flicking his tail in irritation so far but I can tell his patience with me is running verrrrrrrrrrrrry thin right now Speaking of which, it's almost time for his +11 so I better go get things ready. I bought some new treats today so we'll see if he goes for it or not!

 

have you been staunching (pressing tissue to both sides of ear) after you finish poking? for about 5-10 seconds. it helps decrease the bruising.

Another tip is to use a little dab of neosporin WITH pain relief. it helps a lot!

other than that, I say better some sore ears than a too low number. I think we feel guilty about it, but there are cats who will endure many many tests per day. My cat has been OTJ for... almost 2 years (antijinx) and he still comes running for his tests (b/c he always gets a treat afterwards). In fact, if I go anywhere near the testing kit, he starts meowing and begging.

hope that helps!

 

It does help =) The guilt is not a fun thing. I know it's for his own good, and I won't let the guilty feelings prevent me from doing what needs to be done but man, I feel bad. I am applying pressure, so there are only one or two bruised spots. Those are from when he took off before I could pinch it. I've been wiping his ear with alcohol swabs that say "with pain relief" which I have been using (they kinda make things numb. I touched my lips with my pinky to get a kitty hair off before I washed my hands.) I do have neosporin with pain relief too though.

I found some treats at Petsmart today to try on Tugger. The only cat treats I could find were freeze dried salmon or shrimp. $$ but I got the salmon. Then I hit the dog section. I almost struck out because everything I remembered using on the dog had carbs. Lots of 'em. Then I found some freeze dried beef liver and chicken (I think?) so I grabbed them because it was the only single ingredient thing I could find.

When I did Tugger's +11 I offered him the new salmon kitty treats and he looked very offended by the strong odor. So I offered the beef liver dog treat and the little brat ate it with his motor roaring away! The dog at the salmon that the cat ignored though, so I guess it's not a total loss?

 

At one point, Basil began to act rather grumpy about being tested. I started going in to test him with a piece of freeze-dried chicken in my hand (very small) and another in my pocket. He got the one in my hand right away and the other one after the test. That helped a whole lot!

 

That's an idea.

I visit another forum that really has me spoiled, at the bottom of the posts the forum owner has created cool little buttons where we can click for things like "interesting" or "educational" or "agree"... I totally would have clicked your "interesting" button because in my head I heard a little voice say "eeeenteresting, pre-bribery. Hmmmm." Then I smelled smoke. I think the little voice is thinking :lol:

 

Thanks for all your advice, I do apply pressure to his poor little ear each time I do it. I was only able to get two tests out of him yesterday, my thoughts were better two than none at all! Today he's only let me do two so far... his ears are red. I feel terrible 'cos I know I'm hurting him. I put some tuna fish in a bowl and tried to prick while he was eating but he was gobbling it down so fast I never got a hold of him. Tonight's test took an hour of missed pokes and a quarter can of tuna fish to get... I hope it's not like this for much longer! I've updated his SS with yesterdays and todays numbers. I really hope it gets better soon

-Breayle

 

It will! It's just really hard at first. You will both get the hang of this, trust me =) Poor mom and Poor Jake! But wow, I'm looking at your SS and you've gotten much quicker results than I have! We started this in December, but I wasn't able to really pour myself into it because of some stuff I had going on. We are only now seeing real progress, and it's kind of scary to me to see his numbers drop so low. I wasn't testing often when his numbers were high but boy oh boy when I saw that first 198 I started checking obsessively. So my poor buy went from occasional pokes to OMG We've got to poke 20,000 times a day! He's either going to eat my head while I sleep some night or I'm going to start finding puke in my shoes pretty soon :lol: I may need a bodyguard. Sounds like your guy is loosing patience with you too. Are you making a point to pet him and touch his ears (gently!) at times other than testing/shooting? I'm trying to do that, whenever I see Tugger I go over and give him love if he'll tolerate it (he generally does) so he doesn't start to think I'm only ever interested in poking him with sharp stuff

I better go get the coffee made. I think today is going to be another long day. I may need a nap if it's going to look anything like yesterday/last night!

 

Two ideas:

I know it sounds a little woo-woo, but sitting Tugger down and explaining to him, in a calm but firm voice, why you are doing the testing, what it means to him and why you are going to have to continue no matter how he feels about it. This procedure has had positive effects on most of the cats given the talk, it's worth a try.

Second, most cats hate being restrained. He probably won't just sit still for a while, but a wrestling match isn't good for either of you. Have you tried putting him next to the arm of a sofa or chair and leaning on him? It's another thing worth a try.

Also, the ear warming period should be like a cuddle session, the heat of the rice sock is pleasant for most cats, the little heat seekers. Try warming the sock and giving Tugger a massage with it, try this between tests a few times. The association of the sock with pleasure should help calm him down.

 

Heheh, I'm not worried about it sounding woo-woo, I talk to my babies all the time Problem might be that I stupidly kept promising him "Last time baby, I promise!" then we'd get some silly low number and I'd have to do it again. Poor boy doesn't trust me anymore No more promises from me about not testing, that's for sure!

I do use the warm sock, he loves that part because he tends to have yeasty ears so he's very used to me handling them (I clean them often and he likes it as long as I don't put liquid inside so I use qtips) and massaging them. I talk to him in the deep voice that sets his motor running (teh sexeh voice as it's known around here lol) and warm the ear while massaging and during all this he's laying in front of or beside me on the floor or the bed purring away. I only have to "hold" him while poking and that's not really a hold so much as just blocking him from moving away. He's really a very good boy about it all, honestly I think it all upsets me more than him most of the time. He's just grumpy because he's suddenly getting poked 50,000 times a day, when for months he's only been poked two times for shots and sporadic bg checks. I know he'll get used to it pretty soon, and hopefully I will stop feeling like a mean mom pretty soon too

Patience. It is not something I am strong in.

 

I'm sorry if this was asked before, but what lancet device are you using and at what setting?

My preference is for the one that comes with the One Touch and I use the deepest setting.

 

Nope, hasn't been asked (that I remember, there's been a lot of info flying the past day or so!) I use the Relion ultra thin lancet. I don't use the settings though, I just poke him with it by hand. When we first got it, hubby poked his finger to test the depth and I was so nervous that I'd just be piercing his thin little ear that I decided not to even click it. I feel like I have better control I guess?

I picked up a little flashlight yesterday that helped immensely this morning when he was in hte bedroom for his +10, it's meant to clip on the brim of a ballcap but I just hold it in my mouth and shine it on his ear. It's LED and it lights it all up perfectly. I think that test was the quickest and easiest one yet. I'll keep using it to see if that is what made the difference or if it was just because we were both still half asleep at the time

 

When I first started testing my FDs, my vet was kind enough to shave a little patch of fur off their ears so that I could see things more easily.

Do you think that might help?

This really does seem hard in the beginning, I used to cry all the time and Tucker would fight, but you really will become and old hand at this someday very soon.

 

I think now that I have the little light, things will go much more smoothly. Tug has dark fur on his ears, but if there is enough light I can see where to poke pretty easily. We usually do it in the kitchen where I either have sunlight (mornings) shining right through his ear or the big fluorescent lights overhead. Seems like the trouble times have been when I tried to poke without enough light or if the dog flaps his ears at the wrong time or if I'm feeling rushed. He really picks up on my emotions, so sometimes I have to sit for a minute and get to that zen place before I even touch him. I'm sure most of the problem (seems to be a trend) is me. I'm worried because I've been doing it all wrong for months and I'm beating myself up that if I had just made him a priority two months ago we might have this all under better control today. I do accept that things were just too crazy the first month he was diagnosed, the timing just could not have been worse with my health stuff, but by Feb. I should have been doing better for him and I wasn't. After seeing how much better he felt these past few days, yep, there's some guilt that I let him feel bad for so long when it was all in my power to fix him.

But! Today is a new day. I am not going to let all of that stuff get in the way of fixing him now. I'm going to do what I always tell my kids to do. When you screw up, first you own it. Then you learn something from it so you don't do it again. Then you apologize and move on. I'm at the stage of moving on now, so it's just a matter of actually doing it. We'll get this fixed, he'll be a healthy happy boy soon, and I will be a much more educated mommy.

I will also be an advocate for wet food diets. I was already an advocate for higher quality over store brand foods but now I know even more and I am going to be on a mission to convert a few of my cat owning friends who have kitties that look to be pre-diabetic to my eye that are on kibble only diets. This change in Tugger has been huge and immediate. My vet was way too easy to convince on the food issue, I really wish now that he had pushed as hard as the people here do for wet food. It is something I plan to discuss with him whenever we go back. I think I may also be on a mission to educate my vet ;-)

 

My vet says you can use the gums to test that he saw it at a vet continuing education lecture but I myself have not tried it

 

I am 1000% certain Tugger would not go for that lol. His ears seem to get toughening up some at least. Either that or we're both just getting used to it with all this practice =) Pokes are going much faster now, under a minute from start to finish most times.

 

I've never heard of testing the gums on cats......only on dogs..you flip the lip up to do it.....and there is no way in h**ll I would test anyone of mine on the gums. Also, alcohol can dry the ears and it is not needed...would stop using those wipes. Also agree with Gia.....talking, showing the meter, etc. and explaining to the kitty why you need to test goes a long way to helping them accept it. They do understand so explain to him why he needs to be hometested. Mishka learned once I did the babbling to her .....she also learned that test comes first, before food........so no test, no food.

 

Tugger is starting to learn that no test means no food... but he's also learning that testing=treats. I was in the kitchen a few minutes ago getting coffee and it was +3 but I'd decided to skip since he seems to be doing the opposite of what I expected today. Well, he flopped over on his side and said "Test time Mom!" and when told he wasn't getting tested this time he grabbed by pant leg with his claw and yelled at me!

 

The tech that babysat my kitties when I went away for a weekend said that she thinks testing off the gums is way easier for both human and cat.. I don't have the balls to try it however .