Hello Needing help in Ontario Canada

Hi, My 11 year old cat J.J was just diagnosed with diabetes after the vet ran tests to rule out a problem with her kidneys. While I waited for the test results to come back I tried to educate myself on what the best course of action would be, so as of Wednesday i switched her off the dry kibble and put her on Wellness canned turkey. Today she was prescribed Caninsulin, 1 I.U twice a day & Clavamox for the blood that was detected in her urine. J.J has lost a lot of weight and now only weighs 2.58 lbs and is very dehydrated ( hoping the new food will help with this). The vet said nothing about monitoring her glucose levels at home but from reading on this forum and given her tiny size & boniness I am afraid to give her the insulin without checking her numbers first. Can anyone recommend a good monitor from Costco in Canada? Any help and recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Jenn & J.J

 

Hi Jenn welcome to you and JJ. Glad you'll be home testing. It's the best thing you can do for JJ. Wellness is a good food, try adding some water to it to help JJ get some extra fluids. I'll tag @MrWorfMen's Mom who is from Canada and can help with the meter.

 

Thank you so much for your reply. We are going to Costco today so hopefully I can get a appropriate meter there & will bring my tablet with me to check for a response before I purchase one. So glad to have found this forum and very glad to hear that Wellness food was a good decision. I will definitely start adding some water to her food. Thank you again for the advice & help.

 

When looking for a meter, check the price of the strips- that will be your biggest investment over time- buy some extras and be sure to get the lancets for pricking her ear. Most like the 25-28 gauge to start.

 

Our vet sent us home some 29 gauge needles will that be appropriate or should I be getting some with in the range you recommended?

 

I've never used a needle for testing. I would buy a box of lancets too though because you'll need a new one for each test and if you're testing at least twice/day and hopefully more like 4x or more/day you'll use plenty. I found this which has some info on meters in Canada. http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/canadian-meters-alpha-trak-2-strips.159358/

 

Thank you again for helping me through this. I got confused, the 29 gauge needle was actually given to us for administering the insulin not for testing her glucose levels. The vet had said nothing about us doing home testing & instead wants us to give her insulin injections twice a day until next Saturday and then bring her into the vets again for him to test her glucose levels at that time. It scares me to give her insulin that many times not knowing if she really needs it or not, she is so tiny & I don't know how her body will handle it or if she really does need it twice a day every day.

 

You're smart to test! Since you have switched to a low carb canned food, her numbers may come down some. Also as the UTI Clears, that could also bring her numbers down. If so and you weren't testing, you could have a hypo.

 

Thank you, you are so fabulous for taking the time to help with this on your Saturday. We have now made to the city & Costco, I will touch base with you latter to let you know how I made out.

 

Back from Costco & the pet store for treats and pill pockets. While at Costco I bought the Accu-chek Above glucose monitor ( really hoping that someone can help me with this because I phoned my vet to find out what number it should be to give her the insulin and what number to not give it to her. The vets response was to return it and to buy a pet monitor from his clinic. ) also bought test strips and Accu-chek softclix lancets but nowhere can I see a gauge number. So now my vet sounds angry with me & I still don't know & understand what & how to do this.

 

Hi Jen, read your last post, i'm also using an accu check and it works perfectly! No need for the expensive vets recommended pet meter, this one works fine and is cheaper!

 

Lots of vets don't like human meters because they read lower than the pet meters, but we know that and dose accordingly. Here's some info to get you started
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

 

Thank you both so much! At what number am I supposed to give her the insulin & what number not to? From her urine test today the vet said she is a 4 but when my husband called him to say we bought a monitor from Costco he said we would have to do a number conversion and did not tell us what that would be or how to do it. The pharmacist also said we would need to know what number to set the pen at for the depth of the needle.

 

I use a different insulin than you, but it also comes in a pen and I draw the insulin out with a syringe. Not sure how to use a pen needle. Maybe post on the health forum. Not sure what needs to be converted either. Maybe this
http://www.felinediabetes.com/bg-convert.htm

 

Have you seen this, Jenn?
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/vetsulin-caninsulin-user-guide.302/

 

The vet said the numbers that show on the human monitor are not the same reading you get on a pet one.

 

Thank you so much Sharon that link is super helpful!

 

He is correct. Human meters read lower, but there is no conversion chart. If your cat has a high number, he has a high number, regardless of the meter, and needs insulin. If the number is low it will be low on the human meter too and we can intervene with food or not shooting. In other words, exact numbers aren't important. High is high and low is low. I'm sure there are others that can explain it better than I can. When your ready to test or shoot, start a thread on the health forum where there are more people to help. I'll watch for you too!

 

Hi Jenn and welcome to FDMB. Sorry, I was off the board this afternoon and didn't see your message or Sharon's tag until now.

The Accu-Check meters work just fine but most require a little bigger blood sample than some other brands including the pet meters. This is fine and many people use them with no problem but the lancets that come with the meter are likely 30-33 gauge which may make it more difficult to get a sufficient sample. I would suggest seeing if you can find an alternate site lancet (gauge 26-28) that fits your lancing device or to use free hand just like you'd have to do with the 29 gauge needles the vet gave you.

Just to clarify, is J.J only 2.58 lbs or kg? If it's lbs., she is the size of a kitten and dosing would need to be determined accordingly. What dose of insulin did your vet recommend to start? I'm not understanding your vet using urine to determine her BG levels. While that helps confirm the diagnosis and tells you whether the amount of sugar in the urine is low or high etc. it is not sufficient to determine insulin dosage. Did the vet also check J.J's blood sugar? Did he by any chance tell you what that reading was?

In general, we recommend no insulin be given under a reading of about 11.1 mmol using a human meter in the beginning. As you get more data, it may be possible to shoot slightly lower numbers but first you need to see how much the insulin drops J.J's BG. To do that, you would get a pre-shot test and another about +3 or +4 hours after the insulin is given. This is usually when Caninsulin's action peaks and you will see the lowest number of the 12 hour cycle. You want to find out how low the dose is taking J.J and based on that lowest number, dose adjustments are determined. You do not want J.J's BG to go lower than 2.8 mmol .

I'm sure you will have more questions and there is a great group of folks here ready willing and able to assist you so post any and all questions over on the Health forum to get the most input. This is just a welcome mat and doesn't get nearly as much traffic.

Where in Ontario are you located? I'm in Toronto.

 

Thank you Mr Worf's mom I'm over by London. Our vet told my husband that she is a 4 but I don't know what that even means ( my youngest daughter who is 6 is sick right now too so I stayed home, really wish I had gone now though). Her weight is 2.58 in lbs, she has always been tiny but is scary skinny now you can feel & actually see her bones poking out. The vet said she is dehydrated & that if she does not improve by next Saturday after being on wet food that he wants her back and will keep to administer fluids. We were told to give her 1 unit twice a day of the insulin but for today to only give her half the dose at a time. I have her in trapped in my bedroom with me now as she likes to hide & is very timid, so since I know where she is at right now I will use the glucose monitor and report back on what it says.

 

OMG! I did she was not happy but I gave her treats & a new cat nip mouse afterwards, so hopefully I will be forgiven. The meter read 16.6 mmol/L , should I be given insulin or not to?

 

Glad you got the test. Keep giving those treats after and she'll get to where she looks forward to testing time! Did she have a shot this AM? You want to keep the shots 12 hours apart.

 

No she was supposed to but I was too scared. This will be her first if you think it is best for me to give to her.

 

I was just answering on your health thread. I don't give dosing advice. It is a shoot able number though. As @MrWorfMen's Mom said 11.1 is the no shot number. Let's move to your health thread.