? Help Needed

New to low bg levels. Tested tonight before eating and got 128. Lowest reading yet. I did not dose after eating.

He has been on all wet (Friskies pate) for about a week. Treats are freeze dried chicken.

I will test him a couple more times tonight. My question, if his bg goes up, at what point should I give him his shot? I understand that the first test after eating will be higher and to not dose based on that, but how many hours after eating should I get concerned? And how high of a level is too high?

TIA

 

Sorry it took a couple of hours without a reply.

So did you feed at your normal shot time this evening even though you didn't dose? Because if you did, and I assume you did, that probably does account for why you went from 128 to 190. Normally if you are truly going to delay the shot time to see what happens to the BG, you don't feed so that you can tell if it is going up "on its own" without the influence of food. So if you've given food already, the safest course of action to take is to just skip this shot and wait until your normal shot time in the morning.

And just in general with the newness of your diagnosis, and this being your lowest preshot number ever, my opinion is that you shouldn't try to move your shot time around and then have to finagle your way back to your normal shot time. Even a reading of "HI" isn't too high for just the day, unless you had a DKA diagnosis, which your signature doesn't indicate. You've had 500s in your recent past, and many people consider that really high, but without DKA those will usually pass without incident. I would just wait for your usual morning shot time,

Just get another test tonight before you go to bed as a data gathering opportunity to see how he's doing after the food bump, and then see how it is in the morning (maybe even an hour before your normal time) so that you can post to the Vetsulin experts to ask for help on dosing if you need to.

Hope that helps,
Sandi.

 

Thank you!

 

You are welcome. The good news is that, while a little scary at first, you should like the yellows and blues that you are starting to see now!

Have a good evening

 

You should be pleased with still getting a yellow this morning (barely). But that big drop to 161 at AMPS+2 is something to keep an eye on. If you are home, I think I'd get another test at +4 or so just to be safe.


Ooops, almost forgot. In your spreadsheet for last night, even though you have a note there, the convention is to either put a zero or "NS" for "No Shot" in the units column for 10/15 PM so it is easy to see quickly for someone reviewing your spreadsheet without having to read the notes. Thx

 

Thanks, Sandi.

My vet thinks the low readings are because he's going into remission. I do appreciate the feedback, though, and the advice. I will correct my spreadsheet when I get home.
Question, if you don't give a shot, but test after you would have, how do you indicate that on the spreadsheet? For now I've just been adding a note.

Thanks again!

 

You might be headed towards remission, but in my experience most vets are a little too quick to call it and I think it is a little early to know for sure. Often, vets generally don't like to see numbers as low as some of us are striving for, BUT REMEMBER that most owners aren't home testing either...so for safety's sake, the vets often tell owners to stop insulin earlier than most of us would to head off tragic consequences.

In the spreadsheet, whether you give a shot or not it just goes in the grid at the appropriate time slot -- which I think is what you are doing? Like if the evening shot would have been at 7:30pm, but the test was 94 and too low to give insulin, you put "94" in PMPS, "NS" in the Units column ("U") to show you didn't give one, and then if you test 3 hours later before you go to bed at 10:30pm and you get a 139, that 139 goes in the +3 column. I think that is what you are doing already, and if so, that looks perfect. You can still put whatever you feel comfortable with in the Remarks column, but we like to keep the grid pretty standard so that in a 911 emergency, other members can all look at the grid very quickly and get almost all of the information that we need in order to give advice without having to decipher the owner's remarks. I hope that makes sense.

As far as remission or not, or other dosing adjustment advice, you might want to try posting over in the Vetsulin forum ( http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/caninsulin-vetsulin-and-n-nph.19/ ) to get acquainted with some of the experienced users of your insulin to help guide you with normal dosing questions. I am not sure about his next part, but I believe that I have seen someone say that if users of insulin other than Lantus/Levemir have an emergency, post both in your own insulin's forum as well as copying and pasting it into a new 911 post in Feline Health (The Main Forum), just because there are more eyes on Feline Health at all hours of the day than there are the Vetsulin forum. Lantus/Levemir has so much activity that it usually isn't necessary. No one will fault you for OVERposting anywhere and everywhere in an emergency!!


Precious is adorable, he looks like my first cat/pet ever, Scooter, who I didn't get until I was a senior in high school. He lived to the age of 23 with my Mom, not passing away until I was 40! Since I was late to having pets, I am making up for lost time by having so many at all times