Hi everyone

Hi all! My name is Diana. My cat Chester who is 12 yoa was DKA and hospitalized. He came home after 3 days and is now on vetsulin. I am trying to gain all the knowledge I can of this to help him live a happier life. I want to do my own glucose testing at home and am new and don't really know where to start. Any suggestions would be great. Are the numbers the same as a vet glucose meter? My vet tells me I would need a specific pet glucose meter and I am reading otherwise. Thanks everyone!

 

Welcome Diana and Chester! I'm so glad Chester is home and doing better. It's good that you are educating yourself about Chester's condition. That is the best way you can help him. Most of us use a human meter (I got mine at Walmart). The test strips are much cheaper than the pet specific ones, and we use a lot of strips! The numbers do read a bit lower than the vet meters, but you see the trends that tell you if the insulin dose is working or needs to be changed. There are lots of videos on YouTube showing how to test. What are you feeding Chester? A low carb canned food is best, (I use Fancy Feast) but you need to be testing before you change his diet because that alone can lower his BG's significantly. Again, welcome and be sure to ask questions!

 

Welcome to FDMB.
We have reference guidelines which are based on human glucometers, so you don't need the pricey pet meter with test strips at $1.00 each. When you're testing at least 2 times a day (always before shots), that's up around $60.00 a month!