Hypo help request

You didn't get snappy. You were under a lot of stress. It's okay. Get some sleep and tomorrow will be better.

 

She's obviously feeling better too as she's back to purring when being petted or held!

 

There's your reward!

 

Last thing, Sarah. Do you have some Neosporin ointment? We recommend you rub it on their ear at night to help it heal from all the testing. The kind with pain relief is best, if you have it. Just a little bit, and then you wipe it off in the morning.

 

I'm going to bed now, Sarah. Sleep tight!

 

@Tricia Cinco(GA) & Harvey you are an angel to stay up all night with Sarah!! Thanks so much!

Sarah, I know how immediate responses are from the Facebook group, but honestly, I have seen some terrible advice given on the group by people who shouldn't be giving advice. I've also seen people who I know have never used a particular insulin - like Novolin - give advise on dose adjustments. That's foolish and they are taking the life of someone else's cat into their own hands when they haven't got the appropriate experience to be able to give advise. I hope you will learn what you need to know about using the insulin here. Novolin isn't recommended for cats, but because it is less expensive we do see some people using it. You can take a look at this link below if you are interested in other options.

2014 ~ 39th Congress of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA)

• Which Insulin in Cats - p 156
• Management and Monitoring of the Diabetic Cat - p 160
• Feline Diabetes - p 229
• Diabetes Mellitus and Quality of Life - p 730
• Acromegaly in Cats – p 733
• Insulin Resistance – p 737 (description of mechanisms of resistance on p 738 under heading Pet)
• Medical and Nutritional Management of Diabetes Mellitus – p 739 (description on p 741 of glucose toxicity and lipotoxicity)

​

If there is any way you can manage using ProZinc, Lantus or Levemir you will find more experienced users here that can teach you. They also last longer in the body, and therefore provide better blood sugar control in cats. Levemir is the newest and isn't typically recommended, but we've seen excellent results with it and it is dosed following the same guidelines as Lantus. If I had a cat on insulin now (Punkin has passed away) I would absolutely choose Levemir.

While you are using the Novolin, there is a guide on how to use it. This is from the Insulin Support Group for Caninsulin, Novolin/Humulin (same insulin, different brands) users. http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/humulin-n-primer.303/

Please don't feel guilty, however. You did everything right last night! Managing a diabetic cat can be extremely difficult in the beginning until you've learned how to use the insulin and how your cat responds. After that it becomes infinitely easier! Hang in there!

 

Tricia, I can never say thank you enough for everything you did last night!
Thank you too for everyone who commented or liked, it really showed the support there is on here.
As Punkin says, I have been getting all my info from the fb page because I could never navigate this, but I will certainly check out the links! Thank you!
Sylvia is my foster cat so the shelter pays for her care. They will not pay for a better insulin and at the moment I'm not in a position to buy it instead. It's been a long process, getting the vet on board with anything! It took me a year and a very scary hypo to get her to agree to me testing and give me a cut off number for dosing. ("I'm going to believe what I was taught in vet school not what you found on the internet" BTW vet school was a good 30+ years ago!!) I have to be careful to follow their treatment plan because she is not technically mine. I didn't realize you could give dosing advice here at the time.
As an update. She's doing well, resting a lot but I guess that's understandable? I do have neosporin and have been putting it on her ears. I didn't get the one with the pain med in though.
I called the vet to ask about dosing for the next couple of tests and was told "Don't give insulin when she is low, test and make sure she is eating before you give it to her" So that was extremely helpful
Is this the food Chris was talking about? It seems harder to get the gravy out than it was with the Friskies last night! Is there anything else I should have on hand, especially to feed her with?
Thank you all again for everything. Tricia, you were amazing and kept me (somewhat!) calm! Thank you!!
Sarah and Sylvia

 

Yes, that's it!! What we usually do is pop the top, put it back down and "squeeze" the gravy into another bowl when we need it.....you can actually get quite a bit of gravy out of a can but it is messy!!

 

Hi, Sarah. You did great last night! Tricia's one of the best, she's helped me more times than I can count! I read along with your "pajama party' but didn't chime in because you and Tricia had everything well under control and there was nothing I could add except more words and I didn't want to be a distraction.

Any of the "gravy lovers" or gravy-style foods will do. A lot of us feed the LC Fancy Feast pates, so we just naturally go to their gravy foods when we need a carb boost, but any brand is okay (just be careful because there have been some recent recalls on certain brands).

 

I personally would be completely lost without this board, especially in the begining.
All the information contained in the stickies, the collective guidance, support, knowledge and wisdom I received here has helped me keep some semblance of sanity and may have saved my cats life.
Sounds dramatic, but it's all true.
I believe there a funding source that some of the more experienced people here could discuss with you to help out with finances for treating FD. Hope someone will see this and weigh in. If not, I'll try digging around to try to find more info.
Here is a link you may find useful useful
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/tips-how-to-get-the-most-help-on-this-site.1267/
Sorry if I'm bombarding you with info. I know you've got your hands full!

 

You're not bombarding me at all! I'm calm and ready to do more research now! I thought I learnt a lot from the FB page but I didn't know nearly enough!
How do you squeeze a can?!

 

HaHa. Just open the top and pull the lid back partway. Then push it back down into the can. It will help push the gravy out around it and keep the meat in the can. Chris taught me how to do it and she's right it can be a bit messy!

 

I honestly never thought to do this before! Until i read abt it here.

 

Ah! Ok! That makes sense!! I didn't think of that! What a great idea!! What carb calculator does everyone use? I've been using the one on the right with the waving cat but it worked out that gravy lovers was 13% carb. Is that right? Should I get something else too for emergencies? What's higher?
Thanks!

 

You don't squeeze the can....you squeeze the food....LOL

 

According to the Food Chart, the Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers are all in the 20% range (column C)

 

Eek! Thanks! I blame the lack of sleep! What's a more accurate way to check a food in the store?

 

Also, should I give her insulin tonight? She's back up to her usual 500's

 

Yes I would give insulin tonight but a reduced dose from last night....maybe 1.5

It will really help if you'll go ahead and start keeping track of her numbers on our spreadsheet program. Here are the Instructions on getting the FDMB spreadsheet (if you have any trouble, let me know....I can set it up for you...just click on my name and choose "start a conversation" to send me a private message)

Also, you'll see under our comments is some general information about us/our cats in the "Signature box"...It would help for you to get that filled out too. To do the signature just click on your sign on name at the top right of the page and choose "Signature".....a new box will pop up for you to enter information. We like to see:

Your name/cats name, age, sex, date of diagnosis, type of insulin, type of meter you use, type of food you feed, any other health problems? and a general idea of where you live. When it's set up, the link to your spreadsheet also goes into the Signature. When you're done, hit "save"

 

I meant to attach the spreadsheet in the first post, sorry, I didn't realize that it didn't work! I haven't put last night's numbers in yet, but this is what I have so far.
I will do the signature bit as well, thank you!

 

that works, but you have it saved as a pdf file.....the actual spreadsheet is on Google (If you click on where it says "China's SS 2017" in my signature, you'll see what I mean.

If you have the link saved in your signature like mine, it's always there, every time you post.....You don't have to remember to upload a new version each time

 

I have it in google and it doesn't seem to be a PDF on there. I created a link but don't know where to look for it!

 

If it's in Google, you should see a blue "Save" at the top right....if you click there, a new box will open and it will give you the link to "share"

 

Did your vet give you directions on what to do with the dose after last night? She should have told you to reduce and how much to give as the "new" dose.

I switched to using the Friskies gravy choices because they had a lot more gravy in them. We use the chart at www.catinfo.org - look on the right side bar for the "protein, fat, carbs" link, then look at the chart, noticing which column lists carbs. I chose a high carb (HC) food that was over 20% carbs for punkin. You can increase the carbs in gravy by adding a drop of syrup (honey, maple, corn) in the future.

There is an insulin support group for those using Novolin that I linked above - not many users, but I suspect if you started posting daily there you would get some answers from those who are experienced in using that insulin.

 

Hi Sarah.

I'm glad I was there for moral support. You did all the work!

Until you get the spreadsheet up and running and linked, it will help us help you if you can give us Sylvia's reading for the day. We usually put them in the subject line and up date it as we get more tests. Look at some other threads and you'll see how. What are her readings so far today?

How long have you had Sylvia? Are you considering adopting her? I don't think DCIN could help while she's a foster, but if she were yours they might be able to help you with the cost of insulin so you could switch to a better one. Just a thought.

I've got dinner in the oven but just wanted to pop in and check on you. I slept late this morning and have been trying to get caught up all day.

 

I think I did it ok! Still need to add todays, 300+ this AM 500+tonight. The vet did not give dosing advice apart from 'don't give insulin in her BG is low' Ugggg!!
I've had Sylvia about two years, the shelter and vet basically think of her as mine. When I go away, she boards at the vet and will pretty much only eat DM dry food , neither of which I can cover at the moment. She is so unstable that I wouldn't feel comfortable with someone coming in twice a day, giving her the shot and leaving.
Plus, she really doesn't like other cats and really should be able to be queen of her own castle so I still want to keep her options open although I know she won't get seen while here!
I will check out the Novalin group, thank you!
Thank you for checking in on us!

 

You did great!

A couple of tips: 1) When you add a reading that includes a fraction of the +# (like at +2.5), the cell will not color it in for you. You can color it in yourself by clicking on the cell, then clicking on the icon that looks like a paint can and selecting the appropriate color for that reading. If the numbers should be white, just click on the next icon to the left, the A with two lines under it, to change the font color.

2) When you take more than one reading in an hour, you can stack them in the same cell. To do that, type the first in the cell, like "101". Then, when you get the second reading, go back to the cell and add "83@2.5". I usually put one or two spaces between those two entries. Then, with the cell highlighted, click on the icon up in the taskbar that looks like two vertical lines and an arrow pointing right (it's above the N column). You will see a box with three choices. You want to click on the one in the middle, that looks like a U-turn arrow. That will wrap the text so that it all fits in the cell. You can look at Harvey's SS to see some cells that are wrapped and how they look.

 

Good job on the signature and the link works too!!.....but I noticed earlier on your spreadsheet that it's not color coding your test numbers (I also see you added a column titled "FS Lite"....that column may not have the conditional formatting).....You might try putting the AMPS and PMPS numbers into the correct columns and see if the formatting will work

 

Good catch, Chris. I didn't see that. What is FS Lite, Sarah? If those are your preshot numbers, the go in the previous column. In case no one explained it, AMPS means "morning preshot" and PMPS means "evening preshot", and that's where you put your readings from shot time.

 

She's using the Freestyle Lite strips in the AT meter (according to her signature)

 

Ahhhh! You're much cleverer than I!

 

@Sarah & Sylvia .....LOVE the picture!! She's gorgeous!!!

 

Ooooh! Pretty girl!

 

I'm not on the forum everyday. You had some great help during the hypo incident. You may want to go back and type in the numbers for historical reference.

Congrats on saving your kitty and being prepared.