is corn syrup ok to give?

Liberty has been on a week trial of insulin and tonight he started to act kind of sluggish and a little off. Our glucose monitor hasnt come in yet and I'm starting to wonder if his blood sugar is too low. Is it ok to give him corn syrup right now while i'm worried? any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

What type of insulin and how long since his shot? Do you have some high carb food? Maybe try a spoon of that b4 syrup. If he becomes very drowsy and can't be awakened, then maybe give syrup and head to the er. How far to an er vet clinic? You don't want to delay treatment for a hypo or a potential one. They are life threatening.

 

prozinc and its been almost 6 hours since his last shot. its about a half hour to an er clinic

 

He should be approaching the lowest point if reacting normally to Prozinc. Sorry I didn't ask dose. I think that you either need to be prepared to stay up for another 2 hours and feed tiny bits of food (hi carb if you have it) and watch him to be sure that he stays alert or take him to the er to be tested to put your mind at rest.

 

We gave him some high carb food (friskies with gravy) and he's eating that like crazy. He gets 1 unit of insulin every 12 hours right now and he's supposed to be going in to the vet tomorrow morning to check on things.

 

Do you have a neighbour or a friend/relative close by who is a diabetic? Their metre can be used for a test.

 

No I don't. are there any cheap ones at the store that I could buy for the time being?

 

Many people use a metre from Walmart called Relion. I think it and the strips are quite inexpensive. How long until you get your other metre? I'd be nervous about giving insulin with out being able to test.

 

Yeah I was starting to feel uneasy about it the last couple of days but thought he would be fine since he goes in to the vet in the morning. My meter should be in within the next couple of days

 

Are you waiting for the AlphaTrak??

If that's the case, you might want to seriously consider going with a human meter like the Relion Confirm or Micro from WalMart (if you live in the US).....the strips for the AT are about $1 a piece and if you run out at 3am on a Sunday morning (when our sugarcats tend to drop too low) you can't get strips right away

All our insulin protocols are written for human meters, so people here are very familiar with the readings

 

I didn't know before I ordered the alphatrak that human meters could be used, I went with the alphatrak because our vet suggested it

 

Most vets do, but that doesn't mean you have to use it....especially if money is tight

Not many people can afford to test as much as we'd like (at least 3-4 times a day) and those days they're running low, you might test 10 or more times in a 24 hour period....that runs into some real money

You could keep the AT as a backup meter

As much as I tested China in the beginning, I would have been spending over $200 a month on just test strips using the AT

 

Do tell the vet tomorrow that you were concerned that Liberty dropped low tonight. Liberty's numbers might be higher than usual tomorrow, bouncing from a possible low tonight, and may not be a number that would indicate an insulin dose increase.

How is Liberty acting now?

 

Thats a very good point and money is definitely tight lately with all of his vet visits and emergency visits. I will definitely look into a human meter and keep the other one around as a back up

 

I got him to eat some higher carb food with gravy in it and he devoured that and I started to panic a little bit so I gave him a little bit of corn syrup. He seems to be acting a little better now, he's sleeping. but worried me keeps waking him up to make sure he's ok.

 

Welcome to the sugar dance.

You might want to post in the morning asking for dosage advice, or since you don't know what number you are shooting, skip altogether. The sooner you can start testing the better all round.

 

yes i will definitely start testing as soon as possible. thank you so much for all of your help!

 

How close to your regular shot time is your vet visit? I would be tempted not to give insulin in the morning and to buy a metre and get the vet to show you how to test with your metre and compare right there with his/hers. Given that you are using Prozinc you will not really lose any ground by skipping a shot. If your apt is late in the usual cycle, maybe a half unit.

I just had the 'no strips for the Alphatrac' situation over New Year's for a cat that I was pet sitting. I had to ration strips and it was not a good feeling.

 

It's about 2 hours later than the normal time I give his shot and I was leaning towards not giving a shot in the morning

 

I think that is a good choice. How is he now, other than fed up with you staring at him!?

 

Liberty's numbers might be higher in the morning from the possible low numbers plus the high carbs. But without testings, no one has any clue. I'd discuss your concerns with the vet.

If your AlphaTrak is still on order, I'd suggest picking up a cheap Relion plus a box of extra strips from Walmart tomorrow before your vet visit (I'm assuming you are in the US).

The vet might say that they prefer you use a pet meter because human meters and pet meter numbers work on different scales and the side-by-side numbers will be different. That is to be expected.
Don't worry about it. A lot of people here use human meters. Some use AlphaTrak. There is familiarity with both.

The important thing is to test, then get a spreadsheet started. Here is the link. If you need help with it, just holler. http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/

Also, here is the link regarding hypos: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/how-to-treat-hypos-they-can-kill-print-this-out.15887/

The hypo toolbox: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/jojo-and-bunnys-hypo-tool-box.2354/

I hope all goes well tomorrow.

Good night.

 

You did a great job keeping him safe... You paid attention to the symptoms, reached out for help, and are going to home test. Very good.


I use alphatrak and really love it because I like that it's calibrated for feline blood so the readings are the same as my vet. Strips are expensive at about a dollar each. The cheapest place to get the them that I've found is adw.com who always have discount codes. I usually get 50 strips for $48.

If cost is an issue then you can use a human meter with the understanding that the readings will be lower than the Alphatrak. The human meter can still tell you if the cat is high or in danger though.