My brain hurts

Hi folks. Newbie here. I'm Nancy. My diabetic cat is Lolly. She was diagnosed on 12/12. There's so much to process, my brain hurts.

Lolly has been on 2 units of ProZinc twice a day. After her first curve, 2 weeks in, her numbers were so improved that the vet said it was likely she'd go in to remission.

Sunday night I fed her and gave her her shot. 3 hours later she had a hypoglycemic episode. I gave her Karo and more food . The Karo worked almost immediately, the full recovery took about an hour.

Side note.......if you're also new to this and are unsure whether you'll recognize the signs of hypoglycemia let me assure you, you will.

Luckily, we had an appointment for a curve Monday morning. I neither fed nor gave her her shot Monday. I took food and insulin along and let the vet take care of it.

Her curve results were good. For some reason they neglected to give me a copy and I didn't realize it until I got home but her numbers dropped as low as 75 during the day. I was instructed not to give her insulin at her 8pm feeding as she had received a shot later than usual because she didn't want to eat. I was also instructed to drop her dose to one unit twice a day. I also bought a meter at that time.

This morning I tried to check her glucose with the meter and succeeded in poking myelf and upsetting her. I opted to skip the shot as I had to leave for work and was unwilling to risk another hypoglycemic episode while nobody was home.

This evening, about 7:45, I successfully tested her blood and got a reading of 145. This is after about 28 hours of no insulin. The vet's office told me to skip the insulin if she was under 150 so I did.

Experts, please weigh in with your thoughts, observations, criticism, anything.


Thank you so much for taking the time to read this lengthy post.

 

@Kris & Teasel

 

Hi, and Welcome!!

Congratulations on testing at home, that is going to help him a lot, hopefully some of the experts in Pro Zinc will take a look soon, in the mean time here we use a spreadsheet to keep record of all the test results that helps a lot to see what is going on (both to the people here and to you) it would be great if you could set it up, here are the instructions http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/

Those results you mentioned look promising though but still a bit on the high side for him to be considered on remission, you would probably need a bit more history to really know what's going on

 

Thank you!

 

2 units to start was too much. The recommended starting dose is 1 unit twice a day. What are you feeding? You may be able to control the numbers with just a diet change.

 

Fancy Feast pate. 1 can twice a day.

I did buy a glucose meter but I don't always have luck getting a blood sample. She's very uncooperative and I don't like to stress her out. I realize I'll get better with practice.

Could you tell me please, at what glucose level would you not give a dose (1 unit) of insulin? Under 150? Under 200?

Or would you give half a unit?

Any advice is welcome.

Thank you!

 

We don't usually recommend new people to shoot under 200 until you really have more data and can test more easily.

 

I've been having better luck testing. Today her numbers were 163 in the AM and 160 a few minutes ago. I didn't dose either time.

For the week the highest number I've gotten was 183, the lowest 145. She seems to be consistently hovering around 160 though. Thoughts?

I sincerely appreciate all the help from you kind folks.