new to home monitoring HELP!

After several years with a diabetic cat, I recently bought a monitor (Relione ultima) to conduct home tests. Over the past month my cats insulin dosage has increased from 3.5 (where it has been for the past year and half) to 6.5 units twice a day and I wanted to more closely monitor her levels. After having a curve done at the vet today, I took reading right before I feed her (12 hours from her morning feed) which the vet said should be less than 200 mg/l and I'm getting really high readings 450-500 mg/l. I tried the test 4 times with the same result. I recalibrated the meter and checked the experation on the strips, all appears normal. Should I take this meter back to the store and try another? Not sure what to do. Thanks for any advice.

 

test yourself

Stress can cause High blood sugar -- if you just got home from the vet, kitty could just be stressed out.

 

Thanks for the quick reply, the test was conducted about 4 hours after getting back from the vet.

 

Why was the increase made? That might give us some clues.

Sometimes too much insulin will make BG numbers go up. You'd think it's always too little, but it can be too much.

To see if the meter is working, try testing yourself (prick the side of a finger, up past the top joint, but not the tip - pricking the tip really hurts). If you aren't diabetic, you should get a number probably somewhere in the 90s, maybe a bit lower, maybe a bit higher, but not *way* off.

ReliOn meters are usually fine, but there can be a lemon in any brand.

Do you have ketostiks to check for ketones in the urine? That would be the main worry with high numbers. If ketones don't turn up, cats can tolerate higher numbers better than people can.

 

Why has your cat's insulin dose been increased so much? What did they base the increases on? Was it on a blood test called Fructosamine?

We discourage basing insulin doses based on blood sugar readings obtained while at the vet clinic because cats stress easily and it makes their blood sugar go up much higher than it would be at home. Therefore, the doses based on those artificially high readings are inaccurate. And the fructosamine test measures only the average blood sugar over a longer period of time, so it cannot tell you if the blood sugar has been low, which, because of the resulting Somogyi Rebound affect, may cause a higher than usual fructosamine result.

Do you know about Somogyi Rebound? Click the blue underlined words for article about it. I suspect that this is what's happening because the dose has been raised so high. Before the dose increase to 6.5U, did you notice an increase in your cat's drinking and peeing habits compared to now?

Also, please tell us which type of insulin you're using so we can better assist you. The different insulins do not all act the same, so we need to know which type.

Bravo to you for getting a home testing kit! We can help you interpret the results and better understand why the insulin is causing these high numbers. One more thing I'd like to see you get are ketone test strips. You can get them from any pharmacy. You stick them in a urine sample, we can help you figure out how to do that as well. With blood sugar this high, it's important to test for ketones as soon as possible.

 

I didn't care for the ReliOn Ultima, but I DO LOVE the ReliOn Micro. You only need a very tiny amount of blood, but you do not need to calibrate the meter. What type of diet is your kitty on? If he/she is eating high carb foods.. this will also give you high readings. Like Vickie stated... if you could give us more info... that would help us help you. ;-)