Plans for curve today - stymied? LOW BG

So I had big plans today to do my first 12 hour curve at home with Akila, since I'll be home all day with family, just eating and cooking. I was excited to see what info we would end up gathering and how useful it would be for us as we are embarking on this road.

At 6:30am, disoriented from just stumbling out of bed and having a very hungry cat screaming at me at the top of her lungs, I barely remembered in time not to just stick food in front of her as fast as possible to get her to quiet down so the neighbors don't call the police. I pulled out the glucose meter and tried to check her levels. The first attempt didn't work out so well because I shoved the wrong end of the test strip in. After turning it around and putting blood on it, it read 79. WTH? Based on my (limited) experience so far, I expected low 200s. I figured I had contaminated the test strip with my fumbling, so got a new one out and started fresh. 79. Oh no. I wasn't expecting to have to THINK this early! I was luckily aware enough to realize I should not give her any insulin, gave her food, and just came back for another test at +1 hour. 101. So the readings are consistent at least. But completely surprising. I have so many questions:

1. Should I feed her more now? She wolfed down her food (per usual) but with such low (well, I guess normal?) BG levels, this might be a nice opportunity to fatten her up a little bit after the weight she's lost the last few months before diagnosis.

2. Should I abandon my plans for the curve today? Why test her every hour or two and hurt her poor ear when there's no insulin to monitor a curve for, right?

3. Why in the heck would her BG have dropped so much? I know I've only done a few days' worth of monitoring and I guess I lulled myself into a sense of already knowing what to expect, but this is scary! Especially after our experience a few days after diagnosis (http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/my-senior-cat-gets-a-new-diagnosis.188502/#post-2095114), I'm pretty scared of her ODing again, and I had no idea we might be working toward that again even on about half the dose. This is pretty scary stuff!

Knowing many people will be enjoying the holiday, I don't expect necessarily timely answers to #1 and 2, so I'm going on my own recognizance and answering myself yes and yes. But, I welcome feedback. I haven't been able to get to reading so much of the info available here, so I apologize if this is a standard newbie issue. I thought I'd have time to leisurely read everything here over the course of days and weeks while Akila and I slowly and steadily worked toward getting her BG down a little further and fall into a nice pattern. So much for my plans!

 

No reason for a curve if no insulin has been given.

Your other post said you use Lantus. I am not very familiar with it. With Prozinc, if the pre-shot number is too low, you stall without feeding for 20 minutes than re-test. You can do that again, if needed, then if the number is still too low, you do not give insulin (or once you have more data/experience, you may give a reduced dose). Lantus is a different type of insulin though, so I am not sure if that same method applies. There are lots of Lantus users who I am sure will chime in (there is also a Lantus-specific forum where you can post).

If your baby is underweight, you can feed her as much low-carb wet food as she wants. The only time you want to make sure she does not have access to food is two hours prior to your pre-shot glucose test. That is so the test results will not be impacted by food. (It also helps make sure she is hungry enough to eat at shot time.)

It would be helpful if you could take a couple of minutes to set up a signature that provides basic info like date of diagnosis and insulin type used (like you see under our posts). Then, you would not have to repeat those things every time you post, and we would not have to read through previous posts to find the info. Also, it is important to set up a spreadsheet to record your glucose test results and doses given. You can put a link to it in your signature. That information is very important, not only to you, but to everyone here when you ask for advice. Maybe you can take the time you would have spent doing the curve testing to do that.

 

This is typical cat behavior. They do these little tricks to keep us on our toes. About your questions, #1, I would go ahead and feed her as much as she wants, as long as it is low carb wet food. Just take up all food two hours before the next test time.

#2, You can do a curve on another day. Don't worry, it's not the end of the world.

#3, did she not eat all of her food last night? Maybe she up-chucked it during the night or the stars were in the wrong place. Cats do these things because they can.

 

Not a Lantus expert but learning! We also stall without feeding if the preshot number is too low (how low depends on what meter you're using and what guidelines/method/protocol).

When I got a surprisingly low morning number for Quintus it was because he had slept through the night without eating.

 

Hmmm...the only thing that was unusual last night (that I just remembered while reading another thread) was that Akila got an extra special Christmas Eve treat when we all turned our backs on a pan that was used to roast kielbasa and had some tasty juices left in it. I don't know how long she was slurping it up, and although it's not particularly sugary, I wouldn't have expected her BG levels to DROP off a cliff because of it. Otherwise, everything seems normal around here, and it's scary to think of all the times I have given her insulin doses with a meal not knowing what her BG levels were, assuming it followed a pattern and would always be high right before a meal when she'd been +10-12 hours since food or insulin.

 

This is why testing and recording results is so important. It is possible that her dose is too high. You just cannot determine something like that without data though.

 

I am so grateful to my vet that she spent an hour going over how to care for a diabetic cat. Step by step she showed me how to test and had me practice in front of her. The same with the injection. She explained what to do in case of a hypo. She went over what Callie could eat and when and how much.

She sent me home with a vial of Vetsulin, an Alphatrack kit, a box of 100 syringes, a case of low carb wet prescription cat food and tons of stuff to read. And a big bill.

She has been open to my bringing new ideas that I learn from here and she loves the spreadsheet so much she has all her other diabetic cat parents use one. The vet tech says I know more about diabetic cats than most vets. I think that is true of most people who are on here.

 

Testing before shooting is a very important step. You could stall 20 mins, test again to see if going up. 79 is a shootable number if you comfortable with it and can monitor. Start a thread and someone can stay with you the first time to give support. With Lantus you shoot low to stay low. Of course you may want some more data before attempting.

Merry Christmas!