? Question about doing an at-home curve...

Should any left-over food be taken up during a 12 hour curve?

We wanted to try our first curve at home this weekend and went for a quick instruction with a tech last week on how to do the prick and work the meter we purchased. Fortunately a family member that is also a tech was in town over the weekend and agreed to come by to oversee our first prick...we needed the moral support! We took the first reading, fed her and then gave the injection. Our kitty is given 1.5 cans of FF per feeding and normally doesn't eat 100% of the food all at one time. Usually in the first 15 minutes or so of feeding I'd say she eats 50-75% of the food but will then take a little break (this is normally when we give the insulin) and come back for the remaining bits over the next 1-2 hours I'd say. Well, vet-tech family member came by again later in the evening when it was nearly time for another reading and noticed we still had the bowl down and questioned if we were told to pick up the food or let her continue eat. Neither of us remember specifically being told to pick up the food and not let her eat anymore after the first injection during a curve, but she says in her hospital they do and that the food can effect the numbers. Of course, that makes sense and we felt pretty dumb, we just didn't think about it. We stopped the curve at that point so as not to needlessly continue pricking her the rest of the night. We want to be sure to do it right when we try again though, so what is the protocol on that?

 

It's fine to leave food down....it's actually easier on the pancreas to deal with small, frequent meals instead of two big ones

The only time we want to make sure to get a test without the influence of food is the Pre-shot tests......Food should be taken up for the 2 hours before AM and PM Pre-shot tests

 

Hi @SummerS ,
Ideally, you should feed on a 'curve' day just as you would on any other typical day initally, because you want to see how the insulin works in your kitty's body on a 'normal' day (although every day will be different to some extent....).
But as Chris says above, DO remove food for the last couple of hours before a preshot test. That's just so that the preshot test isn't influenced by food (food can elevate the blood glucose and give a skewed preshot test result...)

You're doing great! (((Hugs)))

Eliz

 

Thanks for the responses! Kinda bummed we were doing fine and stopped then Oh well, we're planning to give it another go this weekend. I will be sure to make certain no food is available 2 hours pre-shot, but I'd say 99.9% of the time she's licked the bowl clean well before that anyhow!