Total newbie: can I trust my meter?

Our family cat (Marley, Female 7years) went to the vet Wednesday pretty sick, diagnosed with ketoacidosis and UTI. We brought her home Friday with instructions to give 1 unit vetsulin 2x per day and follow up in 7 days. Saturday morning she seemed a little less active than when we brought her home, and having been drilled by the vet to watch out for hypo, I was a little concerned...so i ran over to WalMart and got the ReliOn Confirm meter and some strips. Tested myself at 120mg/dl then started testing the cat. I'm getting numbers in 500s and 400s for her, but she seems to be feeling a bit better. Looking at the info on this site, I decided to test her every 2 hrs from when we got the meter and produced the following curve (so far):
Note: feeding times are squares, skipped a couple of x'd readings


Based on the high numbers I was getting Saturday, I upped her vetsulin dose to 1.5 units this morning (our vet isn't open 'til Monday, but I felt this would be better than continuing at 1 unit). So far today's curve is a bit better, but still quite high.

At this point I'm not sure whether I should trust the meter readings, and increase the dose to 2 units, or not. Any thoughts would be helpful.

 

Not much of a curve. However, cats can tolerate high BGs like that and not show any symptoms for considerable amount of time

 

The meter is likely accurate. See my signature link Glucometer Notes.
And good job on testing her! A lot of folks find that difficult.

Just a thought - what are you feeding her?

 

We've been feeding 4 Friskies Special Diet varieties : Beef & Chicken Entree, Ocean Whitefish Dinner, Salmon, and Turkey and Giblets Dinner. They're all pate style..and supposedly fairly low in carbs.

 

How much do the calorie contents vary between flavors?

 

Looking at Pierson's List:
Special Beef & Chicken Entree 35 60 5 242 45 32 6 1.1 181
Turkey & Giblets Dinner 37 58 5 189 45 30 6 0.8 166
Whitefsh Dinner 37 59 4 351 45 30 5 1.5 172
With Salmon 38 55 7 228 45 27 8 1.0 149

Per Vet, Marley's ideal weight is around 12 lbs (which she is), she's been getting 2 cans/day

 

Some of the fluctuation could be the calorie counts. In a small animal like a cat, 30 calories or so, can be a lot.

 

I din't think of that... maybe we'll try to stick to a single variety.

 

Hi Matt (and extra-sweet Marley),
Welcome to FDMB

Top job on the testing!
Those numbers may continue to come down a bit once the UTI resolves.

Are you testing Marley's pee for ketones, Matt?
You can do this with Ketodiastix (or similar) test strips, available from most pharmacies.
Here's a link to a page of pics and info about how to use Ketodiastix, and also tips on how to catch a pee sample..
http://www.sugarpet.net/urine.html

Best wishes,

Eliz

 

I did a ketone test yesterday evening, and got 'trace'. When she was hospitalized last week they were in the HIGH range both Weds & Thursday, and had come down (but not vanished) when she came home Friday. I will be checking again this evening to make sure they are not any worse. Certainly don't want her getting back to where she was last week.

I did try a bit higher (2 unit) dose of the vestulin this morning, but readings were still very high today (low 400s around nadir). Here's our full history so far...

 

She's nowhere near too low and the nadirs, or lowest levels are well above 300 mg/dL. I would kick it up another 0.5 units.

Also, be sure to push the fluids - add some to the canned food, almost to point of being like a thick soup. This will help flush out any ketones.

I found our Vetsulin/Caninsulin Primer for you, too.

 

Thanks! We'll see how 2.5 goes tonight, and try some 'soup' as well

 

Update...
I heard back from our vet about the results we have had so far, and she wants us to stay at 2 units for 2 weeks.. she thinks Marley will show continued improvement without increasing the dose. I don't know if that's reasonable to expect, but I guess we'll go with the doc and stay at 2 units for at least a few days and see how things go.

I guess since we're not adjusting, we'll just test her pre-shot and at +4 for a couple of days. Her poor ears are well pricked at this point.

 

How are the daily home ketone tests going?