01/24 Lucy AMPS 402 +4 361 Home Testing 1st Time

Red83

Red83

Member
Yesterday

I am really struggling/overwhelmed. I'm exhausted and this chronically impacts my sleep. I am trying not to be worried sick, but am panicing.

He acts hungry but won't eat much. I am working on Suggestions on How to Stimulate Kitty's Appetite, started Mirtazapine 3 hrs ago, and going to pick up an anti-nausea med later today.

With SLGS if they don't eat do you skip the shot?
"Hold the dose for at least a week: Unless your cat won’t eat or you suspect hypoglycemia"
I am switching to SLGS due to not being on a LC wet food yet per yesterday's advice.

Now that I feed multiple times a day he may only eat as little as 1/16 or 1/8 a can of 5.5oz at a time. (~10-20g total food) If he does not eat I will stall and post... (EDITS a LOT, I had an appt right after the injection so wasn't going to be able to stall/that was making this stressful so I rescheduled the appointment and deleted that text from this post. I am sorry about any confusion.) The Libre stopped working so I will have a hard crash course in learning home testing today. I will need to do my first home test ever before injecting.

I am trying to go buy enticing foods/additives and pickup nausea meds now.

I still have some questions from yesterday from other members I need to get to. Thank you so much for your input and support and I will get back to those soon...

I want a neutral/+ association with injections/inhaler so have been using low doses of Gabapentin to calm him and set a peaceful routine that I am weaning him off. It has worked well.
 
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Hi….can we know your name please?
I’m sorry the Libre stopped working….that’s quite common.
Good luck with home testing…we are here if you need help

Red83 said:
With SLGS if they don't eat do you skip the shot?
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Don’t skip the dose with DKAin the recent past. Stall, don’t feed and test again in 20 minutes to see if the BG is rising.
And post and ask for help.

Red83 said:
started Mirtazapine 3 hrs ago, and going to pick up an anti-nausea med later today.
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When you get the anti nausea medications give that first and then wait an hour before giving the appetite stimulant.
Don’t let the vets fob you off about anti nausea medication. Insist on it. Most post DKA kitties have nausea when they are recovering at home and need antinausea meds. As I said Ondansetron is best but cerenia is better than nothing. Get both if you can.

Sounds as if you are doing a great job getting sorted out!
Thank you for changing the background colour of the SS and turning it up the other way!
And I see you managed to test for ketones and they were negative…..excellent!
Let us know how you get on at the vet.
Keep asking all the questions you need to
Bron
 
I just glanced at your ss comments. Sounds like she’s nauseous. Did your vet give you cerenia or for ondansetron? Stimulating the appetite of a nauseous cat can lead to food aversions so it is good you will give medication for nausea. . Eating small amounts often is fine but you do want her to eat at least 1/2 and preferably 3/4 if her normal amount without ketones and more if ketones are present.
 
Yes, my name is Alex (she/her) and I am in the Bay Area. Thank you Bron for insisting, I’m picking up Cerenia this evening and noted about Ondansetron and timing.

In order to help stimulate appetite I bought some Tiki Cats low carb and am headed to the grocery store. The phosphorus is a little high but the point is that if I only feed a little and not a steady diet of it, it’s OK right? The hard part is he is allergic to chicken and now I’m concerned about mercury. Plus right now I need higher carb foods since we want the carb switch to be gradual and I have only been researching very low carb foods! So I will try using them as toppers rather than a meal…

Feels like this is coming at me too fast and has completely taken over my life. I love my kitty more than anyone and anything, but please tell me this gets easier!

edit: “Stimulatingthe appetite of a nauseous cat can lead to food aversions so it is good you will give medication for nausea.” actually I think this may be happening, a new thing works once. I will focus on the anti nausea meds priority one
 
It will get easier. I know how overwhelmed you are. We all have been in your shoes. You are ahead of me as initially I was determined not to test at home. Nobody I knew that has diabetic cats did. That changed and I was a testaholic. Once you learn Lucy’s patterns and carb sensitivity it will be much easier. Just keep asking questions.
 
Hi Alex!
Things will get easier. At the moment it is all happening but it will settle down to a routine.
Try and find some foods that he will eat. At the moment I would just concentrate on finding things he will eat and not worry too much about the carb content. Eating plenty of food after DKA is more important than making sure it is low carb. We can worry about low carb after his eating improves.
 
Red83 said:
I love my kitty more than anyone and anything, but please tell me this gets easier!
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Absolutely it gets better. But the first couple months it can feel like a fire hose of information is pointed at you. :bighug: We've all been there, which is why you've got people helping you out, even those who no longer have our diabetic kitties.

As for food, can he do turkey? There are also options like rabbit, duck, lamb, venison. Low carb foods brands include Nature's Variety Instinct regular or limited ingredient, Merrick limited ingredient, Rawz, Identity, Hounds & Gatos and many more. Just make sure to read the labels for ingredients to makes sure chicken not in there. Lots of people here feed Fancy Feast, and they have a turkey and giblets pate that is fish and chicken free.

For high carb food, First Mate does a HC turkey, also their second line called Kasiks. Both are lowish in phosphorus. Lotus pate's have turkey, duck and pork and vegetables that are lower P and higher carbs. There are more, but that's just be looking up to the "L" section of Dr. Pierson's sortable list. I entered the maxiumum phorphosus and 25% for carbs. Then you have to look up the product and check the ingredient list. A lot have chicken or "meat by product" so unknown. If it comes to it, adding honey or a drop of karo to his regular food also works.
 
THANK YOU for the reassurance, I need a hug (who doesn’t), and for food recommendations — I’m good at home in front of a spreadsheet but this “time sensitive” run to the store and start trying to figure out in the aisle is hard for me when I am overwhelmed by all the nutritional targets.

I got him to eat a hearty meal, first time in a while (maybe appetite stim kicked in). I have test strips arriving by 4pm but can’t risk FedEx messing it up (I don’t have any monitor on hand without those strips) so I’m going to run now to Walmart to buy a new monitor and strips, be back by 5:10pm to learn to home test and give his shot, then I need to leave ASAP to the vet to pick up the script before they close 6pm…

I will keep you posted because this is all rather precarious, including whether I can get him to eat again. Good news numbers should be high enough to shoot even without another meal, and his response usually to lantus is +8 to +11… I have strong data

thank you again
 
I always found it easier to decide before I left home what foods I would look for and only those. At first I went ato the store with all the info and got completely lost and confused the aisle.
Let us know how you get on with everything….we are with you in spirit.:)
 
Home testing isn't going well. Which am I supposed to prioritize:

- good impressions/vibes
- getting the test or insulin done in a timely manner

i.e. Most people do this over days. Forcing it now is obviously going to make this an uphill battle. It's already an uphill battle with shots and the inhaler and we've having to use drugs to sedate and create complacency.

But at this rate I could literally do this for the next 5 hours and then maybe finally get it done with "tolerance".

Where is the balance?

I was able to get him to bleed but not nearly enough blood and now he is not having it. I tried to test myself 2x and could not even get enoughb lood (0.5microL).

I have a 7pm booster appointment. So because I need to be able to live my life, do I just pause for the appt and come back and continue?

Edit: forgot to mention he is now refusing treats. He comes to associate treats w/ being poked/messed with. I read lots of articles and videos before now and am using them to assist, you guys just know this is hard.

Edit2: We are in the "I felt good with you touching my ears for a while, but now when you touch my ears I am alert and can't be calmed" stage
 
What size lancets do you have?
Size 26 or 28 so best for new members as they are bigger and will give you more blood.
Also you can change the depth of the prick by the dial on the side of the lancing device.
It could take a few day for you to both have success so don’t let that get your down. Very few of us have immediate success.
I’m going to tag @Melinda and Kitkat. They are fairly new feline diabetes and Melinda had a trouble testing in the beginning. Both Melinda and KitKat are now old hands at it.
Try taking Lucy to the testing spot, rub her ears and give her a treat. Do this several times without testing.
You will get there, I promise….
 
@Red83 I'm on a bit of a journey to get Ethan used to testing as well having used the Libre before...the first test went perfectly but then after that seemed to go downhill as he became hyper-concerned with me touching his ears.

I'm now trying to take the time to build up trust/get him used to the process and make it positive so it will be a painless routine when we have to test many times a day.

That being said, we had a decent amount of history on the Libre/and were not facing a dose increase, and if I was ever in a situation where I became concerned for his immediate well-being I would force a test if I had to (either get hubby to hold him down and/or do the kitty burrito).
 
They are 28.

Do you recommend I skip insulin or shoot blind until we are able to get a reading?

To be honest this is more than I can handle/breakdown. Every minute of today was spent on my cat, and my self care needs more than that. This has been going on for weeks. I just got him to the point of tolerating shots using light sedation (took a lot of work/counter conditioning), and it seems like he's associating all the negative experiences with the inhaler, shot, etc. now also with this new training for testing. I understand how hard it can be to undo a negative association. I have severe <health issues> getting aggravated by much of this including paying $4-5k in bills (as a student), hyper vigilance many days, and having experienced both DKA and hypo events, about how to handle not having BG #s. After all I've had that Libre like a security blanket and now, I am blind.

I understand the importance of home testing being a neutral or positive experience so will rush getting another Libre installed tomorrow. Emotionally I just am not ready to force testing, especially after going through this with injections.

The remaining question is what to do for the shot due an hour ago and the next one due in 11 hours. Any advice is welcome although I know it’s a tough call and no one but me is responsible for the consequences.

Thank you for your time and input.
 
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Red83 said:
THANK YOU for the reassurance, I need a hug (who doesn’t),
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Hi Alex, and first things first..... sending you a huge pile of BIG HUGS..... :bighug::bighug::bighug:( we all need hugs!) It will get easier, I promise... I too had one heck of a time, so I had to try many different strategies to test his BG and to give a shot.
Give yourself a pat on the back, you are dealing with the nausea and doing your best to keep him calm.
Red83 said:
I want a neutral/+ association with injections/inhaler so have been using low doses of Gabapentin to calm him and set a peaceful routine that I am weaning him off. It has worked well.
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Give yourself a pat on the back for looking into better healthy foods, organizing a meter, getting him his insulin, and all the things you've done so far . Taking all of these steps we need to go through to keep our kitties healthy. Prioritise all things as suggested :p One step at a time.
I doubt anyone here ever had it all under control in a short while!!!! :bighug:
You have very great advice above, I can suggest a few things for testing that worked for me..... maybe some of it will help.
I use the lancing device and found that the higher settings were needed to get a nice sample, mine was set on 5, the max, for the first couple weeks. Many times at first I had to do 2 pokes in quick succession to draw the blood. (depth does not truly equal increased pain).
I warmed up MY hands under hot water to have nice toasty warm fingers for the ear rub. I would take my time with a nice cuddle and a headscratch, tiny ear rub, more scracthes (butt scratches worked) and work up to a test.
I tried various treats, would put open bag very near his nose, let him sniff, just to distract. any test, successful or not , he got one.
Sneaking up on him went very badly, he too developed a food and treat aversion,,, change tactics, I would take the lancing device, test strips, and monitor to him and cuddle. I would show him them, let him sniff, and would rub him with each of these things,
I would click the device all over him while we cuddled ( lancet removed, of course) and make it a game, not testing then. he'd sniff etc and got over his fear of it.
Lastly, but importantly, I would talk to him the whole time,,test or not,, likely kept me calm as well, and he picked up on it.
I will watch for your posts and help whereever I can. :cat:
Lucy, you little cutie,,,, your momma's got this:bighug::bighug::bighug:
 
Red83 said:
The remaining question is what to do for the shot due an hour ago and the next one due in 11 hours. Any advice is welcome although I know it’s a tough call and no one but me is responsible for the consequences.
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I’m sorry I didn’t see this earlier.
I would not skip the dose with DKA so recently. At the moment he is bouncing from that lime green number a couple of days ago but he will come off the bounce soon. For now while you haven’t got a Libre and you can’t test, I would give a dose of 2 units but go back to the 2.25 unit dose when you have the Libre on.
You will be late giving this shot but you can go back 1/2 hour a day or 15 minutes a cycle to get back on schedule.
Try and make sure he is eating well.

EDIT don’t be tempted to give the next few shots earlier than the time frame I mentioned above.
 
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Thank you all. I'm still here, but need a few hours or a day to process everything that's happened. Thank you so much for everyone's words of encouragement and support. I am confident I will go back and read them over several times in the next few weeks.

I am still focused on getting this shot in.

Thank you Bron. Since I did not have guidance I decided to give a sedative and try a home test in 15-20 minutes when it's full effect. (And I had to race to get the antinausea meds, was late on the pickup.) It is good to know what you recommend because I did not give a huge sedative dose (playing it very safe) and I need a game plan if I just can't get a test in without traumatizing him.

And yes thanks for the reminder always: Those hypos sure scared me off ever giving an early shot earlier than 1/2 hour early. One time he was bouncing around 40s for like 3-4 hours as I fed and fed and fed (not that that was due to early shooting).
 
I accidentally shot 2.25 when I meant to shoot 2 since he was so aggravated still. He was so surprisingly non-responsive to the shot that I went ahead and did a test after 2 pricks (2nd one bled a lot!! Sweet spot!) 492. So at least I have a good example of how to do it and maybe can go for the “smooth confidence” sooner rather than later.

I also realized that the scary part about shooting like this is not just the pre-shot but not knowing during the +6 +8 to +11 when he has a history of going hypo. Well, I will plan to strategically ply with food.

Thank you for everyone’s help sticking with me today… I am sure we will be in touch about further home testing trials.

For reference in case helpful to anyone else in the future, by wrapping him in a blanket (flat across his chest with the flaps up his sides and back) and holding him in place by holding the blanket, I was able to wait until he ran out of steam and calmed down at least a bit.
 
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