msarobix said:
I didn't say that below 70 was the danger zone, I said below 70 was starting to get into the danger zone. The vet has told me that 70 is fine, but when the cat starts to drop below 70 that is when we really want to watch more closely. If the cat drops below 60 then we really need to be concerned and we should begin trying to raise the BG back into the 70s. At no point did I say that below 70 was hypo, I just said that it isn't the best place for the cat to be.
If anyone of you has ever had low blood sugar you would realized what it actually does to you. I myself have had low blood sugar and it really messes with your brain. You get to the point where you can't function. When it has happened to me I have know I need to eat something, but I just couldn't get myself to get something. It is like being in a dream and not knowing how you got there or what you are doing there. It is a very scary situation and not one I would want to put on my cat if it can be prevented. I now know the signs when I am started to get low and I immediately eat something while I can still function. I almost always have some sort of a bar in my purse for just this occasion.
Everyone, please stop taking what I say out of context. I am, like the rest of you, just sharing my opinion and experiences and it is important for everyone to know each situation. Not everyone wants to be stressed over the possibility of their cat going into hypo so they need to know the alternatives and they need to know solid information from the veterinary world. Just because there are a handful of people on this board that preach a certain protocol it doesn't mean that everyone will follow it exactly, and they shouldn't be bashed if the do something, and believe something, a little different.
Tina, I think what you're saying is offbase. Let me explain why, all right?
"I didn't say that below 70 was the danger zone, I said below 70 was starting to get into the danger zone. The vet has told me that 70 is fine, but when the cat starts to drop below 70 that is when we really want to watch more closely. If the cat drops below 60 then we really need to be concerned and we should begin trying to raise the BG back into the 70s. At no point did I say that below 70 was hypo, I just said that it isn't the best place for the cat to be. "
I think you're not realizing that the work that's been done over many years with human meters has already been accommodated in the protocol. In your experience, and according to your post, the Alpha Track runs higher than the human meter, right? So, if you're using an Alpha Track, the number that is important is something different, and higher, than the numbers the human meters use.
Another factor you're not considering is that when blood value ranges were established in the veterinary world, the numbers were taken while at the vet's office. Few animals I know ever enjoy going to the vet; and their bs are often elevated simply because of being put into a carrier, hauled through city streets in a moving vehicle, and have someone shove something up their bottoms or taken away from Mom/Dad and into the back room for blood. That alone will raise the sugar level. Any numbers the vets base decisions on will automatically be higher than what the cat normally runs, as we see in home testing.
Those two factors alone would indicate that a sugar of 70 without symptoms is not something to be considered dangerous. Those are just the numbers that the vets use to determine what sort of treatment a cat would need - a different meter (which runs higher) as well as the stress of vet visits. If the value of 70 was seen in the vets office, and one figures into the equation that the bs is elevated from stress as well as the use of a meter which measures higher...well, yeah, at 70, it's a problem in the vets office. It's NOT a problem at home.
Does that help explain it?
"If anyone of you has ever had low blood sugar you would realized what it actually does to you. I myself have had low blood sugar and it really messes with your brain. You get to the point where you can't function. When it has happened to me I have know I need to eat something, but I just couldn't get myself to get something. It is like being in a dream and not knowing how you got there or what you are doing there. It is a very scary situation and not one I would want to put on my cat if it can be prevented. I now know the signs when I am started to get low and I immediately eat something while I can still function. I almost always have some sort of a bar in my purse for just this occasion."
You're talking about symptoms. A symtomatic episode is something quite different than just low sugar numbers. Let me give you an example...we're taught in nursing school to look at the patient...not rely on machines. One day, an alarm beeped, and I looked in on my patient. His blood pressure was 63/37. According to the book (and the Drs), he should've been dying - cold, lethargic, non-responsive, slow/non-existant heart rate. OTOH, when I looked at him, I saw a patient reading the morning paper, sitting up in bed, drinking a glass of water. When I asked him how he felt, he said "fine, what're you worried about?" I stuck my stethescope on his chest, and his heart was sounding fine. I left him be - yes, I called the Dr., but my patient was not experiencing any symptoms of a low blood pressure event, let alone a life threatening crisis (which the numbers said he should be having).
Another story: I tend to run low on my blood pressure. 100-105/58-62. That's just how my body works. So one day, I had a bad, bad headache, and felt really strange. I had the CNA run a blood pressure on me - and it was 130/72. Very, very high according to how my body works ("the baseline"), but still, on the books, a nomal reading (albeit a tad high). I immediately called my doctor, he saw me, and sure enough, I had an infection (in my sinuses...), and dealt with it. Shortly after starting treatment, I took my BP again...and was fine.
Both of those stories are to illustrate the point that while there are hard and fast rules about numbers in medicine, someone can indeed be, according to the books, fine and have a problem, or dying and not show any evidence of impairment whatsoever. Monitors are simply tools - look to the patient to see what's actually happening. In your example I highlighted, you were experiencing symptoms of a hypo event. If a patient is not symptomatic, no treatment is necessary (most of the time), but it does bear watching. "What is the patient experiencing" is what I run my life by - if they have no symptoms, then I'm probably not going to run and get the crash cart. If they tell me "wow, that's higher than usual for me" and the numbers are "normal", I'm going to listen to the patient.
I've had Esse go as low as 39 without any symptoms. I went by the book, and panicked. She just looked at me. LOL.
More in the next post...
Best-
Michele
