New member - totally overwhelmed by numbers! HELP!

Michelle C.

Michelle C.

Member
Jessica is a 14 year old Maine Coon who was diagnosed diabetic on 1/20/2020. We were told to buy the Vetsulin and Alpha trak. I set her blood twice a day, morning and night. Her Glucose numbers range between 200-350. I was told that when it's below 2 to give her 1 unit, 2 when it's in 200 and so on. From what I'm reading I shouldn't be changing her doses that much (1 unit in the am, to 3 units in the PM, or vice versa). Is this correct?
She is also on Science Hill M/D. She has a can in the morning and a can at night. I also leave out the dry food. Mostly because my other cat is a grazer, he is now eating the Science Hill dry. I give them both a 1/4 cup at night and it lasts mostly the day. The Ginger boy eats most of the dry.
After reading this I feel like I'm doing everything wrong and I'm not getting her in proper control like she should be.
Any advice to help me would be greatly appreciated. I feel like I'm back in January in total panic mode.
 
Michelle C. said:
Her Glucose numbers range between 200-350. I was told that when it's below 2 to give her 1 unit, 2 when it's in 200 and so on. From what I'm reading I shouldn't be changing her doses that much (1 unit in the am, to 3 units in the PM, or vice versa). Is this correct?
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It is my understanding that dosing is based on how low a cat goes during a cycle and not on the preshot number. A preshot of 200 is too low to shoot.

Michelle C. said:
She is also on Science Hill M/D. She has a can in the morning and a can at night. I also leave out the dry food. Mostly because my other cat is a grazer, he is now eating the Science Hill dry. I give them both a 1/4 cup at night and it lasts mostly the day. The Ginger boy eats most of the dry.
Click to expand...
The foods your cats are being fed are too high in carbs but don't change a thing until you are getting some tests in during the first half of the cycle because vetsulin is really meant for dogs and it hits cats hard and fast. Just changing food can have a dramatic effect on blood glucose numbers.

Tagging some knowledgeable Vetsulin people for you. We can help keep Jessica safe and hopefully seeing better numbers.

@Critter Mom
@Tomlin
@JanetNJ
@Deb & Wink

And some reading
INTRODUCTION TO CANNISULIN/VETSULIN & N/NPH
BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO CANINSULIN/VETSULIN
 
Red & Rover (GA) said:
It is my understanding that dosing is based on how low a cat goes during a cycle and not on the preshot number. A preshot of 200 is too low to shoot.


The foods your cats are being fed are too high in carbs but don't change a thing until you are getting some tests in during the first half of the cycle because vetsulin is really meant for dogs and it hits cats hard and fast. Just changing food can have a dramatic effect on blood glucose numbers.

Tagging some knowledgeable Vetsulin people for you. We can help keep Jessica safe and hopefully seeing better numbers.

@Critter Mom
@Tomlin
@JanetNJ
@Deb & Wink

And some reading
INTRODUCTION TO CANNISULIN/VETSULIN & N/NPH
BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO CANINSULIN/VETSULIN
Click to expand...
Thank you! I would love to learn if I should change her food slowly or change her off of vetsulin.
 
Hi Michelle,

I've just popped in to say a quick 'hello' to yourself and Jessica. Sorry for such a brief post but I'm in the UK so it's the middle of the night here. I'll try to answer some of your questions later after I've had some shuteye. :)


Mogs
.
 
HI! Do you have numbers from the last few weeks you could add to a spreadsheet or post for us? it would help a bit. OK Vetsulin. For some cats it works good (my cat did good on it when I used it when she was first diagnosed) but for others they find it doesn't last long enough. Not sure how long it works in your cat... What you would want to do to find out is continue to take the preshot tests (way to go for testing!!!), but also try to get at least one mid cycle reading. You really want to know what the lowest number of the day is. In vetsulin that USUALLY happens 4-6 hours after the shot (some 3 hours, some 7 hours but USUALLY 4-6). So try to get readings then.

The canned DM food isn't terrible as far as carbs go, but there's nothing in it that's any better then grocery store pate. Most on here feed Fancy Feast classic or Friskies pate. I feed my diabetic Weruva (she needs lower phosphorous) and the non diabetics FF. The dry food is higher in carbs and the diabetic shouldn't have access to it unless you need to raise her numbers a bit because she's heading too low. I let my 6 cats graze all day. Just no food 2 hours prior to the preshot test.

ok on the scale dosing. I personally did a bit of sliding scale dosing as my cat got close to remission, just to tweak the numbers, but no reason for you to do a sliding scale dosing at this point. I would do 1u am and pm for a few days and keep record of all the numbers. If through testing that proves not enough, raise the dose by no more than 0.25-0.5 units at a time, until we have the nadir (lowest numbers) around 100 pretty consistently. Here's info on the spreadsheet like you see in everyone's signature. (don't go by my cat's spreadsheet, she's got acro and is a unique high dose case... but she was on vetsulin for 4 months in the beginning and went into remission for a year until she came out of remission.) https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/
 
Hi Michelle,

I apologise that I wasn't able to get back to you yesterday. (Not very well at the moment.)

I second Janet's post above.


Mogs
.
 
JanetNJ said:
HI! Do you have numbers from the last few weeks you could add to a spreadsheet or post for us? it would help a bit. OK Vetsulin. For some cats it works good (my cat did good on it when I used it when she was first diagnosed) but for others they find it doesn't last long enough. Not sure how long it works in your cat... What you would want to do to find out is continue to take the preshot tests (way to go for testing!!!), but also try to get at least one mid cycle reading. You really want to know what the lowest number of the day is. In vetsulin that USUALLY happens 4-6 hours after the shot (some 3 hours, some 7 hours but USUALLY 4-6). So try to get readings then.

The canned DM food isn't terrible as far as carbs go, but there's nothing in it that's any better then grocery store pate. Most on here feed Fancy Feast classic or Friskies pate. I feed my diabetic Weruva (she needs lower phosphorous) and the non diabetics FF. The dry food is higher in carbs and the diabetic shouldn't have access to it unless you need to raise her numbers a bit because she's heading too low. I let my 6 cats graze all day. Just no food 2 hours prior to the preshot test.

ok on the scale dosing. I personally did a bit of sliding scale dosing as my cat got close to remission, just to tweak the numbers, but no reason for you to do a sliding scale dosing at this point. I would do 1u am and pm for a few days and keep record of all the numbers. If through testing that proves not enough, raise the dose by no more than 0.25-0.5 units at a time, until we have the nadir (lowest numbers) around 100 pretty consistently. Here's info on the spreadsheet like you see in everyone's signature. (don't go by my cat's spreadsheet, she's got acro and is a unique high dose case... but she was on vetsulin for 4 months in the beginning and went into remission for a year until she came out of remission.) https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/
Click to expand...


Thank you Janet. (I'm in New Jersey too) I keep her records on paper but I will take some time this weekend to load them electronically for you to see. I will also work on doing tests during the day as well. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking time out of your day to help!

Michelle (And Jessica)
 
Michelle C. said:
Thank you Janet. (I'm in New Jersey too) I keep her records on paper but I will take some time this weekend to load them electronically for you to see. I will also work on doing tests during the day as well. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking time out of your day to help!

Michelle (And Jessica)
Click to expand...
Oh cool! Where in nj? I'm in North Arlington
 
Michelle C. said:
Thank you! I would love to learn if I should change her food slowly or change her off of vetsulin.
Click to expand...
We can't help very much until we can see your SS setup and see some data on how your cat is doing on the Vetsulin.

We need to see the data to give you good recommendations. It's like asking a vet to tell you what your next steps should be without any records to refer too. That SS is like having a tiny slice of data available for us to see.

We've got several members here from NJ, as you can see from Janet's reply above!
 
Deb & Wink said:
We can't help very much until we can see your SS setup and see some data on how your cat is doing on the Vetsulin.

We need to see the data to give you good recommendations. It's like asking a vet to tell you what your next steps should be without any records to refer too. That SS is like having a tiny slice of data available for us to see.

We've got several members here from NJ, as you can see from Janet's reply above!
Click to expand...


I worked on the spreadsheet. I entered her numbers from October to today. Today was the first time that I did a 6 hour post shot test. Last night and today we are trying to start over again and only gave her 1 unit. If the number stay this high we will increase in increments, as suggested.

If there are blank spaces, we were either unavailable at home, or she was hiding and we didn't want to stress her and force her to take her blood and shot.

Any feedback is greatly welcomed. Hopefully I loaded the spreadsheet correctly! :)
 
Michelle C. said:
I worked on the spreadsheet. I entered her numbers from October to today. Today was the first time that I did a 6 hour post shot test. Last night and today we are trying to start over again and only gave her 1 unit. If the number stay this high we will increase in increments, as suggested.

If there are blank spaces, we were either unavailable at home, or she was hiding and we didn't want to stress her and force her to take her blood and shot.

Any feedback is greatly welcomed. Hopefully I loaded the spreadsheet correctly! :)
Click to expand...
Well done. 3 and 4 were slmost certainly too much. I am guessing you’ll end up somewhere around 2-2.75 but we’ll see. :)
 
Hi Michelle!

If you have plenty of supplies (high carb food, plenty of test strips) and can get a few tests in tonight, I'd go ahead and shoot the 2U dose again.

Try to get a +1 and +2 to start with
 
I have been keeping her at 2. Her PM numbers are much lower than her AM numbers. I am weening her off of the Hills and trying FF. Mixing half and half at each meal. Both cats are dry food maniacs. So I got Dr. Elseys and am mixing that in too. My question is could her eating dry food throughout the night be increasing her morning numbers? At the PM pre dinner test, I make sure that she has no food for at least 2 hours before, but if I don't leave dry food out at night they will be crying all night (especially my non-sugar cat!). Any suggestions?
 
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