Glucose Readings

Glucose readings are tough.  We don't take them everyday.  I know that some people out there do.  My vet has doing the curve every two weeks.  The numbers are looking fantastic lately.  I thought though I would give you a glimpse of what we do.

On the weekends we will go and poke their little ears.  The reading can be all over the place so be ready the first few times you do this.  It might just make you worry and panic. Never fear though!  Keep honey and Karo syrup on hand at all time.  If your kitty goes under 65 then put this on their gums.  Make sure they eat if they are this low and give them some treats.

OK... so one things that is probably important is to keep a log on the days when you do this.  We mark it with the time the cats received their shots, which ear we poked (very important because you probably will forget through out the day and you want to rotate which ear), the time you took the reading, and the name of the cats (if you happen to have more then one cat with diabetes like me).

This is a great video on how to take a reading. We use One Touch Ultra for our glucose reader.  I will say that my vet told me NOT to use the type of needle used in the video to poke my cat.  This is because the needle in the video will go right through your cats ear.  We use BD PrecisionGlide Needle REF 305122.  This allows you to just poke the vein on the outside... though.... lets be honest.  We have pierced the cats ears a couple of times.  One time we poked Merry and he moved and the needle was hanging through his ear!  I was totally panicked.  He acted like nothing though.  So I was more scared then he was. 




The cats do know when it's time. We get out our little bag of cat medicine goodies and then hold them down!

 

So here is today's readings:

Merry 7 units of Prozinc, 3 units of vetsulin, 5mg glipizide
Pippin 4 units of Prozinc, 5 MG glipizide, and 1 whole steroid at night (tomorrow we start half a steroid). 


Time           Merry      Pippin

7 am          215           277
9 am          159           243
11 am        74             125
1 pm           52            97  

630 PM      81            321

As you can see Merry is very low.  The vet has us switching him to 6 units of Prozinc and 1/2 a pill of glipizide starting tomorrow.  We will do the results again in two weeks.  These numbers are very good for Pippin and Merry.  We are finally getting them under control. Luckily... our vet will monitor these readings for free.  We email in the readings and she usually responds in a couple of days.... sometimes she responds right away.  Hopefully you can find a vet who will also do this.  Make sure your vet uses a glucose reader that pokes the ear.  The first vet we went to actually made us bring in the cats and actually drew blood from their legs.  There is no reason for this and only causes more stress to the cat.  

You really should invest in buying a  glucose reader yourself and just do it at home.  You can find readers for like $40!  Don't buy your reader from your vet.  Go to Amazon.com and get a great deal on one.  You can use any reader.