Our cat/feline was recently diagnosed with diabetes after a 5 lbs weight loss in a few months. 20 lbs down to 15 lbs.
We have been trying to find data to gauge what may be ‘normal’ in treating a diabetic cat.
I have found it very difficult to find blood glucose curves to compare my cat’s readings to.
So, in the hope that others may find this useful, here are our cats curves.
We have been fortunate that we have been able to afford the Freestyle Libre 2 monitor. It allows for real time monitoring, thus the detailed graphs. They are designed for humans, so using them on your cat comes with it’s own challenges. So if you can afford it and decide to try it, read, read , read. Only certain model phones can use the app. WARNING: using a continual monitor can make you obsessive about the numbers from minute to minute. It may not be for you. Most people use the standard lancet meters successfully a few times a day. At the very least just before you give an injection to see if you should skip it or not.
There is a lot of data in this pdf. I find the graphs starting at page 16 the most useful.
Note that our numbers are not the same as the USA. The rest of the world uses mmol/L. Use a conversion chart to compare.
We are not medical professionals so what I say here may or may not be accurate.
We were directed to give 2 units of prozinc (a long-acting insulin) twice a day using a U40 syringe. (Note, it is IMPORTANT to use the correct model of syringe for the insulin you are using or your dosing will be wrong!) The problem was that the peaks and nadir (low point) only occurred once a day. You are to give the insulin the same times every day at the high point in the curve. So we were confused. After many many hours of research in Feline Diabetes forums we determined the dose was way to high. We dropped to 0.5 units twice a day and the peaks and nadir occurred twice a day as it should.
We notice that the difference between his highs and lows were sometimes higher than 10. Is that normal? We don’t know. But the difference ‘seems’ to reduce as his average blood sugar reduces. We also noticed his day and night injection produced different results. Why? No idea. We are hoping that as we get him lower that it may have a difference of 5? If it doesn’t we will be content to just have him reduced overall.
Update:
So we found that the freestyle libre (alternative to libre freestyle) was just not working as well as we hoped for our cat. His skin does not respond well to adhesive. His skin slowly blisters and it becomes messy and painful. There was a lot of bloody scars when we removed it. Also his hair grows quickly which tends to push and loosen the sensor up and out affecting readings. Cats and constant stretching and active movement also tend to loosen it. We may go back to it if we need to monitor him continuously. We have stopped using the freestyle for months now and instead check his blood 3 times daily. Twice just before shots and once in the middle of the day at his nadir (mid point). The nadir measurement is missed but we leave plenty of low carb food out for him to self regulate if necessary. What I have notices is that I have stopped obsessing about his readings. That is tremendously liberating. Also the human reader and strips (Accucheck Guide) we are using is reading much higher. He has been between 12 – 18 mmol/L. According to what we have read the numbers should only have a 20% difference. This is much more. And the high / low fluctuations are lower. Which measurement’s to believe? I tend to believe the manual reader. So we have slowly gone up to 1.25 units of prozinc and his numbers have slowly decreased. He may end up at 1.5 units. We shall see.
For those not willing to do the manual glucose testing from the ear, his is what we do. We bought an animal skin clipper and shave a spot down to skin between his ribs and rear legs. We don’t want to hit bone. We also bought a ‘genteel‘ suction lancet device to help get the blood to the surface. Sometimes it is hard to get suction, so we try to get our cat to lie down to make a better seal. It can take 1 – 6 tries to get a good enough drop to measure. Usually 1 – 2 tries after practice. He barely notices anything is happening. This is cat dependent, I am sure this will vary. We could not do the ear blood draws successfully with our cat.