Lola passed away

[kareno]

I am so glad to find a diabete site for my Lola (Maltese) 10 yrs. old with diabetes for almost 2 yrs. She is regulating on 4 units - Novolin twice a day and Ketolactic eyedrops twice a day, basically blind. I want to start testing her at home. A friend lent me his test kit Free Style Life Kit. I got a sample from her lip yesterday reading 148bg, 7 hr. stretch from food and insulin. It seems to me she is sleepy after the insulin. Any help would be so appreciated as help with home testing, we have been following the vets advice all this time. She is a perfect little girl always aiming to please, she has no worries, we are her eyes for her....

[Riliey and Mo]

Re: Newbie to site....

Hi and welcome to you and Lola

Glad your home testing

Try testing at fasting before she eats, fedd , inject then test every 2 hours at furst till you get more data on your dog and post the results here k

Is she spayed?
What food is she eating?
What insulin and what does?
How much exercise she getting?

Just a few questions for now, dont want to overwhelm you

Glad you found us

Mo

[Eddie]

Re: Newbie to site....

Hello and welcome
There is a lot of info on testing on the site here. I watched the videos many times before I even attempted it so you are well ahead of the game!

I think most people here seem to use the lip though there are several options you might want to try and see which suits you both best.

If you are able to get readings at intervals as Mo suggested that will give you a lot of info on how she is reacting to the insulin and might give clues about her sleepiness. (Eddie gets his food and insulin at the same time and always wants to do nothing but snooze after it but I think that is just because his tummy is full!). Do you feed and inject at the same time?
Antonia

[kareno]

Re: Newbie to site....

Hi,
She is spayed, chicken breast, rice, mixed vegetables, roast beef, bologna all mixed up, she can be difficult and spit some of her food out. She is on Novoline N 4 units twice a day. Do you adjust her insulin amount if the reading is too high or low before her meal. This home testing is all new to me. She hasn't gotten much exercise as we still have snow on the ground and she does her business on pee pee pads in the house.

[kareno]

Re: Newbie to site....

Hello and welcome
There is a lot of info on testing on the site here. I watched the videos many times before I even attempted it so you are well ahead of the game!

I think most people here seem to use the lip though there are several options you might want to try and see which suits you both best.

If you are able to get readings at intervals as Mo suggested that will give you a lot of info on how she is reacting to the insulin and might give clues about her sleepiness. (Eddie gets his food and insulin at the same time and always wants to do nothing but snooze after it but I think that is just because his tummy is full!). Do you feed and inject at the same time?
Antonia

Yes, she eats and insulin 7 am then 7pm same times every day. I feed her than have her go potty then I inject.

[amydunn19]

Re: Newbie to site....

The only time to adjust insulin based on a single test is if blood sugar is low. For example, my dog can tend to have a low here and there. If I test her before her evening meal and her blood sugar is 50, then I am not going to give insulin at that time. I let her eat and test an hour later. Depending on that number, I might give her a reduced dose or not at all. If you try to adjust before every meal based on high numbers, you will get in trouble and it will be like a rollercoaster with their blood sugar.

The purpose of testing is to identify trends for possible dose adjustments and to keep them safe from hypoglycemia. When you do a curve at home, testing at fasting before the first meal, every two hours until the evening fasting and meal, then you see a clearer picture of how they are on a typical day and whether a dose adjustment is necessary. You shouldn't make dose adjustments based on one reading but rely on the curve data to tell you.

[jesse girl]

Re: Newbie to site....

thats great you started testing

i would say no adjustments to insulin unless you see lower numbers maybe anything below 80 . you have not seen a hypo event in the duration of being diabetic the dose is probably good so no need to panic .

the 148 is a good number i am not sure if this is at the lowest point of the day (nadir )

yes its not uncommon to see a dog to be lethargic after shot and eating . it usually takes 1.5 hours for insulin to take affect so if you see these symptoms less than an hour after the shot and meal you would think its not the insulin but who knows for sure there maybe a reaction to the shot itself . a full belly can make a dog feel sleepy .

[kareno]

Re: Newbie to site....

Thank you for all the welcomes and advice so far, no I haven't seen any hypo event, thank god!!!

[kareno]

Humann blood glucose tester????

I am new to this site and in the process of much learning about home by testing. I have a human kit, Free Style Lite. Should I be using a pet kit? For the human kit is there a different reading. Do I need a conversion chart to do so. Which tester beeps and uses a smaller amount of blood? Any help would be greatly appreciated... Karen

[tdpetunia]

Re: Humann blood glucose tester????

Welcome to the Forum!

[Riliey and Mo]

Re: Newbie to site....

Hi

I used a human meters for a long time, they need big droplets of blood. The bayer usb human meter takes less blood. To avoid converting which can be confusing and get a small droplet to work the best meter is the Alphatrack 2 animal meter and yes the Freestyle lite strips work well with it, there much cheaper . Try not to tell Abbott the mfg.

Mo

[CraigM]

Re: Newbie to site....

As you probably know, human meters usually read dog blood low. Some folks just go by the number on the meter, knowing there is probably an error, and use the error as a safety factor. Others try to compensate for the error.

Are you using a FreeStyle Lite meter, or the FreeStyle Freedom Lite meter? I have a FreeStyle Freedom Lite that uses the same test strip as the FreeStyle Lite and I think they would probably read about the same since they use the same test strip.

I have both the AlphaTrak2 (dog meter) and FreeStyle Freedom Lite meters and just ran a side-by-side test:
AlphaTrak2 = 163
FreeStyle Freedom Lite = 104

This was only a single test (I'm running low on FreeStyle Lite test strips), but looks like the FreeStyle Freedom Lite reads about 60 points lower than my AlphaTrak2. Usually the spread increases as the numbers increase, but for safety you might want to just use 60.

Another possible way is to figure a percentage difference. I would divide the 104 by 163 and get a conversion factor of 0.64. In theory, I'd divide any FreeStyle Freedom Lite reading by .64 to get a number that might be close to what the AlphaTrak would give. Of course, I've only done this one test, I'd like to do a few more when my order of FreeStyle Lite test strips arrive next week.

Craig

[kareno]

Re: Newbie to site....

It is Free Style Lite, I fed and insulin at 7 am and just took a sample at 9:30 am and it was 207bg, I quess that would be 267 with Alpha. Also the gauge on the lancet has 1 - 4 and I used 3, taken from under her upper lip a big drop came out, which I think was a little too much for not having to press. I then pressed it with a tissue, it looks slightly bruised, this is scarey at first. As the day goes on her bg should come down? Please any help would be appreciated and I think I should get the Alpha to get a better reading....

[CraigM]

Re: Newbie to site....

It is Free Style Lite, I fed and insulin at 7 am and just took a sample at 9:30 am and it was 207bg, I quess that would be 267 with Alpha. Also the gauge on the lancet has 1 - 4 and I used 3, taken from under her upper lip a big drop came out, which I think was a little too much for not having to press. I then pressed it with a tissue, it looks slightly bruised, this is scarey at first. As the day goes on her bg should come down? Please any help would be appreciated and I think I should get the Alpha to get a better reading....

Yes, her BGs should come down later in the day. Most textbooks try to show a nice bowl shaped curve if yoy testes every 2 hours and plotted the results on graph paper. The problem is few of our pups have read the text books and they seem to react in their own special way. For example, my Annie usually will rise 100 points soon after the meal and injection, and then after about 4-5 hours, her BGs start to drop. She has her lowest number around 10-12 hours after the meal / injection. Other pups might not have the rise right after a meal and actually have their lowest BG within just 2-3 hours. It's really a "every dog is different" sort of thing. They all use different food, digest the food, absorb the insulin differently.

Are you doing a curve (testing about every 2 hours) today? If so, please post the times and readings

If you can afford the AlphaTrak meter, it would be nice to add to your collection. Although I have an AlphaTrak, I generally use other meter / strips for routine testing because of the high cost of the AlphaTrak test strips. I might use the AlphaTrak 1-2 times a month to compare to my "regular" testing equipment.

Craig

[kareno]

Re: Newbie to site....

Thats it, I just tried taking another sample with my Free Style Lite kit and I am not getting a reading, I think it wants too much of a drop of blood, I don't want to stress Lola out to keep poking under her lip, poor thing everytime the sound of the lancet springing back, she jumps up. I broke down and ordered the Alpha Trak 2, it should arrive in a couple of days. I will do her testing when I receive that and supposedly the free style strips should work with that. I will post when I get it and thank you for all your help.
Karen