1/2 Gracie PMPS 105 +.5 94 +2 39 +2.5 75 +3 140 +4 86

Yesterday: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=33389

Recap:
AMPS: 119 1st cycle f1u
+1: 215
+2: 269
+4: 329
+10: 352
PMPS: 354 2nd cycle f1u
+2: 335
+4: 307
AMPS: 338 3rd cycle f1u
+2: 184
+3: 85 fed 14% w/gravy/drop karo


Good morning LL and welcome to the 2nd day of what we hope will be everyone's best year.

WCR: 5Ps in place; bounce broken...full steam ahead. Gracie survived the party last night and while she didn't want to directly interact with the guests, she was present and weaved in and out; Tobey, however, having experienced his FIRST people party, was a willing and active participant in the night's festivities by climbing into laps, trying to check out the hors d'oeurves, and circling the dinner tables giving everyone his big eyed "don't you feel so sorry for me" look. Gracie looked on with great disdain knowing she didn't have to beg for oohs and ahhs....she is beautiful without demeaning herself by fawning all over beans :lol: :lol:

Our sincere thanks to Jill and Libby fo their extra time on a holiday weekend to give insight to us. I still haven't had a chance to slowly go through Libby's comments but will do so today. One thing that Mike and I feel is important to note: we aren't frustrated with Gracie's progress....we're very happy and we feel what we've done to date is paying off. We just need to fine tune and figure out how to control the drops in the *hope* it will eliminate the bounce. Jill was correct...we do get physically and emotionally tired but with the two of us, we are able to trade off and catch up....and support each other so that helps.

We decided to try Beth's recommendation to feed MORE food early on....Jill recommended this before and I tried it but I think I got the timing off. Grace's big drop seems to be about +1.5 and I think that's where we need to add the extra food. Unfortunately, thinking she still had some bounce clearing to do, I went btb after +1 and got up shortly after +2. More vigilance required. :lol: :lol:

OT: GO FROGS!!! TCU WON THE ROSE BOWL!!!!!!

Wishing you all a lovely day, healing vines to the ill, comfort vines to the anxious, hugs to all.

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85

and...SHE"S OFF!!!

party pics...courtesy of the binks spycam...

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85

Go Horned Frogs!

glad your party was a success.

lots of stuff to chew on in your condo yesterday, very interesting reading.

have a good Sunday guys.

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85

Looks like Gracie is going for the diving championship this morning! 253 point drop in 3 hours! Slow down there, Gracie girl. Let's see some surfing.

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85

Marjorie, looks like you had a nice party...

What you said made me --> "I went btb after +1 and got up shortly after +2. More vigilance required."

Good luck with feeding MORE food early on..

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85

Surf Gracie, surf, surf.
Oh Marjorie, it must be so nice to have kitties who join, rather than hide from, people. *sigh*

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85

Another fine day for Gracie! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: She is getting better at clearing those bounces early - nice to see - a little fast, but cleared they are.

There was a lot of great remarks made my Libby and Jill in regards to Gracie. I hope that it will help you fine tune what is already an awesome endeavor,and success, on both your parts. She is doing well. WOOT!

and so glad TCU won - SWEET!

Hey Gracie!! What's up? Did you have fun at your beans party? Sneak any food??? I was thinking that it is so cold here that maybe we could all get together and go ice skating... I think I remember all that you taught us... You in?? ~~ Mannie

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85

Glad you had a nice time at your party. I hope Gracie gives you some nice surf numbers. I love seeing her pictures.

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85

Happy to hear everything is going well for Gracie, you & Mike. Fingers & paws crossed that she holds the dosecrease & it looks like she is :mrgreen:

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85

Ok, Gracie! Glad to see that you cleared your bounce, but now lets put some brakes on and get the surf board out! So far, you are looking Maarvalous!

Glad your party was a success and that everyone had a good time!

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85

I had a chance to look at Libby's comments yesterday; thank you, Libby, for your insight. Mike and I also looked at Lucy's SS again specifically from Oct-Dec, 08. It seemed that when you took her back up and brought her back down in Dec, you still took some quick reductions...some you shaved, some you went .25u. Once she quit bouncing, seems you took her down fairly fast....right?

So Mike and I have decided that what we need to concentrate on is the bounces and trying to get them under control. We may not be able to do it even with the food manipulation....Gracie may have to do it. What we'd like to respectfully ask you and Jill is if you can give us some scenarios...some options based on what you are seeing on her SS; using your knowledge at looking at SSs and similar cats. We aren't asking you to adviseus what to do....if we know some options of what you THINK based on Gracie's SS, then we will make our decision and take full responsibility for how it proceeds. We are grateful for the help and are not here to point fingers and blame someone when something doesn't work...that's not us. Is that a possibility to help us in that way please? We don't want you to spend alot more personal time with in-depth scenarios...just "bullet" options for us to discuss. We would be so immensely grateful; and if you aren't comfortable with it, we respect that.

Celi: :lol: :lol: reminds me of Tobey and Gracie watching TV..."WHAT do you want?" Nice ears on that SF.

Kim, Sylvie, and Barb: yes...it was a fun party even with having to give Gracie her insulin and feed/check her but we had a good time...we've missed the days before FD where we entertained alot.

Barb: forgot to answer you yesterday, but yes, that is Tobey with the adorable striped paws in our profile. Teddi also has really cute striped paws...one leg is red stripes, the other black.

Ele: yes...our diving diva....the weird thing is she has done this even when we first started and she was on .75u. Wish we could figure it out.

Ann, Nicole, and Deb: thanks for visiting!! We needed the party break :lol: And we're trying to get Gracie to surf...little stinka'.

Michelle: we were very surprised at how fast she cleared that on a reduced dose. And yes, lots of great discussion....wish we knew how to proceed; may be time to call the animal communicator :lol: :lol:

Mannie....all that yummy food and neither Tobey nor I got ONE BITE....the beans were on their toes about "no bean food for the cats". YES YES...let's go ice skating!! I'll ask my mamabean for something new we can do!!

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85 +4 75 +4.5 93 +5.5 46

DH here - Happy New Year everyone. The little stinker is up to her usual tricks again.

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85 +4 75 +4.5 93 +5.5 46

GO GRACIE! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85 +4 75 +4.5 93 +5.5 46

Gracie has an agenda! She's doing great despite the bounces. Your party sounds like a complete success for beans and kitties, too. But not to get even a morsel, oh my! (Rusty didn't get a morsel on NY Eve either).
Carry on Marjorie, Mike and Gracie. Happy New Year!

Ella & Rusty

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85 +4 75 +4.5 93 +5.5 46

Atta girl, Gracie! Tess is back in the dressing room watching the competition. Sounds like a good party, Tess is a hider too, only comes out if there is just one other person that she knows. It's fun to have a sociable cat though.

Ohhhhh Gracie! not a bite? My mom let me have some crab legs on New Year's! Yummmmmmm! Skating sounds like fun! But we gotta get Rusty to make hot tuna toddies after.-- Tess

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85 +5.5 46 +6.5 63 +7 66

Look at Gracie go :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85 +5.5 46 +6.5 63 +7 66

Michelle, Ella, Ann, and Lisa: just getting around to condos. I took a long nap after I finished watching the TCU game which we had to TIVO because of the party. We're hoping Miss Gracie stays on that surfboard a while and just keeps cruising some nice numbers but she's calling the shots!! Hope your days are going well....we're going to check her on more time here at +8 and then give her a break. I'm gonna condo hop!!

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +3 85 +5.5 46 +6.5 63 +7 66 +

Hi Marjorie and Gracie, Happy New Year to you all! I see you're having another typical "Gracie day" She sure does keep you hopping, and I admire you and Mike for all that you do to try and keep up with her. Thanks for visiting our condo today, good advice given. And it's a comfort to know you went thru a 3 lb weight loss and all was fine. Makes me feel better. I will weigh her daily and depending on how much it's bothering me, may or may not take her in later in the week. Wishing you guys a wonderful 2011!

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +3 85 +5.5 46 +7 66 +8 44 +9.5 55 ??

So another day that we've been fighting Gracie to stay up all day. If you look at her SS, the times she is higher today is when we have fed; if we don't feed, she is dropping much lower and won't stay above 60. We just fed a 9% food at +9.5 to try and get her up or we may not be able to shoot tonight. We won't feed again now for the next two hours unless she goes below 50....will keep checking her. Thoughts please? We can't decide whether to shave her again tonight because she qualified OR if she could still be under the influence of the sk1.25u from 3 cycles ago? Thank you!!

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +5.5 46 +7 66 +8 44 +9.5 55 ?

WOW and there she goes again. I am certainly not the one to give advice. I wouldn't feed past +10, and only LC if you have to. I know they will tell you no food so you will know if you have a falling numbers at ps. I see a potential stall coming on here - kinda of what you went through with her a few days ago - didn't you skip that shot? sorry - foggy tired brain this afternoon and it escapes me. Good luck, and for sure get a +10, +11, etc - know you will!

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +5.5 46 +7 66 +8 44 +9.5 55 ?

I am no expert & cannot give advice & know you won't take my advice. If it were my kitty.. I wouldn't even question reducing.. it is insane to pump food in every 30mins to an hour. You will get experts to advise & then make your own decison.. we are cheering you on.. whatever you choose!

***Edited to add.. may be unpopular or offend.. but how happy is Gracie getting tested every 30mins & food fed just to keep "normal" #s? :YMSIGH:

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +5.5 46 +7 66 +8 44 +9.5 55 ?

Hi guys.

Here's my spin on what Jill and Libby posted. I think they laid out the options already. I don't know that there are more "scenarios." You can't prevent numbers from spiking up, all you can do is work on trying to prevent them from dropping precipitously. There are fundamentally two ways to manage numbers -- food or insulin. Jill and Libby outlined their thinking about dosing. Both of you will need to decide about whether and when to reduce doses weighing the pros and cons.

Food will probably take more experimenting. Food manipulation is essentially a trial and error process. Pick a strategy and stick with it for a couple of weeks to see if it's working. I will say that my impression is that you may want to feed a base food that's a bit higher in carbs -- maybe 5 - 7% range. I'd also use something more than 14% for HC. That's actually more of a MC level. When I do use gravy, I use FF gravy lovers that is somewhere in the 15 - 17% range. You may need to decide on when to feed HC based on how much Gracie is dropping -- much like Beth suggested. You may need to change around the timing of mini-meals or how much you feed at those meals.

I know you want answers. I'm not sure that there are truly answers. There are only best guesses that have to be adjusted for your cat.

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +5.5 46 +7 66 +8 44 +9.5 55

Princess Gracie!!!

as pretty as her namesake...and as talked about! :lol:

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +5.5 46 +7 66 +8 44 +9.5 55

Thanks, Sienne. I think my questions of earlier today are OBE and you're right, Mike and I have to decide on that. All I wanted some help with tonight is this:
If a cat is having to be kept up this long with food all day, then there is too much insulin or the pancreas is also working. I don't think there can be any other options. If we weren't doing what we were doing, she would have hypod today. I just wanted to know if she could still be getting these numbers from the sk1.25u. But Mike and I have decided that we will probably be working this all night, too, unless she (1) stays too low to shoot or (2) bounces. Because the protocol says to skinny the dose if a new cat falls below 50 and the reductions are close together, then we are taking her to 1u tonight although I'm sure that will not affect her tonight. Then we are going to get back on protocol and start reducing her .25u when she earns it once (below 50) unless her reductions are too close together..then we'll skinny. I think in our guts and our untrained minds, we believe Gracie is done with this and the low lows with the carbs are causing these bounces. We want to start taking her down and see what she does and what she holds...we are not prepared to just stop her as we don't want to backtrack. So now we have a plan.

She is now 43 @ +10.5 even though we fed her again at 9.5. I just fed her and gave her karo as I am anticipating that we are stalling at the least.

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +5.5 46 +7 66 +8 44 +9.5 55

Sounds like a good plan. One has to have a plan. Good luck tonight - I think reducing tonight is the way to go, IMHO, and FWIW, as untrained as that is. It's taken you all day just to keep her numbers up - sure fire case for a reduction, again IMHO. I hope you are able to shoot. Good luck - will try to keep tabs on how it is going.

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +5.5 46 +7 66 +8 44 +9.5 55

Thanks, Michelle and Nicole for input. She's up to 85 at +11 but I fed her at 10.5 because she was 43 so we'll see...will recheck at 11.75 but I see stalling in our future :lol:

Anne....please let us know how Muffin does. Hope you are well. Hugs!!

Re: 1/2 Gracie AMPS 338 +2 184 +5.5 46 +7 66 +8 44 +9.5 55

I go out for the day & Look at that Gracie!!!--Looks like what you are striving for is coming to pass!! So very wonderful, but just remember you must take care of yourself too, and do bean things! And sleep when Beans need to sleep. Look at those numbers--Hope she will let you guys rest tonite.
Big Hugs & wishing you success.

Re: 1/2 Gracie PMPS 105

Thanks, Roni!! That'll teach you to go out

So here is how it unfolded: We fed Gracie at +10.5 and she came up to 85. At +11.75, she was 112 and hadn't eaten in one hour 15 minutes. So we stalled15 and rechecked her and she was 105. That could be a dropping number but it's close enough to 112 that we gave her 1u...a reduced dose. We fed her 9% food with gravy and will check her often and will probably up her carbs if she isn't going up. We're fairly rested....we didn't do anything today at all. We have all we need to monitor and feed.

Hope everyone has a nice evening...I think we are going to be busy so we probably won't be around much other than to post.

Re: 1/2 Gracie PMPS 105

congrats on the reducie!!!

Re: 1/2 Gracie PMPS 105

Good Hooting! Those are the hard ones to read, is it meter variance , surf or drop. Good call I think. Where oh where did that crystal ball get to?

Re: 1/2 Gracie PMPS 105 +.5 94 +1.5 83

Thanks, Ann. We're feeding her 12% to try and keep her up but she's certainly not surfing on her own right now. I worry about that big drop that often comes at 1.5 or 2.

Re: 1/2 Gracie PMPS 105 +.5 94 +1.5 83

OK Gracie, start surfing! So far so good! Paws crossed.

Re: 1/2 Gracie PMPS 105 +.5 94 +1.5 83 +2 39 +2.5 75

Whoa...even watching her closely she dropped to 39 so she got 18% w/karo and is now up to 75. Will keep rechecking....little devil.

Re: 1/2 Gracie PMPS 105 +.5 94 +1.5 83 +2 39 +2.5 75

Ah Gracie -- keeping your beans busy yet again? Good call tonight - with ps and all. and will you look at that 39. :shock: I hope she decides to surf for you soon. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Re: 1/2 Gracie PMPS 105 +.5 94 +1.5 83 +2 39 +2.5 75

Oye! You may be right about the full reduction! I might rethink the Lev switch, it is rather nice to have a kitty that nadir's early so I can get to bed!

Re: 1/2 Gracie PMPS 105 +.5 94 +1.5 83 +2 39 +2.5 75 +3 140

Dh here - Well, I never like to see Gracie bounce, but I'm a little relieved by this number. Hopefully she will stay around this level instead of that 39.

Re: 1/2 Gracie PMPS 105 +.5 94 +1.5 83 +2 39 +2.5 75 +3 140

wow - looks like the carbs kicked in. and I hear ya - there are moments when the higher numbers are nice. I hope you guys aren't up too late.

Re: 1/2 Gracie PMPS 105 +.5 94 +1.5 83 +2 39 +2.5 75 +3 140

Yes, Gracie , this would be a nice place to rest.
"Say good night, Gracie"

"Good night Gracie!"