1/2 Chianti amps 138 +2 251 +5 235 pmps 325 spoke to vet

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itzj

itzj

Member Since 2014
This cat. I am still in bed but posting. Do we stall to see if he is rising?

We reduced dose last night. On phone can't link.
 
Will you be home to monitor him, and do you have all the supplies you need (test strips and HC or syrup, if needed)?
I have to go to work, so won't be around in a bit here, but those are the first questions I always ask myself.
If you decide to stall, remember to hold the food and see if he's rising without the influence of food.
 
We have everything, we just steered him through two days of scary numbers, well scary to us. That's why I'm unsure what to do.
 
I know those numbers would have looked pretty scary to you but having looked at his spreadsheet I'm sure that he's been there before. I suspect that the midnight eating was Chianti looking after his own low numbers - what a good boy :)
 
For the 157 no. But dh fed him after that and he ate a bunch. Is it safe to shoot? We are both home today.
 
Sorry for being freaked out. We danced with a 44 yesterday and we are new to handling low numbers. I know we want him here, it's just scary new.
 
No problem. I'll check back in then to see where we go from there.

Sorry for being freaked out. We danced with a 44 yesterday and we are new to handling low numbers. I know we want him here, it's just scary new.
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Don't be sorry we've all been there, if you weren't a bit freaked out you wouldn't love your cat :) what's more scary is what he was doing all those cycles when you weren't monitoring - lucky he free feeds (I assume) so he's fed the low numbers himself.
 
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teeheehee they'll do that to you sometimes. I don't think you're going to have to worry about low numbers today but I would still get a +4 or +5 to be safe and don't forget to update your spreadsheet :)
 
Hi. I think this is my first visit to your condo. You did great shooting. The bounce from the low numbers and reduction is to be expected. The more he stays in blue and green the less most cats bounce and/or the quicker they clear the bounces. It will be interesting to see how quickly he clears. My Max bounced a lot for a year.
 
Spreadsheet updated. I was posting from in bed (I'm a late to bed, late to rise, dh is the opposite). I will plan on testing probably at +5 to give him a little break from being pricked.

I think I had in my head, stupidly, that once he started dipping into blues and greens that that's when you start to feel a little relief since that is the goal. I don't think I read enough threads to realize that while it feels satisfying to be in those numbers, it is a totally different game with a a new freakout level. I hadn't focused on how dicey it would be. Guess it's going to be a good thing that we homeschool, worst case scenario I throw the kids in front of some pbs kids and focus on Chianti.
 
The alternate sleeping patterns is great for managing a diabetic kitty :)

As long as you're monitoring and have experienced people looking out for you until you get the hang of it yourself it's not dicey, definitely does take things to a new freakout level though. My house was never so clean as when Vyktor was in low numbers. I'd burn off the adrenalin and the time between tests by doing the housework. With him OTJ it's back to it's usual shambles :rolleyes:
 
+5 235

Won't test again till pmps to give him a break.

Thank you all so much for guiding us this am.
 
looks like he's in a new bounce, although he might not be going too high with it. I suspect he's been seeing normal numbers all the time, Jenny - you just didn't know it. That 138 this morning was probably rising from something lower during the night. :D

Once you get the hang of the low numbers dance it's not so nervewracking. You just want the confidence to KNOW for certain that when you give him high carbs he'll come up easily, and you gain that confidence by seeing it happen with Chianti. Hang in there!

I was glad that punkin didn't become diabetic until after my kids were grown, and conveniently during a between-jobs-interlude. I admire you for doing this with little kids at home, although what else do you do for the kitty that's part of the family? Suzanne/Cobb has a toddler too, and just went back to work full-time. It's a lot to handle. You're doing really great with all of it. :)
 
pmps 325. We'll hang out at this dose until Sunday and then go back up to the 3.75

Just got off the phone with the vet. All his labs look good, fructosamine was 466 and she was happy about that. We did have a little spat over the 4u dose. She said she was happy with it, and then I described how we had had a dicey past couple of days hitting a 44 low, which because of that lovely +-20% issue could have been lower. She then kind of flipped out and said that she is worried that we are over testing and that it's going to cause us problems. Then I said but if we continued to go off of preshots alone that we'd end up with a hypo attack on our hands. And I said that the day he posted the 44 he had dropped there from 227 and that such a big swing made me nervous. I finally suggested that I wanted to try the 3.75 for a week and see if I could get the numbers to pull down/even out some more before seeing if the 4u was the better dose.

Now I'm worried that I ticked her off and I should have played the game a little better, but I really am not able to be anything other than genuine and didn't want to feel like I was tricking her or something. I can tell she is annoyed by me learning things that are not directly from a vet. I want to get her more on my side, but I mean, I don't have the degree that she has, nor do I presume to, but unless I do she really isn't going to listen to me.

Thank you for the kind words. I'm feeling stretched thin on the needy creatures front, feeling like I'm not giving any of them the level of attention they need. It's nice to hear I'm getting on track with some of it at least.
 
The very first night I was able to get a successful test on Eddie, we had been shooting 3u of ProZinc blind. He had dropped from a 300 pre-shot to 98 at +4, and then 79 at +6. I couldn't get any more blood after that, and I have no idea how low he was going. I talked to a tech the next day, and said I wanted to try a lower dose, and got some flack. We reached a compromise at 2 units (which later turned out to be too high). After that phone call, I subsequently got a call from our regular vet tech, who actually apologized for the hard time I had been given by the first tech we spoke with. One thing she pointed out that has stuck with me is....is that vet (or tech) going to answer her phone at 2:00 AM and come to your house and stay up with you with a cat that is running in dangerously low numbers for hours? Nope. You've got to do what is safe for your kitty. I've been lucky in that our vet is supportive and pretty much hand off, once she saw that we knew what we were doing, and that we were getting good results. But at first, walking that line with your vet can be tricky.
 
Jen is right -- your vet isn't going to be there 24/7.

If you think about what happens with human diabetics, their MD works with them to learn how to adjust the insulin dose based on what the BG test data tells you. People aren't calling their doctors several times a week to check on the "right" dose. You're doing the same thing with your cat and your decisions about dosing aren't based on a whim.They are based on a protocol that was published in a veterinary journal.

I've attached the article if you want to share it with your vet.
 

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it isn't long before most people have surpassed their vet's knowledge when it comes to dosing. When you're doing it 24/7/365, you can't help but learn what works and what doesn't work with your cat.

Sounds like you did the best you could. One thing that many people do is to stop asking the vet specifically about dose adjustments. I kept trying to interest the vet(s) in punkin's ss, but eventually stopped. it takes some time to learn how to "read" the spreadsheet. My vet realized I was going to do what I was going to do about the dose and they stopped telling me what to do with it. Even the vet I switched to that had 2 diabetic cats of her own didn't hometest. But she supported me in every way, and I think she knew her stuff overall, so that worked for both of us.
 
Hi, I am fairly new myself and cannot give dosing advice but I can say as a mom of two grown boys, I give you all the credit in the world homeschooling and being CG to a sugar kitty- that is a lot!! No way I could have done that- give yourself a big pat on the back or accept a virtual hug from me for the great job you're doing! p.s. if your vet becomes unbearable, you, you can change vets-after all they work for you, not vice versa! I am lucky, my vet is supportive but not everyone is that lucky.
 
itzj said:
pmps 325. We'll hang out at this dose until Sunday and then go back up to the 3.75

Just got off the phone with the vet. All his labs look good, fructosamine was 466 and she was happy about that. We did have a little spat over the 4u dose. She said she was happy with it, and then I described how we had had a dicey past couple of days hitting a 44 low, which because of that lovely +-20% issue could have been lower. She then kind of flipped out and said that she is worried that we are over testing and that it's going to cause us problems. Then I said but if we continued to go off of preshots alone that we'd end up with a hypo attack on our hands. And I said that the day he posted the 44 he had dropped there from 227 and that such a big swing made me nervous. I finally suggested that I wanted to try the 3.75 for a week and see if I could get the numbers to pull down/even out some more before seeing if the 4u was the better dose.

Now I'm worried that I ticked her off and I should have played the game a little better, but I really am not able to be anything other than genuine and didn't want to feel like I was tricking her or something. I can tell she is annoyed by me learning things that are not directly from a vet. I want to get her more on my side, but I mean, I don't have the degree that she has, nor do I presume to, but unless I do she really isn't going to listen to me.

Thank you for the kind words. I'm feeling stretched thin on the needy creatures front, feeling like I'm not giving any of them the level of attention they need. It's nice to hear I'm getting on track with some of it at least.
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Just a week or so ago I got in to a very heat talk with my alternative vet, she too was concerned that I test to much, she was worried about the quality of life for Charlie and I, I told her I track all his tests and if I had not been testing like I do, Charlie would have been gone numerous times over, I told her she could not pay me enough to test less then I do, then I told her I did not want to continue the conversation.
 
When I started getting dosing advice here was when my vet didn't respond quickly enough and I changed the dose without his okay. I was a chicken and started a second ss just for my vet. He doesn't discuss dosing with me lately. I stopped sending it weekly but did send one a week ago and he didn't call. I'll send another next week but he only responds to them if I call him or ask questions. He always calls if I ask for advice though.
 
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