12/10 Pimp food faux pas? AMPS 330; +4 431?!?; +7 388; PMPS 338; +2 299; +5 265

[Andy & Pimp]

yesterday

It's been seven complete cycles since we saw blue.

I've realized that the only thing that's been different this week with the constant high numbers...I was here to give him wet food every 3 hrs. Up until now he's been eating YA during the day. This week, he's been eating BB Wilderness cans exclusively (minus a few YA snacks here and there-2 or 3 kibbles). It seems to be his favorite canned that we've tried. It's making me question the carb content and now I'm looking for something else that he can enjoy eating.

I know some of you will tell me to stop trying to analyze things and just do the dance. I try, I really do. I've got 6 more cans of Wilderness in the cupboard and will keep it consistent until they're gone. I just have to try to find reasons for things....it's my nature.

Cross posting my food questions from feline health here

 

[Doodles & Karen]

Come on Pimp...work the juice. Be nice and slide on down for your bean today!

 

[carfurby (GA)]

I hope Pimp comes back down today. He may need a little time to get back on track after the jerky raid.

 

[Anne & Hyde (GA)]

Be a good boy Pimp and head to the blues!!

 

[Suzi_S]

Pimp, enough of this nonsense. Time to come down.

 

[Andy & Pimp]

Starting to wonder about my meter. Just went out and picked up a new one and I'll compare the 2 next test.

ETA: needed a spare one on hand anyhow.

Old meter works fine. Unfortunately.

 

[Andy & Pimp]

Cross posting my food questions from feline health here

ETA: new stuff in 1st post

 

[Andy & Pimp]

Going to .4u tomorrow morning if no blues tonight.

Pimp! Official dosecrease threat! Do it! Do it now!

 

[Andy & Pimp]

PMPS 338 dosecrease came early. Shot .4u. I can't stand seeing him in the pinks this much.

 

[Bobbie And Bubba]

yesterday

It's been seven complete cycles since we saw blue.

I've realized that the only thing that's been different this week with the constant high numbers...I was here to give him wet food every 3 hrs. Up until now he's been eating YA during the day. This week, he's been eating BB Wilderness cans exclusively (minus a few YA snacks here and there-2 or 3 kibbles). It seems to be his favorite canned that we've tried. It's making me question the carb content and now I'm looking for something else that he can enjoy eating.

I know some of you will tell me to stop trying to analyze things and just do the dance. I try, I really do. I've got 6 more cans of Wilderness in the cupboard and will keep it consistent until they're gone. I just have to try to find reasons for things....it's my nature.

Cross posting my food questions from feline health here

Hi Andy, I feel your pain and I too try to analyze everything that Bubba does or doesn't do. It is draining me......yes, we just have to learn to do the dance but, it is hard for us peeps who want to have our finger on the pulse of everything. This dance has it's own pulse that we can't feel, touch, or, hear.......Fingers and paws crossed for lower numbers.

 

[Andy & Pimp]

It has come to my attention that the canned food Pimp has been eating this week may very well be high carb. I'll be sticking my head in the oven now....
I've been buying the Wilderness all along for him but giving him some variety with Core, regular Wellness grain free and he was eating a lot of the Young Again. Wilderness was the only one on sale this week and he really likes it. To make matters worse, I'm off work now so I've been feeding canned every few hours instead of him just eating YA during the day.

The lowest I could find in the house now 13% Core trout/herring. So that's what he got for his +2 snack. I'll be curious to see how much numbers come down tonight and tomorrow. Picking up some confirmed low carb cans tomorrow and we'll drop back to .25u to be safe.
Here's the misnomer...if wet food is out of their system in 2-3 hrs tops like everyone says. how come I wasn't getting lower AMPS? His last wet food has been around +3-4 most nights.

ETA: I did the math wrong it's not high carb. I need a break.

 

[Wendy&Neko]

Any chance you could put comment in the SS as to when you started feeding exclusively Blue Wilderness? I find it sometimes helps to annotate what % carb you are feeding when. Some kitties are more carb sensitive than others.

 

[Andy & Pimp]

Any chance you could put comment in the SS as to when you started feeding exclusively Blue Wilderness? I find it sometimes helps to annotate what % carb you are feeding when. Some kitties are more carb sensitive than others.

I'm pretty sure I stocked up on it Sunday. Right after the last nice colors...day before the jerky raid. I'll put it on the SS. Thanks Wendy.

 

[Andy & Pimp]

It has come to my attention that the canned food Pimp has been eating this week may very well be high carb.

I guess I did the math wrong. It's supposedly 5%. Now it will be interesting to see if he shows a spike from the 13%! That was an hour ago...going for a test!

ETA: nope no spike. down 40 points from +2.

 

[Madeline528]

How many ounces are each can of Wellness? The percentage of carbs in those cans? How many cans does Pimp get?

 

[Andy & Pimp]

How many ounces are each can of Wellness? The percentage of carbs in those cans? How many cans does Pimp get?

The Wellness cans I was getting were 5.5oz. They're all around 5%, all around 200 cal/can. But they're 1:2 protein:fat.
Wilderness is (I guess??) about same carbs same cals but 2:1 protein:fat. And it's a little cheaper.

 

[Madeline528]

I couldn't find any thing on Wilderness. But like you said " Wellness grain free are around 5% & 200cal". Wellness ex: kitten, chicken, turkey, beef & chicken, turkey & salmon. How many 5.5oz cans does Pimp eat per day? I know Layla, is much smaller (8lbs & I'm maintaining) then Pimp. She gets a total of 6oz a day, total 180 cal & no more then 10% carb total. When she was on insulin. I fed only before shots (2x day). Now I feed same amount, but I splint it into 3 meals (3/4, 1/2 & 3/4). No dry food

 

[Andy & Pimp]

@Madeline528 you're supposed to be at an OTJ party
let's keep the food discussion in the feline health thread

 

[julie & punkin (ga)]

There are 2 thoughts bobbling about in my head:

1. insulin is a hormone and we know that absorption can vary by as much as 50% from one shot to the next. Are you shooting in a different location? Some spots in the body seem to absorb faster/slower than others.

2. feeding after the nadir can sometimes act as a brake on the insulin. If you are feeding the same amount after mid-cycle, that can cause the next ps to be higher than it would otherwise be. It can help to identify if feeding is causing a problem if people put an * in the column when you feed. I fed punkin at preshot and +3 - other than that, he got cooked chicken breast for pokey treats (0% carbs).

3. apparently there were 3 thoughts, not 2. Increases are typically done in 0.25u increments with both SLGS and Tight Reg. Skootching up in dose is often not too helpful unless you're just fine-tuning a dose and it's basically perfect otherwise. I'd go ahead and go to 0.5u in the morning and use that as your "new" dose.

If the food is the reason for his higher blood sugar, it should clear out fairly soon. He looks to me like he's been bouncing, but I don't see what it could be from.

 

[Andy & Pimp]

insulin is a hormone and we know that absorption can vary by as much as 50% from one shot to the next. Are you shooting in a different location? Some spots in the body seem to absorb faster/slower than others.

He gets shot in scruff, back, or side; rotated randomly since we started.

feeding after the nadir can sometimes act as a brake on the insulin.

I had no idea. But wouldn't he have lower amps then? I don't feed him after pm+4 unless he's on his way to the deep end. Again, there's YA kibble out all the time. Has been for the last 2 months.

apparently there were 3 thoughts, not 2. Increases are typically done in 0.25u increments with both SLGS and Tight Reg. Skootching up in dose is often not too helpful unless you're just fine-tuning a dose and it's basically perfect otherwise. I'd go ahead and go to 0.5u in the morning and use that as your "new" dose.

I'm going to give .4u a couple cycles to see what it does for him. He hit 60's on .25u - without a proper depot - last week and I don't think a 100% increase is a good idea. I'm ditching the protocol/method on this one. If he doesn't show blue quickly we'll go to .5u.

He looks to me like he's been bouncing, but I don't see what it could be from.

I have no freakin clue either.

 

[Vyktors Mum]

My thoughts on your thoughts in yesterday's condo:

Both SLGS and TR that are used here have been refined with years of experience based on what works best for most kitties. Sometimes with some kitties personal refinements are needed to get better results, e.g. if a kitty doesn't hold reductions well then we might suggest shaving the dose instead of taking a full reduction.

I'm not particularly on top of the SLGS method and to be perfectly honest I don't understand how it can work to give great results when it doesn't allow the kitty to hang around too far into the normal range. It wasn't long ago that we had separate forums for TR and SLGS so I haven't seen SLGS in action too often. The only times I've personally seen it do the job is with really new kitties that go OTJ very quickly so weren't going to need much of a hand anyway.

I've looked at Pimp's spreadsheet on and off over the afternoon and it still doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I look back at where you reduced from 1.25 to .15 within the space of ten days and think that was too much too fast but then 3 days later on 11/28 he gets a SLGS reduction number. There aren't any comments in his spreadsheet about that so I'm assuming that he wasn't ill and that there wasnt anything else unusual going on to explain that. According to SLGS that would have been time to withdraw insulin and see how he went by himself but by PMPS he was clearly in need of the shot that you gave. At that point he loses it completely until you increase again but within 2 cycles earns a SLGS reduction - which you didn't take. Another green a few cycles later and he's lost it again and looking like he wants an increase.

I do have to wonder if his latest losing it is something to do with that food you've been giving him. Even if it is LC is there a possibility that there's something in there he's allergic to? Is whatever meat is in it something he's had in other food types regularly before or is there something novel in there?

Another strong possibility is his teeth. Cats are notoriously difficult (read almost impossible) to regulate if they have dental issues. Dental problems are not always evident by visual inspection and kitties generally won't display any symptoms until it's really bad. When was Pimp's last dental and did it include X-rays?

If you look at Vyktor's first spreadsheet (at bottom of his spiel in my signature) you'll see that I couldn't get him regulated for the first two months. Then he had a dental on 24/2/2012 (dates written the Australian way) and kaboom a couple of weeks later he started on his mission for OTJ.

In regard to adjusting Pimp's doses by smaller amounts - the experience of the board is that generally adjusting by smaller amounts is only effective if the kitty is really close to their ideal dose and you're just trying to tweak the numbers a little. When they lose it and they need an increase they generally do need to go up by the full .25. That said you're not going to kill him by going up in smaller amounts it's probably just going to cost you some time so no real harm in experimenting a little there.

However, I definitely would not recommend both dropping Pimp's reduction level and reducing by a smaller amount that would be adding two extra aggressive factors at once which could be quite dangerous.

 

[Andy & Pimp]

I look back at where you reduced from 1.25 to .15 within the space of ten days and think that was too much too fast

I agree the reductions came too close together. I think that was made obvious by his numbers. I was still trying to follow SLGS at that point. I dropped .25u for every time he went under 90. 11/7 he hit 50's. -.25=2.0. 11/8- 50's again. -.5 because I wanted to make sure he stopped going that low. After a bounce we had decent preshots, but I was still scared of shooting low numbers. He hit 80's on the reduced dose 11/12. After a skip and another one-time reduction, under 80 again. So -.25. Nadir @ 80 on 11/15. SLGS would call for another -.25 but I was starting to understand how a larger depot can affect for a few days so I only dropped .15. That dose (1.1) got him to 50 so we took the rest of 11/15's reduction and the one he had just earned. Then on 11/21 he hit 50's again and was harder to bring back up, so I took .5 reduction.
It was explained shortly after this to me, that those reductions came too fast. As far as I have read, both SLGS and TR call for immediate reductions when a certain number is met. There are no provisions for "if there was a reduction w/in last 48 hrs" that I have seen.

I do have to wonder if his latest losing it is something to do with that food you've been giving him. Even if it is LC is there a possibility that there's something in there he's allergic to? Is whatever meat is in it something he's had in other food types regularly before or is there something novel in there?

I'm going to pick up some more wellness grain free today and see if it makes a difference. I just liked the wilderness because it's so high in protein. He had been eating both brands alternating days before his numbers got out of control this week.

When was Pimp's last dental and did it include X-rays?

He's never had one. Vet said his mouth was in pristine shape last time he was in. I guess that's the ONE advantage of dry food.

you're not going to kill him by going up in smaller amounts it's probably just going to cost you some time so no real harm in experimenting a little there.

I was thinking going up in smaller increments may help him not to bounce so much and possibly hold a dose better.

However, I definitely would not recommend both dropping Pimp's reduction level and reducing by a smaller amount that would be adding two extra aggressive factors at once which could be quite dangerous.

No worries. If he sees 60's he will get a full .25 reduction.

Let's continue this in tomorrow's condo