@Steffi - which insulin are you using? Also, are you keeping a log of his numbers in a spreadsheet?
If JJ is on insulin then you are quite right to test every day (definitely before each injection, and at least one mid-cycle test to keep a handle on how low the dose is taking him, e.g. daytime mid-cycle or a 'before bed' test on the evening cycle. If you can't do both AM and PM mid-cycle tests each day, perhaps alternate them. If you can only do one regularly, I'd suggest getting the daily mid-cycle test for the cycle where JJ tends to run lowest (many cats run lower at night so the 'before bed' test is very valuable for trend data and, most important of all, keeping a kitty safe); and then get the mid-cycle data for the other cycle, say, at weekends. If you do change dose, it's important to do a curve as it settles to spot any major changes.
If JJ's pancreas heals and starts sputtering back into life there is no way of predicting when it will start 'lending a hand' with lowering JJ's BG levels. You need to be on top of testing so that you can respond quickly should his dose need to be reduced.
I get somewhat wound up about the manner in which many veterinary professionals seem to approach feline diabetes treatment. They're sometimes overly paranoid about hypoglycaemia and yet in the next breath they actively discourage the very testing which is the best way to minimize the risk of hypo. If they don't support adequate testing and the caregivers of their patients follow that advice unquestioningly then perhaps the lack of testing is a causative factor in those vets probably seeing more incidences of hypoglycaemia in cats than should be the case. For example, a feline specialist at a prestigious teaching hospital in this country told me last year that it was never safe to give a cat insulin at BG levels less than 11/200 (veterinary meter). That might be true when a cat is in unknown territory when first starting on insulin (either the very first insulin or when switching to a different insulin), is not being home tested, and where there is no body of data to track the cat's response to a particular insulin. (Note: FDMB also recommends that 11.1/200 is a 'no-shoot' threshold when no data is available to show how the cat is responding.) Provided the cat is being home tested - and especially with gentler-acting insulins like Lantus and Levemir - a sufficient body of data can be gathered and insulin can then be administered with minimal risk at preshot levels significantly below 11.1/200. (What annoyed me even more is that she had over 6 months of Saoirse's data available to her which provided irrefutable evidence that Saoirse had been tightly regulated safely and successfully with appropriate home testing, even receiving Lantus at preshot values less than 5.5/100 (Alphatrak). That vet's refusal to modify her stance resulted in much-needed insulin treatment being withheld from Saoirse for months and led to the worst pancreatitis Spec fPL result she has ever had.)
What ticks me off even more is when some vets use minimal curve data as a basis for dosing decisions (possibly from curves done at their surgery and falsely elevated due to vet stress) and they then start ramping up dosages far too quickly, potentially missing a cat's 'goldilocks' dose. This may then leave the poor cat in a situation of chronic overdose (higher, flatter numbers - mistaken for poor regulation and dose erroneously gets hiked up even further
) and potentially at much greater risk of a hypoglycaemic episode (e.g. cat may end up on a roller coaster of dangerous lows and sky-high bounces).
Mogs
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Indeed, the greatest peace of mind I get from using the Alphatrak is when Saoirse's numbers were at the lower end of the euglycaemic range.
