Sweet Spot
Active Member
Good Morning -
I don't know if you remember me and my sweetheart "Spot" - but here is the last thread I posted before hitting the road. The following is long - and I apologize - but our lives are now able to shift the focus to healing Spot...and just needed to get the support from you on the best way to proceed, if you don't mind.
We "made it" and are finally settled down, going nowhere now all summer. To recap, Spot was diagnosed right before my father passed away. We left Seattle May 22nd and drove to Illinois - staying in Illinois in various motels through June 12th - then another 2200 mile trip back to Seattle. One week of handling my father's affairs, then a 3 day trip to our final "home" in NW Montana. We rv full time and stay on friend's 500 secluded, mountainous acres...quiet and peaceful. Spot LOVES it here......no urban noises, no going anywhere (and we like it, too). This is the perfect place to focus on healing him now.
Basically, Spot has been through absolute chaos for over one month solid. Though his numbers still aren't good, I can tell you that he is doing so well otherwise and, though good days and bad, he held pretty steady overall. He is now so social, no weight loss, normal appetite, normal thirst, normal urination - you wouldn't know he has diabetes if not for his awful numbers. He made it through! Now we have to get down to business....getting those numbers down....and we need some advice, please. We are very confused by his response to insulin to date.
A week ago we took him to the vet again just to be sure the trip didn't take too big a toll on him. Fortunately, his lab work was great, weight loss stopped, liver/kidneys perfect....so that was a relief.
The vet suggested that we not up the dose until giving him a good week to settle down, in case stress was elevating numbers. As you will see, however - with his acting like "normal" Spot again (seems healthy and normal) came a surprise during this "wait and see" week, an INCREASE in numbers this week.! They broke the mold after our boy, of this I am certain.
So...the questions........if you don't mind:
QUESTION 1:
Spot is acting so normal that he is back to grazing like he always did. He doesn't go off and sleep for six hours. He will catnap for an hour, then come eat a bit - rinse and repeat - like he always has before diabetes. So could the surprising increase in numbers be from rarely getting a reading not affected by food spikes?
QUESTION 2:
We were conservative increasing his dose on the road, for obvious reasons, as our spreadsheet reflects. We did the best we could with what we had to work with at the time. Now we are getting into tight regulation. However, we have noticed that Spot always has a good bounce (and bad symptoms) for a few days whenever we have upped the dose. With that in mind, should we still up the dose by .5u or, due to his consistent bounce effect, should we be more gentle at .25u (even though tight regulation calls for .5u with his numbers)?
QUESTION 3:
I treated the insulin like a precious, fragile gem on the trip - and tried to keep it consistently cool. But it is hard to keep it at a perfect temperature on the road, as you know. It isn't cloudy and was never frozen or subjected to heat...but you know travel can be rough and inconsistent. We do have a new prescription for Lantus pens that we could fill (we liked the idea of drawing insulin from the pens...lasting longer using one pen at a time). I guess I am thinking about a fresh start, a fresh insulin, true tight regulation protocol.....would you suggest the "fresh" insulin given all of our travels?
QUESTION 4:
This one drives us mad: How can his symptoms get better (honest, nearly zero symptoms now) yet numbers get worse as we increase insulin? The stress we have been through certainly plays a role and I think we need some "normal time" to sit back and see what his body does...but his numbers were better on a lower dose. We don't understand this...should we really be upping the dose?
QUESTION 5:
When he curves at all, it always seems the nadir comes LATE to the party - like 2/3 into the cycle or more. Is this significant (a physical problem symptom perhaps?) when combined with the other oddities we are dealing with?
I think these were the big questions we had, now that we have had time to sit and think. We are ready to increase by .5u, per tight regulation protocol, but would feel so much better doing so with the blessing of others more experienced on this forum.
As I said over a month ago, thank you so much for getting us through this.....now on to healing Spot!
Forever grateful,
Robin
I don't know if you remember me and my sweetheart "Spot" - but here is the last thread I posted before hitting the road. The following is long - and I apologize - but our lives are now able to shift the focus to healing Spot...and just needed to get the support from you on the best way to proceed, if you don't mind.
We "made it" and are finally settled down, going nowhere now all summer. To recap, Spot was diagnosed right before my father passed away. We left Seattle May 22nd and drove to Illinois - staying in Illinois in various motels through June 12th - then another 2200 mile trip back to Seattle. One week of handling my father's affairs, then a 3 day trip to our final "home" in NW Montana. We rv full time and stay on friend's 500 secluded, mountainous acres...quiet and peaceful. Spot LOVES it here......no urban noises, no going anywhere (and we like it, too). This is the perfect place to focus on healing him now.
Basically, Spot has been through absolute chaos for over one month solid. Though his numbers still aren't good, I can tell you that he is doing so well otherwise and, though good days and bad, he held pretty steady overall. He is now so social, no weight loss, normal appetite, normal thirst, normal urination - you wouldn't know he has diabetes if not for his awful numbers. He made it through! Now we have to get down to business....getting those numbers down....and we need some advice, please. We are very confused by his response to insulin to date.
A week ago we took him to the vet again just to be sure the trip didn't take too big a toll on him. Fortunately, his lab work was great, weight loss stopped, liver/kidneys perfect....so that was a relief.
The vet suggested that we not up the dose until giving him a good week to settle down, in case stress was elevating numbers. As you will see, however - with his acting like "normal" Spot again (seems healthy and normal) came a surprise during this "wait and see" week, an INCREASE in numbers this week.! They broke the mold after our boy, of this I am certain.
So...the questions........if you don't mind:
QUESTION 1:
Spot is acting so normal that he is back to grazing like he always did. He doesn't go off and sleep for six hours. He will catnap for an hour, then come eat a bit - rinse and repeat - like he always has before diabetes. So could the surprising increase in numbers be from rarely getting a reading not affected by food spikes?
QUESTION 2:
We were conservative increasing his dose on the road, for obvious reasons, as our spreadsheet reflects. We did the best we could with what we had to work with at the time. Now we are getting into tight regulation. However, we have noticed that Spot always has a good bounce (and bad symptoms) for a few days whenever we have upped the dose. With that in mind, should we still up the dose by .5u or, due to his consistent bounce effect, should we be more gentle at .25u (even though tight regulation calls for .5u with his numbers)?
QUESTION 3:
I treated the insulin like a precious, fragile gem on the trip - and tried to keep it consistently cool. But it is hard to keep it at a perfect temperature on the road, as you know. It isn't cloudy and was never frozen or subjected to heat...but you know travel can be rough and inconsistent. We do have a new prescription for Lantus pens that we could fill (we liked the idea of drawing insulin from the pens...lasting longer using one pen at a time). I guess I am thinking about a fresh start, a fresh insulin, true tight regulation protocol.....would you suggest the "fresh" insulin given all of our travels?
QUESTION 4:
This one drives us mad: How can his symptoms get better (honest, nearly zero symptoms now) yet numbers get worse as we increase insulin? The stress we have been through certainly plays a role and I think we need some "normal time" to sit back and see what his body does...but his numbers were better on a lower dose. We don't understand this...should we really be upping the dose?
QUESTION 5:
When he curves at all, it always seems the nadir comes LATE to the party - like 2/3 into the cycle or more. Is this significant (a physical problem symptom perhaps?) when combined with the other oddities we are dealing with?
I think these were the big questions we had, now that we have had time to sit and think. We are ready to increase by .5u, per tight regulation protocol, but would feel so much better doing so with the blessing of others more experienced on this forum.
As I said over a month ago, thank you so much for getting us through this.....now on to healing Spot!
Forever grateful,
Robin
