Not quite sure if I am doing this right?

[Chey Bear's Mom]

I am not quite sure what I am doing or what is normal. Cheyanne had a really high reading this morning, which has me worried. Her readings in the morning seem higher than any other time. I felt like we were getting to a good place?

I am currently only feeding her the classic wet food from Fancy Feast and keep to about 3 cans a day. She will eat 3/4 a can in the morning, 1/2 a can some time in the day (I freeze it for her), 3/4 can before her second shot, 1/2 after her 10:00 o'clock reading, and 1/2 can in the night sometime (frozen). Am I OK with that?

She seems to be steady in weight now. Before we started insulin she was on a diet and dropped weight too fast. Once we learned she had diabetes the vet told me to feed her whenever she wanted, so I did. After a week or so the vet said to only give her the Glycobalance dry food (she wouldn't eat the wet) twice a day. Morning and night. I couldn't do that because she always wants to eat, and when I do that she eats so fast she throws up everything. Plus the dry food was so high in carbs.

 

[Tracey&Jones (GA)]

Am I OK with that?

That is low carb food and she is eating so that should be good! Jones is currently on FF and I wouldn't change that if other issues weren't also occurring with him.

Cheyanne is on Prozinc which I am not familiar with....but her pattern is almost a go low at night (which isn't abnormal for a cat) and bounce in the morning. And it looks like she clears a bounce within 1 cycle. I wonder if she is bouncing this morning.

Is there a time you can get a +6 or a +8 at night? Like on the weekend? Set your alarm? I wonder what she is up to later in her night cycle.

 

[Frank's Mom]

Hi Amanda! You should get some of the more experienced members chiming in soon, but first let me say congrats on home testing. That goes a long way to helping get the diabetes under control. It would be interesting to see what her cycle looks throughout the night, but I know that can be difficult. Your dosing looks pretty good...you could probably get some lower numbers with a slight increase, but I'll leave those exact suggestions to someone who knows more than me.
It does look like you had a bounce this morning, or possibly she got into some contraband over night. (I found my Frank was eating dog food when I started restricting his food.) Overall, your cycles look pretty good, so you're definitely doing things right with testing, low carb food, and joining this board for more info! Welcome to the group!

 

[Frank's Mom]

Oh, I should have said that shooting 2U on numbers under 200 is pretty risky. You'll want to grab some mid cycle tests when you're doing that so you can make sure she doesn't go too low. Not only is that extremely dangerous, it can cause those huge bounce cycles after. If you're not familiar with hypoglycemia, I think there is a pinned post you can read. And there are some members on here who do a great job explaining what a bounce is.

 

[Frank's Mom]

This is taken from the beginners guide to prozinc sticky....if you haven't read all the stickies, I would recommend you do, so you can make well informed decisions on Chey Bears care.
"When in doubt, ask the Forum or your vet for advice BEFORE dosing your cat.

• The proper sequence for dosing insulin is: Test/Feed/Shoot. In the beginning, if your cat’s BG is not up to at least 200 mg/dL {11 mmol/L}, if your schedule allows, you can stall (without feeding) for 20+minutes, then retest the BG. You are looking for a number that is rising, not falling and up to 200 mg/dL {11 mmol/L}. If you stall once, but can’t do another round of stalling and your cat hasn’t reached a BG of 200 mg/dL {11 mmol/L}, you’ll need to skip the dose and wait until the next cycle. NOTE: Because pet-specific meters (such as the AlphaTrak2) often read higher than human meters, you may want to adjust the NO-SHOOT number to 225 mg/dL {12.5 mmol/L} or even 250 mg/dL {14 mmol/L} This gives you an added margin of safety when using an AlphaTrak2 or other pet-specific meter."

 

[Squeaky and KT (GA)]

Her readings in the morning seem higher than any other time.

Amanda, Doc used to do that to me...took me a while to figure it out. He was eating the last of his 'last night's' food about the time the sun came up waking him. I don't get up for a while after that (other than winter). I was seeing a food spike. I now don't leave anything out when I go to bed but I get up about 3am-ish and feed about a 3/4th can between 3 - they eat it all right then. I don't see those spikes as bad now. I can do it in 3 mins flat now and not even completely wake up....leave everything out night before and use a tiny nightlight. Works well when everything else is dark.

Don't know if that's something that's happening but wanted to share just in case...

HUGS

 

[Rachel]

Hi Amanda! Wow what a number this morning! Yeah, I am going to guess she either got into some contraband or dipped low last night and bounced.

If's GREAT that you're getting that before bed test at night. I would suggest that if you happen to wake up during the night for other reasons, you run down and grab a quick test (I used to do that...great way to get mid cycle tests at night without worrying about setting an alarm).

Any chance of getting some mid cycle tests or even a curve this weekend? It's possible you need an increase, but I'm not convinced of it...you do get some nice blues after what looks like a bounce cycle. In that case, an increase wouldn't necessarily be needed since you're getting good numbers sometimes and an increase would just bring them lower.

 

[Djamila]

Hi Amanda! I second Rachel's nudge to get some mid-cycles or a curve this weekend (it looks like you're fairly new, so please let us know if you need an explanation on some of the vocab we use around here!). Looking at your +11 and +12 readings, I'm actually more inclined to say you may need to decrease the dose than increase it. But without those mid-cycles, that's a bit of a guess. I'm wondering about that because it looks like three evenings in a row Cheyenne has gone down from +11 to +12, and she should be rising at that point. Sometimes that indicates that the dose is too high. To be honest, I've only rarely done a late-cycle test during the night because I'm a heavy sleeper, but if you can grab another +4 tonight, that would be great, and then getting some good data over the weekend (will you be around?) can help to shed some light on this mystery!