Helena and Gandalf
Member
Hi again everybody! 
(Post will end with question about dosing)
We are finally settling in our routines again after a long and lovely summer break in the Swedish archipelago. I thought I could update anyone that is interested on how our summer with an outdoor diabetic kitty went. It might be helpful to someone and maybe serve as some inspo, who knows.
Gandalf has been running free all summer on an island with a lot of forest and meadows, without any cars. Outdoor kitty heaven! We have kept him inside night time so we did not have to to go look for him every morning, thus making the AM shots a lot easier than last summer when he could go outside as he pleased. He was okay with this setup almost from day one, even though our cabin is only 15 squaremeter...
We had been working really hard during the spring to find a dose we would be comfortable giving him without close monitoring. We settled at 1.4 U and though his values have not been ideal during the summer, he at least seemed to be feeling well, and we did not have to worry as much for hypos. But I must say that we were able to test a lot more than we had expected. He is very social and likes to hang around you so he was almost always nearby. We could usually just call him when we wanted a test. He is also extremely stubborn. If he does not want to come home he will just ignore you, even though he is in the bush right next to you.
This was a huge problem last summer!
Another huge problem last summer was getting him home in time for his PM shot. This was also a lot smoother this year. I think he missed the 1 hour window for his shot only a handful of times. We chose to go about it by giving him a greatly reduced dose (usually 0.4 U) when he finally did come home, since we now he needs his insulin. This seemed to work out quite well.
The only thing that didn't work was that either the dose was not enough, or he was not getting enough food to match the increase in his activity level, because he dropped a bit of weight during the summer.
The amount of food to give him was very hard to evaluate because he hunts so much on his own when he gets to roam free. Worth to note maybe is that he is raw fed, so his prey corresponds to an extra meal for him. I tried to note every time I saw him eat his pray but eventually gave up because we are talking several times a day here. We just settled on a food amount and kept it for the summer. He has since we got back gained some weight back again so he is no longer dropping!
So now to the present. We almost immediately started with increasing the dose again when we got back. We only had to go up to 1.8 U to get some action again. We tried some different dosing and settled on 1.6 U which we have been keeping for little over a week now. Gandalf is quite prone to bouncing and the last 4-5 cycles he has been laying very flat in the low to mid yellows. These are really good PS for Gandalf but we would like to see him drop a little bit lower during the cycles. His last active cycle, on 1.6 U, dropped him to around 8 mmol/l and that was enough to send him right up to pink. I think it is time for a dose increase but would like it if we could ease him down the BG scale to try and avoid bouncing. We have 3 hours until PMPS and I think we will try a fat 1.6 U tonight. Does this seem like a good plan? Or should we just bite the bullet and increase by more to get som action and then try and the deal with the bouncing?
Sorry for the long post!
(Post will end with question about dosing)We are finally settling in our routines again after a long and lovely summer break in the Swedish archipelago. I thought I could update anyone that is interested on how our summer with an outdoor diabetic kitty went. It might be helpful to someone and maybe serve as some inspo, who knows.
Gandalf has been running free all summer on an island with a lot of forest and meadows, without any cars. Outdoor kitty heaven! We have kept him inside night time so we did not have to to go look for him every morning, thus making the AM shots a lot easier than last summer when he could go outside as he pleased. He was okay with this setup almost from day one, even though our cabin is only 15 squaremeter...
We had been working really hard during the spring to find a dose we would be comfortable giving him without close monitoring. We settled at 1.4 U and though his values have not been ideal during the summer, he at least seemed to be feeling well, and we did not have to worry as much for hypos. But I must say that we were able to test a lot more than we had expected. He is very social and likes to hang around you so he was almost always nearby. We could usually just call him when we wanted a test. He is also extremely stubborn. If he does not want to come home he will just ignore you, even though he is in the bush right next to you.
This was a huge problem last summer! Another huge problem last summer was getting him home in time for his PM shot. This was also a lot smoother this year. I think he missed the 1 hour window for his shot only a handful of times. We chose to go about it by giving him a greatly reduced dose (usually 0.4 U) when he finally did come home, since we now he needs his insulin. This seemed to work out quite well.
The only thing that didn't work was that either the dose was not enough, or he was not getting enough food to match the increase in his activity level, because he dropped a bit of weight during the summer.
The amount of food to give him was very hard to evaluate because he hunts so much on his own when he gets to roam free. Worth to note maybe is that he is raw fed, so his prey corresponds to an extra meal for him. I tried to note every time I saw him eat his pray but eventually gave up because we are talking several times a day here. We just settled on a food amount and kept it for the summer. He has since we got back gained some weight back again so he is no longer dropping! So now to the present. We almost immediately started with increasing the dose again when we got back. We only had to go up to 1.8 U to get some action again. We tried some different dosing and settled on 1.6 U which we have been keeping for little over a week now. Gandalf is quite prone to bouncing and the last 4-5 cycles he has been laying very flat in the low to mid yellows. These are really good PS for Gandalf but we would like to see him drop a little bit lower during the cycles. His last active cycle, on 1.6 U, dropped him to around 8 mmol/l and that was enough to send him right up to pink. I think it is time for a dose increase but would like it if we could ease him down the BG scale to try and avoid bouncing. We have 3 hours until PMPS and I think we will try a fat 1.6 U tonight. Does this seem like a good plan? Or should we just bite the bullet and increase by more to get som action and then try and the deal with the bouncing?
Sorry for the long post!
Your holiday sounds like heaven for kitties and humans. I'm sure Gandalf loved being the true little hunter/carnivore that he is!
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Just read on wikipedia that it has low carbcontent, it is also not toxic to cats in smaller amounts thankfully. This cat drives me crazy sometimes. 
