Darrah --
I think some of your understandable nervousness is not yet having a ton of data with Girlie surfing in green numbers. When I look at yesterday's AM vs PM cycle, Girlie had a beautiful AM cycle with your steering her numbers with LC food -- 8% carb. What we don't know is whether the PM cycle would have been any different had you used lower carb food vs up to 20%. I would have thought that Girlie's numbers would have been much higher especially with the 20% but cats do continue to be unpredictable. It sort of looks like now that Girlie has found green, she doesn't want to leave those numbers. The only thought i have is to keep collecting data and keep good notes. I might have waited a bit longer before pulling out the MC food but that's a judgement call and you know your cat better than I do. Of course, these flat green cycles may mean that Girlie is working her way toward a dose reduction.
Do you have a timed feeder? I found this to be very helpful to insure that food was available when I was at work. You may want to take a look at the sticky on whether you can follow TR and work full time. There may be some other ideas in there that are applicable to your situation. Members certainly do leave higher carb food out if they are concerned their cat will drop low while they're out of the house.
Hi Sienne,
Thanks for your comments! Yes, I've looked at the TR and working full-time sticky: that really only seems to apply to cats that are fairly steady and predictable and don't do deep dives with no notice. I can stop home at +4 quickly on most days, but that's not always a given if a meeting is called at work.
I think it was you - wasn't it? - who in another post said that at the beginning, all everyone did was TR. I think - you? - also made the point that SLGS didn't mean that a cat wouldn't dive and couldn't have a hypo.
Girlie isn't new to green: she's had plenty of greens in her SS in 2017. The real difference now is what the human meter is reading vs. what the Alpha Trak2 meter read: on the human meter she's in green; she'd be in other colours on the AlphaTrak for sure. However, for quite some time now (in 2017 as well), she's been on a mission to go to lower numbers (that just haven't looked that low on the AT2, of course), even if she started at high blacks. She does seem to want to stay in green on the human meter, but she has to be checked to ensure that they're safe greens and that has to be addressed with food - and that has to be done when I'm home with her and can test and then respond. which I can't do when at work full-time. The only reason she ate the 8% food during those nice surfs is because I brought it out to her: otherwise, she wouldn't have eaten it as it's not her fave food and about 3 - 4 hours after her shot she's no longer interested in food. She won't do honey.
So one of the challenges is that she's not consistent; she's not steady; and her nadir is still unpredictable (for the most part). That makes planning with an automated feeder, etc. a challenge.
Darrah --
What we don't know is whether the PM cycle would have been any different had you used lower carb food vs up to 20%. I would have thought that Girlie's numbers would have been much higher especially with the 20% but cats do continue to be unpredictable.
Re: PM cycle: 56 on 20% food at +5 is plenty low enough for me, thank you! If you look at 2017, and back earlier in 2018, I regularly had to use HC food to keep her surfing safely. Because of my health and the scare over Christmas, I can no longer closely monitor her at night: I have to try to get enough sleep in myself. Last night was an anomaly re: testing so much at night as I was up anyway due to the medical preps for my own tests today. So at night, when she does drop a lot even on HC food, I usually have to take a chance on the side of safety and leave out the MC or HC food to keep her safe.
I do have an automatic feeder, but that's problematic: she'll be 19 this year and she's never been food motivated. Also, the more time she spends in green, the less motivated she is to find food when she drops. When you see the food carbs noted on her SS, that's not because she's coming to the food: I'm bringing the food to her based on her BG levels. She'd rather just spend the whole time sleeping in the sun. So I can't count on her seeking food (especially at night). Most nights when I've left the higher carb food out, it's barely been touched. And when I have caught a low BG on my way to the loo (e.g. 5 Jan), a night I didn't leave carbs out, it was pure luck that I caught that and the subsequent shark dive.
It doesn't seem to be great for her to be on the 0.1 when I have to leave out MC or HC food to keep her safe when I'm away or asleep, but on the other hand, I don't know that she's ready for a drop yet. A dilemma for sure!
