? (UPDATE) I think we’re headed for a bad cycle :(

Jenna Josie

Jenna Josie

Active Member
So much for bravery ...

Shot 1.8 on a 130ish because 1.6 on same number a few nights ago wasn’t enough, but her +2, which should had shown a food spike, is basically unchanged.

I am worried. :nailbiting: Typically, her insulin starts to effect her BG starting at +3. I just fed her 1/4 of a three oz can of her regular LC food. (This is in addition to her regular breakfast of one 3 oz can LC.)

I will test again at +3.
 
I'll keep my fingers crossed she just gives you a nice flat cycle. For some kitties (Sam, and Caitlin's Pita being prime examples) Prozinc can produce relatively flat, Lantus-like cycles. Hopefully Josie will just slide into a nice safe green and then surf along for a few hours.

If she does decide to dive, are you around today? Or should we talk about possibly aborting the cycle at some point?
 
I was going to run errands, but now I will be around! (Plenty of closets to clean out . . . )

Her +3 will be in about 5-10 minutes. That will tell us something either way, I hope. I'll check back in in just a bit . . .
 
You can still run errands a little later, once we see what she has planned for this morning.
 
Holding steady at 133 at +3. This is with an extra 1/4 of a 3 oz can of food. Gave her another 1/4 3 oz. can. Will check again in an hour.

Is this right to give her little bits of food -- ?

In the meantime, I'm happy to say that we now have dust-free martini glasses, and I'm about to organize under the kitchen sink!
 
Come to my house? I desperately need to clean up today and instead I'm still sitting in bed reading and posting here. :rolleyes:

You could keep feeding, or just wait and see what happens. Looks like she's likely going to stay pretty flat so you could wait and see if she asks for food later on. For Sam, asking for food is a sign that he's dropping. He's pretty good at letting me know. He'll even "ask" for food when there is food right in front of him. I think he just likes to make sure I know :cat:
 
131 at +4. I don't think it's possible to be "flatter"!

I think I can give her a little break and test again at +6 -- ?

Re: feeding: At this point, she's essentially already had her "snack." It's usually a half a 3oz can divided between +3 and +5. She just got it today between +2 and +3. I think I'll give her a little bit more in an hour (+5) and then wait another hour for the next test.

Djamila said:
He's pretty good at letting me know. He'll even "ask" for food when there is food right in front of him. I think he just likes to make sure I know :cat:
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That's adorable.
 
Sorry I had to run out and do a few of my own errands this morning. yes, no need to keep testing unless you're just curious. That's really quite a lovely cycle today! I hope you get lots more like that!
 
You know, she often has what seem to be quite flat “curves” compared to other cats’ curves I see around here. I would think her little body would rather like all this BG consistency, but it’s just so darn nerve wracking to shoot on those lower blues and just have faith that she’s going to hold for what is her typical curve and not what seems “normal” for most other cats, Sam and Pita being exceptions.

I will be curious to see if she holds more or less steady through to her PMPS. It occurs to me that pretty much every time I’ve reduced on a low’ish PS, it’s been the wrong decision, and she’s ended up higher (but still relatively flat) for a couple of cycles until she has another low’ish PS, and so I reduce, and then the pattern starts all over again. She has often tended toward longer cycles, and maybe I just need to get better at figuring out/trusting that what’s actually happening is that I’m shooting through an overlap —?

EDIT: P.S. Her +8 is 159. If her PMPS is above 180 (which you would think it would be given the +8, but who knows with this little monster?), I'm going to go back to what is supposed to be her "normal" 2 units. Does that seem right?

Her evening shot will be about 30 minutes early (so, at +11.5) b/c we have to go out. This morning's shot was actually about 30 minutes late (so, at +12.5) b/c, while I was stalling, I managed both to lock myself out on my own balcony and then to break into my own house. All by 7:00am! It's really been quite a day . . . Good thing those martini glasses are clean! ;)
 
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Oh wow, you've had quite a day!!!

She does seem remarkably stable these days. I understand being nervous about it though since she's got a few dives in her history. Hopefully the martinis will help :p
 
Remember last evening when I said I would be brave and shoot through the blues?

AMPS is 47. 47???

Retested bc surely that was wrong, and it was 50. (I put the 50 in the SS bc I hate limes.) And this is an “on time” PS test, +12.25 after last night’s shot. I got a +5.5 last night, which was 150 after shooting 2u on a PMPS of 209.

So I fed her her regular breakfast and left the insulin in the fridge.

What the heck is going on? Has she lost her mind? Have I? Is it actually the middle of the night, and I’m only dreaming it’s time for her shot? Did she figure out we’re leaving for a week on Thursday and so she’s getting tricksy out of spite?

(The emoji button isn’t working for me right now, but if it were, I’d have head-bang, confused, and possibly wail.)

EDIT: 30 minutes after eating/the last test, she’s at 65.
 
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Jenna Josie said:
Remember last evening when I said I would be brave and shoot through the blues?

AMPS is 47. 47???

Retested bc surely that was wrong, and it was 50. (I put the 50 in the SS bc I hate limes.) And this is an “on time” PS test, +12.25 after last night’s shot. I got a +5.5 last night, which was 150 after shooting 2u on a PMPS of 209.

So I fed her her regular breakfast and left the insulin in the fridge.

What the heck is going on? Has she lost her mind? Have I? Is it actually the middle of the night, and I’m only dreaming it’s time for her shot? Did she figure out we’re leaving for a week on Thursday and so she’s getting tricksy out of spite?

(The emoji button isn’t working for me right now, but if it were, I’d have head-bang, confused, and possibly wail.)

EDIT: 30 minutes after eating/the last test, she’s at 65.
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Yes, she's a somewhat unpredictable girl! No shot for sure this AM. You aren't doing anything wrong though - it's just the way she responds. I have an unpredictable kitty and what I've learned after over 2 and a half years is that I can try to optimize his dosing as much as possible but I can't be as proactive in changing doses, be bold with the increments I use, etc. I have to do it all in micro sized bits, hold doses a l-o-n-g time and be prepared for the unexpected. Teasel has gone from Lantus to ProZinc to Lantus to Levemir and now back to Lantus. He's behaved similarly on all of these insulins, although he's a bit more moderate now.

I see you've been giving a slightly higher dose in the PM because of her tendency to have yellows at PMPS. That has lead to a reduced dose in the AM fairly often because of the blue PMPSs. It might be worth trying the same dose AM and PM for a while and tolerating the higher PMPS. If you can find a reasonable dose (1.8 - 1.6 u?) that allows you to avoid stalling or reducing the next dose that might be a worthwhile exercise to see how she settles or at least give you some peace of mind.

I know that we really want our kitties in good numbers as much of the time as possible to increase the chances of the pancreas healing. That has to be balanced with keeping an even keep though. That's my two cents ... ;)
 
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Oh Josie. So much for that nice stable cycle. I'm inclined to agree with Kris to try her at 1.8 for a few days and see if you can get the same dose am/pm without the stalls. and then move from there. I've also noticed with Sam that even around two units, he does better if I make changes by 0.1 instead of 0.2 and sometimes even just slow shifts going from a skinny to a fat from one dose to the next. At least you get the day off from testing!
 
Thanks for the two cents, Kris ... although the insights of you, @Djamila, and @Rachel are, of course, worth much, much more to all of us! :)

We did have her on 1.8 for seven days, but looking at that week as a “block” now, I can easily see where we did a No Shot smack in the middle of it and then reduced two mornings later on a 150’ish. We never did try 1.6 since at the time it would have made sense to do so, we didn’t have the U100s. I’m thinking, then, that maybe it would be worth going back down and trying that even though it’s quite a bit down from where we (kind of) are now. (It’s hard to call 2u her “normal” dose when I have had to stall/pull it so frequently.).

That makes logical sense to me, but I’d love to know if it makes logical sense to others.

I do just hope I can get enough data on whatever we change to before leaving her for the week. We leave Thursday morning, getting back the following Wednesday early evening.
 
Oh that's right! You're leaving! In general we lower the dose a little when going out of town, so you want to find someplace where she will be safe and stable, and then lower a little from there for the pet sitter. If you're thinking 1.6u, I think that's fine. I think when someone has as much data as you have, and have learned so much about how the insulin works, then mama sense kicks in and can sometimes help guide our choices.
 
Kris & Teasel said:
. I see you've been giving a slightly higher dose in the PM because of her tendency to have yellows at PMPS. That has lead to a reduced dose in the AM fairly often because of the blue PMPSs.
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This is interesting. I’d actually been thinking about it from the oppposite perspective: I’ve been reducing her AM shots bc they were blue and then returning to “normal” when she gives me a yellow PS.

I have to think a little more about the cause-and-effect pattern there on my dosing decisions.
 
I use skinny and fat doses all the time for Teasel. I have to do that because of his extreme responses (as in his AMPS of 67 today after only two doses of a fat 1 u - upped from a regular 1 u that he'd been on almost 2 weeks).
 
Kris & Teasel said:
I use skinny and fat doses all the time for Teasel. I have to do that because of his extreme responses (as in his AMPS of 67 today after only two doses of a fat 1 u - upped from a regular 1 u that he'd been on almost 2 weeks).
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I could gauge skinny and fat with U40s, but I’m not sure how that would work with U100s — ? It seems like a “fat” or a “skinny” would be +/- 0.1 (one tenth) ? :confused: :bookworm:
 
Jenna Josie said:
I could gauge skinny and fat with U40s, but I’m not sure how that would work with U100s — ? It seems like a “fat” or a “skinny” would be +/- 0.1 (one tenth) ? :confused: :bookworm:
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Your U100s allow you to use lines to dose 0.2u, 0.4, 0.6 u etc. Halfway between those lines is 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 , etc. *Just* under (relative to the needle above), say, 0.2 u would be a fat 0.2 u. Just above would be a skinny 0.2 u. Halfway between 0 u and 0.2 u with open space above and below the plunger surface would be 0.1 u. Does that make sense? I wouldn't attempt a fat or skinny 0.1 u because that's too much guesstimating. I like to have syringe lines to nudge up against for fats and skinnies.
 
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