? Do you ever just get bad days?

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Panic

Panic

Member Since 2019
I thought I would do a glucose curve today to show to my vet next week. We just started home testing last week and I've gotten some low numbers throughout the day but today of all days she's staying high! You'd almost think I did a fur shot but I checked her coat after shooting and didn't feel anything wet! Do random high days ever just happen or did I probably fudge up her shot this morning? :(

Edit: Using an Alphatrak today, I ran out of Relion strips but prior to today (minus the vet curves) I use Relion.
 
Welcome to Crazy Town.
Nigel was our first sugar cat. Not only did he love being in the car he would actually follow me out the front door and jump in. He had textbook curves.
Noah bounced and had numbers not worth posting. Bouncing was a hard concept to grasp, the fire is getting bigger so you throw less water on it. Is that what you mean by a bad day? Also, the dog threw up this morning and another turd just fell off Daniel's butt.
 
If you normally use the Relion to test that may account for some of the differences if you are doing the curve with the Alphatrack. However there may be other factors. 4 units is a high dose for most cats. Bouncing may also be contributing. What was your starting dose and how often was it increased to get to 4 units?
 
@Lisa and Witn (GA)
Yes, I expected higher numbers to account for Alphatrak being more accurate, but these are much higher still. I was just wondering if this was a bounce but she's not lowering much either. Starting dose was 2u (I know, that's high) when the vet did her curve, sent her home on 3u for a week, brought her back and the vet did another curve at 5u - too high a dose, results are in my SS - and sent home on 4u. I agree 4u is high but she showed much behavioral and physical improvement immediately after. I gotta say I'm disappointed by her results so far today, even yesterday she went down to 120s (I would still think that'd be under 200 on Alphatrak?) but today she's just high period! I was really hoping I could show my vet a "typical" day. :(

The only other thing I could think of are the test strips...I just bought the Alphatrak and a few Alphatrak strips off another user, changed the code to match the bottle, got a reading of 110 or something - CRAZY low, I knew that had to be wrong, she's never below 300 pre-shot. I tried to test on my Relion (my last strip) and it got gunked up with the Vaseline I was using, tossed the bottle that had the "bad" strip in it and used another bottle, changed to match the code, then got the 485 AMPS reading. This other bottle of strips shouldn't be bad or expired either tho...I think the original owner just got them in March.

@Noah & me (GA) Nothing like waking up to the sound of a dog hurling!
 
Or a dog with really awful breath, like really really bad.
poop.JPG
 
LOL -- :smuggrin: -- obviously into recycling ---

Blake, our husky/lab cross, would rather eat the cat's .... :( ... which is why we got a Booda style litterbox for Catcat :woot:
 
Oh my goodness, those numbers are crazy high! I don't have any more to add to what Lisa said, but I wanted to let you know that I get why you could be frustrated. :banghead:
Is she acting otherwise normal today?
 
You are not getting any tests in during the pm cycle when cats often drop lower at night .....kitty is probably bouncing because of the drop in BSL during last night. Your kitty could be dropping quite low at night. Always try and get a before bed test in to see kitty is safe.
I agree that is a large amount of insulin for a newly diagnosed cat. I think the vet raised the dose too fast and by too much.
Once you kitty comes off the bounce you can get another curve for the vet. Don’t let him increase the dose on those numbers though as they are from a bounce.
 
Bron and Sheba said:
You are not getting any tests in during the pm cycle when cats often drop lower at night .....kitty is probably bouncing because of the drop in BSL during last night. Your kitty could be dropping quite low at night. Always try and get a before bed test in to see kitty is safe.
I agree that is a large amount of insulin for a newly diagnosed cat. I think the vet raised the dose too fast and by too much.
Once you kitty comes off the bounce you can get another curve for the vet. Don’t let him increase the dose on those numbers though as they are from a bounce.
Click to expand...

Why would she bounce today as opposed to yesterday I wonder? What can I do right now to help her at night? Past midnight I don't leave food out, I have a multi-cat household and a greedy dog so it's hard. Should I request a lower dose when I go to the vet next Thursday?

@Daddy Jack's Mommy She's acting same as always today!
 
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Twice a day - I've only written in the dosages when I test. There are many gaps, sorry about that, we're just getting into testing. Prior to the Vetsulin she was on NPH (up to 5u 2x before I requested an insulin change). Her NPH numbers are not listed.
 
sure looks like a bounce -- I've been told, and I've experienced, that a bounce can be going on for several days
(I had to hold the same dose for several days to determine if it was bounce, or just vetsulin doing its thing with a slightly-too-small dose)

I'd suggest a timed feeder .. but since you said multi-cat plus dog, it would have to be one of those microchip feeders, where only Panic could trigger it

what it looks like to me, and I'm no expert, is that too many things are going on at once, too many variables, and likely each is affecting the others,
the amount of insulin, the different strips, the different meters, the possibility of a fur shot (though I agree, at that dose you would have seen damp fur), and Panic's pancreas maybe doing its best to recover (given your experiences, I'm thinking that was what was happening with Catcat on his 'way low AMPS the other morning)

breathe with me, sigh with me, possibly you'll need to pull an all-nighter to find out what's going on then, makes me wish the technology for the Freestyle Libre could be tweaked and improved to help with our "complicated" cats

and yes, I found in my reading that the higher the numbers go, the more divergence between human meter and pet meter, which I why I decided that, skip the actual numbers, TOO HIGH is TOO HIGH regardless of what's doing the testing (assuming here that it wasn't a bum strip, those do happen, but yours has been consistent

and -- :bighug: and :eek: and :confused: and :p (what Panic is doing to you)
 
Ok. A couple of things.
You need to record on the SS all the dosages you give whether you test or not. Otherwise it isn’t giving a true picture.
I would strongly recommend you test before every shot to ensure the number is high enough to shoot. And always get a test during the cycle to see how low the insulin is taking Kitty
Bouncing happens when the BSL drops too fast, too low or drops lower than the cat is used to, and the cats body panics and dumps regulatory hormones and glucose into the blood stream which shoots up to BSL into high numbers for up to 6 cycles.
If you have tried Vetsulin and NPH, I would consider swapping to one of the longer acting insulin’s such as Lantus or Prozinc if you can afford to do that. The insulin’s you have tried are harsh and fast acting and don’t typically last 12 hours duration.
 
I did get a timed feeder . I experimented with it this week by leaving it outside while I was gone to see if she would use it... I came home and the thing was completely obliterated - I think someone let the dog out and she found it :eek: I might just make Panic stay in my room with the feeder and try to keep the dog away from it during the night?

Do you think I should shoot the vet an email tonight - or call her on Monday? She's been on 4u at least two weeks so far. The day after she did a vet curve on 5u and she dipped to 73, I gave her 4u that night and the next morning she barely ate - but like in a good way? Because she was acting like her pre-diabetic appetite where she's not normally a big eater. But back to my point, I wasn't comfortable giving her 4u that night because she wouldn't eat enough, I finally just gave her 2u, still wasn't hungry enough the next morning so I took her to the vet and she tested over 600, so we went back to 4u and her "diabetic" appetite came back.
 
I will go back and edit my SS when I'm home then! We were discussing Prozinc and then finally got a dip with Vetsulin so the vet wanted to hang on for a while. I am trying to test before every shot but sometimes she just won't bleed and don't want to push her too far since we just started testing. I think I tried five times last night for some blood before I just let her go, she was getting upset on top of it and I didn't want to push.
 
Are you warming the ear with some rice in a sock? And ‘ milking ‘ the ear before testing? Keep trying, you will get there. Document in the SS ‘failed test’ so we know you tried.
I would think seriously about swapping to a longer lasting gentler insulin
 
Yes, I did all the tricks but last night just wasn't having it. Today I was successful every time though, I think her left ear is more stubborn than her right haha. I definitely WANT to switch to Prozinc, I was planning on showing all this info to my vet to build a case but now I might just email her and ask.. she's scheduled for a frustesamine (did I spell that right) test on Thursday.
 
Panic said:
Yes, I did all the tricks but last night just wasn't having it. Today I was successful every time though, I think her left ear is more stubborn than her right haha. I definitely WANT to switch to Prozinc, I was planning on showing all this info to my vet to build a case but now I might just email her and ask.. she's scheduled for a frustesamine (did I spell that right) test on Thursday.
Click to expand...

Almost correct. Put an O where the ‘es’ is and it’s correct.
If you are home testing a fructosamine test should not be necessary. That gives you an average of the BSL of the last 2 or 3 weeks. It does not account for really high or really low numbers. Just the average. You have up to the minute results in your SS. A curve ( once Panic comes off the bounce ) would be of more use than a fructosamine test
If you are using the alphatrak meter can you document that in the remarks column please as it makes a difference.
Keep going. You are doing a good job looking after Panic. Sometimes it just takes time for everything to start working properly. .... BSL tests, correct insulin, responding well to insulin etc. :bighug:
 
Thank you. Yes, I didn't know what a frustosamine was when she was scheduled for it, but also hadn't started home testing at the time. From the looks of it her numbers might be unhelpful to a frustosamine test anyway if she's just bouncing.

I do have comments on the end when a test is done at the vet or with a different meter than the Relion, I need to sit down and figure out how to customize these spreadsheets better!
 
if you look at my signature, what I did was make two spreadsheets -- one for the day to day testing with the ReliOn meter, another one for tests done by the vet on her AlphaTrak -- because in the words of the cliche, we're talking apples and oranges -- that was my idea of making the differences clear --

does seem to make it easier for others to look at the at-home spreadsheet, and look at the vet SS only for the few items over there

I've seen spreadsheets showing the feeding times and amounts along with the tests, for my own use I keep those notations in a notebook, which I can haul out if someone has a question about them -- I found it easier to figure out the trends with only the test amounts showing

it's your spreadsheet and what works for you -- works ! as every cat is different, so are us beans .. :D
 
Noah & me (GA) said:
Welcome to Crazy Town.
Nigel was our first sugar cat. Not only did he love being in the car he would actually follow me out the front door and jump in. He had textbook curves.
Noah bounced and had numbers not worth posting. Bouncing was a hard concept to grasp, the fire is getting bigger so you throw less water on it. Is that what you mean by a bad day? Also, the dog threw up this morning and another turd just fell off Daniel's butt.
Click to expand...


There needs to be a thread/forum entitled "Yep, this REALLY happened". OMG, this would be a top rated entry! Thank you for the laugh . . .
 
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