Help Please, testing advice and dosing questions

I'm happy it wasn't super high this morning. He is acting as tho he is feeling 'good' today. It isn't nearly as hot and I let him stay outside for most of the night. I think he is a bit depressed by all of this and because I won't let him out unless it is in the fenced yard. We have spotted a fox around here and last year he got in a scrap with a fox and was injured badly, so I don't want to risk something happening to him.

Would you suggest a +3 ?
 
Yes I think +3 is a good idea. Glad to hear he is feeling good today. I think like us, sometimes the weather does have an effect on them too.

Are you sure when he goes out that he doesn't get into some "grub" left out for ferals or catch mice (good protein!:woot:). Either one could account for higher BGs if he is eating more than you are offering.
 
If I let him out the back (no fence), he would definitely be catching rodents/birds and eating them, I haven't been doing that for about a month or more. In the front, it is fenced. The dogs are out there. He could possibly catch the occasional critter, but mostly when I have looked out there he is just sleeping somewhere or looking longingly outside the fence. I did see him catch a baby bird out front but the dog quickly grabbed it as soon as Clarence set it down to do his playing with his prey thing. It could happen that he would catch something and eat it, but lately all he has wanted to do is sleep - it has been hot and his BG has been wonky. We don't put food out for ferals (don't really have them right here anyway). I do feed one of the dogs out there but always look to make sure he has finished his dinner before I let the cat out. I hope that answers your question. Basically I'm pretty sure this past week he hasn't been catching and eating and I have kept him inside mostly so I could keep an eye on him. One thing, he hasn't been too happy that I have been making him stay inside so much.
 
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Okay. When I gave him food, he ate it right up, then I gave him a small bit more with the honey on it and he ate that up, too. I was mostly referencing the time of my post to determine the 20 minutes, since I was back and forth from him to my laptop and forgot to look at the time. :nailbiting:
 
Are you having fun yet? The first time my little one blessed me with a green number I ran around my coffee table several times mumbling to myself like a crazy person (thank goodness no neighbours walked by!) and then went running for the high carb treats which certainly weren't needed but I thought they were!
Test him again 20 minutes after the food. :D
 
Still about the same. You can give Clarence a teensy bit more food with honey to keep him surfing and test again 20 to 30 minutes after the food.
 
MrWorfMen's Mom said:
Are you having fun yet? The first time my little one blessed me with a green number I ran around my coffee table several times mumbling to myself like a crazy person (thank goodness no neighbours walked by!) and then went running for the high carb treats which certainly weren't needed but I thought they were!
Test him again 20 minutes after the food. :D
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That's a great story! Makes me feel a little better about grabbing him up and running to his food dish, then dashing back to my desk to look at stuff and post, trying to calm myself down.
 
While we don't aim for BGs in the 70s that was one very nice cycle today. He'll probably bounce up higher after those beautiful numbers but that is totally normal. Looks like threatening to up the dose worked! :p
 
MrWorfMen's Mom said:
While we don't aim for BGs in the 70s that was one very nice cycle today. He'll probably bounce up higher after those beautiful numbers but that is totally normal. Looks like threatening to up the dose worked! :p
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Looks like it! As far as bouncing back up, when will that likely occur? I'm trying to understand the bouncing thing. The more often they hit the lower numbers are they less likely to bounce back up high? Looking at my note when I was using both meters for some of his testing, he had been at 79 on the ReliOn meter before - on AM cycle of 7/27 the reading of 124 on the spreadsheet - the next AMPS after that was quite high.
 
Every cat is different. Some will zoom up to higher numbers quickly and some will take a few hours or even till the next cycle. Bounces can last up to 6 cycles and sometimes longer but usually dissipate relatively quickly. The goal is to get kitty into good numbers and get them to surf in those good numbers as long as possible to get them re-acquainted with more normal BG. Most will have less bouncing over time but each cat is different and some just seem to bounce even with less than great numbers. You can sometimes see when a bounce is about to clear by a fairly flat cycle occurring before numbers come back down to kitty's normal.

That comparison testing gives you a feel for how different the numbers can be between the pet and human meters. While the numbers tend to look better on the human meter, they are also seem scarier when they get down to the lower ranges. :)
 
Thank you for that explanation and for your patience as I try to process everything and, hopefully, get my kitty somewhat regulated. I tend to be someone who wants more of an understanding of what is going on and that generates lots of questions. The more I know and understand, the better for me and my cat in the long run.

When the 79 reading showed up, I referenced the Sticky on the Guide to Vetsulin for help. BUT, in my state of excitement, and my own desire to act quickly, my mind raced ahead to what to do if he was 50 or below instead of simply staying calm and giving him a little food and testing in 20 minutes or so. Such a wonderful thing that I have this forum. I can't imagine what I would have felt like with having this resource. Thanks for your time and doing such good for all of us out here and our kitties.:joyful:
 
My pleasure. Knowledge is power and this dance gets much easier as you gain experience and learn how your cat reacts to the insulin. You are doing great and Clarence is one lucky kitty to have you as his person.

FYI I think it would be a good idea to reduce the dose to 1.5u given that lower BG today. Don't want him flirting with even lower readings!;)
 
Sorry DeeDee. Wasn't on the board as late last night. You were fine to give the 1.5u. While you obviously want to pay attention to the pre-shot number you also need to make sure Clarence is not dropping too low and since many cats go lower over night, I think the 1.5u dose was absolutely the right one. You've got this!
 
That is perfectly fine. You have been so great about assisting me, basically mentoring me on this adventure and I really appreciate it. I cannot expect you to be sitting here all the time just waiting to assist me. I figured you weren't there and I was fairly certain it was good to give the 1.5 at his PMPS number. With the time difference, you've got to be having your sleep schedule and homelife responsibilities impacted. I hope you know how much I appreciate all of this.
 
I'd hold him at 1.5u for now. That higher AMPS is part bounce. He doesn't seem to be bouncing as high now and we have no idea when that will clear so I'd stick with the lower dose for the next few cycles just to avoid having Clarence suddenly go down too low.
 
Okay, that makes sense. I'll give him 1.5u. I need to go to town and pick up some more insulin for him anyway, so the lower dose will help me feel a bit better about him while I'm out.
 
quick spreadsheet question:
The freeze pane on the sheet makes it so when you scroll down the sheet, the heading saying that I'm using a pet meter is visible, the line I added saying I switched isn't visible (or soon won't be after more lines are added). I don't want any confusion when someone is viewing his spreadsheet. Is it safe to add a note in the heading or will that screw up the sheet? Any other suggestions for this? Should I post the Q somewhere else, like in the spreadsheet help forum?
 
His shot this morning was a fiasco! :( First, I 'wasted' 2 needles missing the correct place on the membrane of the vial and putting it through a thicker spot. Then, Clarence jumped a little when I started injecting, which pulled the needle out (and there was a droplet that for sure didn't make it in). I managed to calm him down a little and injected the amount remaining in the syringe (which I hate to do because I know the needle was a little dull by now). I should be able to see by his numbers if I didn't even get close to getting the majority of it in, shouldn't I?
 
Missing the right spot in the vial and fur shots happen to all of us from time to time so don't fret over it. Just make a note to yourself in the remarks or in the dose cell so you have that info for reference. I'll peak at the spreadsheet later today and see what I can suggest. You can certainly add a notation in the heading or on the line with the pet meter declaration about switching on July 29th. Got to think about how to best do this. We can freeze rows but which ones is the question.
Eventually, while you may look back on the AT2 readings to see your progress, you won't need to use them for reference anymore once you get a bit more human meter data as they will be ancient history.
 
Just tested him after I got home from town (which is +5 and he was at 51 on the human meter. I gave him a little gravy from Friskies/with a little honey and will test again in about 20 minutes.) I tested him before I left and he was at 150.
 
Sorry just seeing this now. I see Clarence is back up to 88 now. Looks like another dose reduction is in order to 1.25u. That little monkey seems to be on a mission right now which is good except for your nerves. Good job giving him the gravy. Now that he's up and in a good place, just double check again to make sure he is maintaining a good BG level. Hopefully he is just surfing along in the same range now or up a bit higher. Don't feed him more carbs unless his BG is dropping again. You want to see if he can maintain it himself.

I can't stay online to monitor right now but you've got this and I'm sure Clarence will behave now. If you do happen to need any help, put a 911 on a post in Health and someone will assist you.

I'll check in when I get back home.
 
Today was rough on Clarence and on me. I really need to get better at this fast! I should have known that he was dropping a little quickly when I got the +3 reading and insisted that my son test him at +4 and call me to report. I did feed him a little of his regular food after his +3 thinking it would be enough to keep him from low numbers until I returned home. But maybe I should have given him a little more since I often feed him a little at that time. In retrospect should maybe not have fed him the honey with the gravy friskies and given him the gravy twice...I need to work on my response to the readings I get. He was feeling pretty good when he was at the 51, but was hungry. I'm sure the gravy was the right thing to do (not sure about the honey with the first round of gravy tho), there was no way of knowing how low he was going to go and with still a couple hours before his usual nadir I didn't want to chance anything. Are there amount guidelines for this, like give him a couple tablespoons of the medium carb food? And how much honey?

What might tonight be like?
 
I think tonight you reduce again down to 1.25u. If you are worried and Clarence isn't terribly high, then back off to 1u for tonight and resume with 1.25u tomorrow. Clarence is obviously getting extremely, almost too, good drops out of the 1.5u especially given he looked to be in a bounce this morning.

I think you did exactly what you needed to do and you kept him safe and that is what counts. Until you go through this a couple of times and figure out what works for your cat, it's hard to say do X,Y or Z exactly. You do what you need to do to get numbers up when they are that low and try not to shoot BG to the moon but if you do it's no big deal. I'd say you hit the nail on the head.

As for foreseeing what he might do, you gave a lower dose than yesterday and BG at +3 was a tad higher than yesterday so you had no way of expecting/predicting that 50 reading. The important thing is that you handled it like a pro and didn't shoot him to the moon. Remember, when he goes into low numbers, his defences kick in too so while 176 may seem high to you, believe me, I've seen kitties go up a lot more than that. Safety first. BG will come back down if you boost a bit too much. Far better safe than too low.
 
Well, he is at 252 for his PMPS. Since I gave the injection a little later this morning do I need to do the same tonight? I would usually just feed him now, wait 20-30 minutes after he is done eating as has been advised and then inject (which has taken me a little longer these past few days - haha). Anyway, would you think 1.25 would be okay to give?
 
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If by a little later you mean up to an hour, then you can shoot whenever you want to. You can shoot up to an hour early as long as BG is high enough which it is. Although Clarence was a bit lower last night and didn't do much dropping, I think tonight I'd err on the conservative side and give 1u just to be on the safe side and to allow you to get some sleep after this emotionally charged day. ;)
 
BTW, I will set alarms and monitor him a little closer tonight unless he looks like he isn't going down much. And I'm still getting used to the pre-shot numbers with this human meter...
 
MrWorfMen's Mom said:
If by a little later you mean up to an hour, then you can shoot whenever you want to. You can shoot up to an hour early as long as BG is high enough which it is. Although Clarence was a bit lower last night and didn't do much dropping, I think tonight I'd err on the conservative side and give 1u just to be on the safe side and to allow you to get some sleep after this emotionally charged day.
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Well, maybe it is server slowness somewhere, but I checked for a response right before I gave him his shot and didn't see any response, so I gave him 1.25. I see that you sent it not that long after I asked it, tho. :( Hope I don't regret that decision. I will check him at +3 or maybe a little later and see what he's like and then I can also give him a snack of his usual food. I'll be fine with sleep. I'll have extra coffee tomorrow!
 
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