? Dose reductions

Scratches123

Scratches123

Member Since 2019
Scratches has been getting many dose reductions as her sugar has dropped below 90 a few times recently. I updated her spreadsheet. She's still pretty high early and late but goes low throughout the day. I'm going to give her .25 today and see what happens since last night I gave her .5 and +3 she dropped below 90. Just wanted a little input to see if I'm doing the right thing. I've been trying to follow slgs the best I can with working two jobs. She seems great though. She's been racing through the house and her back legs are barely wobbly anymore

Also...I'm almost out of room on the spreadsheet, how do I make more?
 
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Scratches123 said:
Scratches has been getting many dose reductions as her sugar has dropped below 90 a few times recently. I updated her spreadsheet. She's still pretty high early and late but goes low throughout the day. I'm going to give her .25 today and see what happens since last night I gave her .5 and +3 she dropped below 90. Just wanted a little input to see if I'm doing the right thing. I've been trying to follow slgs the best I can with working two jobs. She seems great though. She's been racing through the house and her back legs are barely wobbly anymore

Also...I'm almost out of room on the spreadsheet, how do I make more?
Click to expand...

That's why we keep bumping this thread: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/2020-spreadsheets-please-read-and-keep-bumped.222332/
Please contact @Marje and Gracie and she'll set up a new one for you for 2020.
 
Sorry you've been so busy! Looks like you're doing a great job with testing Scratches though! So happy to see that.

One thing that would be so helpful, if you could put a big colored line into your SS to indicate that you've changed to a human meter - I looked and saw the Alpha Track comment at the top, then zoomed to the bottom and didn't see that you'd changed...might also mention that to Marje as she may be really busy trying to create SS's for lots of people tonight - since it's the last day to get a new one set up for tomorrow. I see it's also in your signature - so now I'm really confused...

It's typical for kitties numbers to be higher at am and pm pre-shot times - and lower during the middle of the cycle. That's the 'curve' that the insulin causes...and hopefully you can get Scratches to show you some more greenies soon. :)
 
Sue and Luci said:
Sorry you've been so busy! Looks like you're doing a great job with testing Scratches though! So happy to see that.

One thing that would be so helpful, if you could put a big colored line into your SS to indicate that you've changed to a human meter - I looked and saw the Alpha Track comment at the top, then zoomed to the bottom and didn't see that you'd changed...might also mention that to Marje as she may be really busy trying to create SS's for lots of people tonight - since it's the last day to get a new one set up for tomorrow. I see it's also in your signature - so now I'm really confused...

It's typical for kitties numbers to be higher at am and pm pre-shot times - and lower during the middle of the cycle. That's the 'curve' that the insulin causes...and hopefully you can get Scratches to show you some more greenies soon. :)
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I switched back to the alpha trak so I didn't update anything for the spreadsheet or message board. I only used the human meter for a couple days so Chris told me to not even worry about updating anything if I was going right back to the alpha trak. Sorry for the confusion!
 
Sue and Luci said:
Sorry you've been so busy! Looks like you're doing a great job with testing Scratches though! So happy to see that.

One thing that would be so helpful, if you could put a big colored line into your SS to indicate that you've changed to a human meter - I looked and saw the Alpha Track comment at the top, then zoomed to the bottom and didn't see that you'd changed...might also mention that to Marje as she may be really busy trying to create SS's for lots of people tonight - since it's the last day to get a new one set up for tomorrow. I see it's also in your signature - so now I'm really confused...

It's typical for kitties numbers to be higher at am and pm pre-shot times - and lower during the middle of the cycle. That's the 'curve' that the insulin causes...and hopefully you can get Scratches to show you some more greenies soon. :)
Click to expand...
Also, should I be giving her gravy food when she goes under 90 or just kind of see what she does for a while? Or doesn't it really matter? I just don't want to mess up any progress because she's been acting so well these last few weeks and I'm so proud of her!
 
Scratches123 said:
Also, should I be giving her gravy food when she goes under 90 or just kind of see what she does for a while? Or doesn't it really matter? I just don't want to mess up any progress because she's been acting so well these last few weeks and I'm so proud of her!
Click to expand...

Personally I would not feed gravy food at 90...however you're using SLGS and an Alpha Trak meter...neither of those am I very familiar with. Are you going to be home to monitor? If you can monitor, I'd do that for a while and see how she's trending - up or down. Then based on the next numbers determine what kind of food to give.
 
Sue and Luci said:
Personally I would not feed gravy food at 90...however you're using SLGS and an Alpha Trak meter...neither of those am I very familiar with. Are you going to be home to monitor? If you can monitor, I'd do that for a while and see how she's trending - up or down. Then based on the next numbers determine what kind of food to give.
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I'm usually not home to monitor her, if I notice she's dipping low I just give her some gravy food since I won't be home. Last night I panicked bc I only gave her .5 and at +2 she was already at 87. It's just a little shocking to see lower numbers so quickly. She always has her regular pate all day and night to snack on (she breaks her own meals up so she has enough to munch all day, I really don't feed her that much haha) so I'll try not to panic next time and just let her do what she's going to do unless she drops a bit below that. Thank you for your advice.
 
Is there a particular reason you're using SLGS? You are certainly testing enough to follow TR. The reason I'm asking is that despite the dose reductions, Scratches nadirs, overall, are still a bit high. Given that with TR the threshold for a dose reduction is lower, it will give you more time at a given dose which may help to lower the overall BG numbers.
 
Sienne and Gabby (GA) said:
Is there a particular reason you're using SLGS? You are certainly testing enough to follow TR. The reason I'm asking is that despite the dose reductions, Scratches nadirs, overall, are still a bit high. Given that with TR the threshold for a dose reduction is lower, it will give you more time at a given dose which may help to lower the overall BG numbers.
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I've really been putting off starting TR at first because I needed to get her off the dry food. Shortly after I did that, I started a new job so I had to change mine and her schedule completely to work around my new schedule. I'm now working two jobs. I luckily still work close enough to home that I can come home on lunch to check on her. Basically it's been one thing after another for a while and I haven't felt confident enough to start the TR yet. Excuses, I know I will see how she does on the .25 now that I've already started it. And I will try to transition into TR now that I'm comfortable with my new schedule. I can't ever do curves however, I work too much and have one day off per week and that's when I do my chores and errands. That's why I test so much throughout the day in hopes to make up for not ever doing curves. I wondered if I should be holding the doses longer bc I did notice her nadirs are mainly still high besides the couple low ones.
 
Trying to manage your life and your cat's FD is not an excuse! You've been doing a great job.

If you can't really do a curve, TR may actually make more sense since a curve isn't required. FWIW, I worked full time throughout Gabby's life. My hours could be challenging and there were days that I would come home, feed and shoot, and go back for a late meeting. Like you, I was fortunate in that I lived close enough that I could run home if I had a break in my schedule. When I joined FDMB, the Lantus board was exclusively TR and it was possible to do TR and work full time. There is information on doing TR with a full time job if you've not seen it.
 
Sienne and Gabby (GA) said:
Trying to manage your life and your cat's FD is not an excuse! You've been doing a great job.

If you can't really do a curve, TR may actually make more sense since a curve isn't required. FWIW, I worked full time throughout Gabby's life. My hours could be challenging and there were days that I would come home, feed and shoot, and go back for a late meeting. Like you, I was fortunate in that I lived close enough that I could run home if I had a break in my schedule. When I joined FDMB, the Lantus board was exclusively TR and it was possible to do TR and work full time. There is information on doing TR with a full time job if you've not seen it.
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I do have a question about tr. It says under increasing the dose...when your cat starts to see nadirs under 100, hold dose for at least 10 cycles before increasing. What would I increase by, and why if she's under 100 at nadir? I'm sorry if this is a dumb question but I'd rather have it answered so I know what I'm doing when the time comes haha
 
It's not a dumb question! Understanding why you're doing things is much better than blindly doing what people tell you. Frankly, this is a message board and you can get conflicting recommendations. Personally, I really prefer if people ask questions and understand the "why's."

Holding the dose a bit longer when you are seeing numbers in the 100s or lower is because you don't want to rush dose changes once your kitty is experiencing reliably good numbers. You may see recommendations once a cat is coming down the dose ladder where we actually try to slow things down even further because the pre-shots are still a bit high relative to what we want to see if a cat is getting close to OTJ. Ideally, holding the dose for as long as possible gives a healing pancreas more support before the kitty goes OTJ.

Increases are always by 0.25u with certain exceptions. (Example: if you cat is on a larger dose of insulin which is usually more than 5.0u or if you are close to remission and are "dialing in" on a good dose in which case you may need to "fatten" or "skinny" a dose).
 
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