Opie working through wonky

LovingOpie

LovingOpie

Active Member
Starting a new thread because those 50 posts go by very quickly. Link here for past threads https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/mpm-opie-and-lower-numbers.278471/#post-3079693

Opie has been up and down and crazy lately. Just hoping that he will finally settle in. Increased dose this AM, fed a lot until nadir when he dropped to 116. He has since went to 92 and we still have several hours until PMPS. There will be no more food until then. Perhaps a freeze dried snack. Just hope he won't drop too low.
 
The caveat to the no food after typical nadir (I like to say typical nadir because some cats have nadirs that move around a bit) -- is that, if you need to bring his numbers up, you can still feed -- what I mean is that if, he were to actually drop low then you could feed. But if he's at 92, it's probably okay. A freeze dried chicken treat is a good one.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
The caveat to the no food after typical nadir (I like to say typical nadir because some cats have nadirs that move around a bit) -- is that, if you need to bring his numbers up, you can still feed -- what I mean is that if, he were to actually drop low then you could feed. But if he's at 92, it's probably okay. A freeze dried chicken treat is a good one.
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What I don't understand is if the numbers are getting low below 90 etc. after nadir, how does a treat like the freeze dried chicken that has zero carbs going to raise it up a bit to keep him from dropping lower or I should say, dropping below 50?
 
LovingOpie said:
What I don't understand is if the numbers are getting low below 90 etc. after nadir, how does a treat like the freeze dried chicken that has zero carbs going to raise it up a bit to keep him from dropping lower or I should say, dropping below 50?
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I’ll try to put it in a different way. :) You have to look at where he is in the cycle if his BG is dropping. If he’s at 60 at +8, you might want to give a LC food snack (small). You don’t want to feed HC food late in the cycle for low numbers unless he drops below 50. The goal is to get him to “surf” or stay in green numbers between 50-100 as long as possible and it takes time and experience to know what you can or need to feed at what times when the BG is, say, below 60. We can help if you post. Once you learn, then you‘ll be able to tell……if he’s at 60 @ +8 and you give him half a tsp of his LC canned food, will that bring him up enough that he will have a solid, safe, shootable PS? Does that make sense?

Keep notes on what works and what doesn’t and you will need to test to find out if it works or not.
 
Sorry. Freeze dried chicken wouldn’t bring up BG. That is my fault for putting that at the end of the message. You had mentioned that he wasn’t going to have any more food until PMPS time except maybe a treat like the freeze dried chicken. I was saying that those make good treats. Before that I was trying to say that, of course the recommendation for not feeding after nadir would not apply if you actually had a situation where it looked like a cat was going to hypo or was just going to be too low to shoot at PMPS time. I should have been clearer.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Oh and now I see what Marje wrote so she’s given even more specifics so that’s great!
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I understand what you meant. . lol . . he went up to 129 which is a safe number to shoot. From what I understand, IF you monitor very closely you can shoot with low numbers? How low would that be? and that would be full dose? Not for newbies, of course.
 
LovingOpie said:
I understand what you meant. . lol . . he went up to 129 which is a safe number to shoot. From what I understand, IF you monitor very closely you can shoot with low numbers? How low would that be? and that would be full dose? Not for newbies, of course.
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For MPM, we will work with you to gradually learn how to shoot BGs that are 50 and above. If you look at the sticky on PZ Dosing Methods and scroll down to MPM and further to “How to Handle a Low Pre-Shot Number”, there are options.

The lowest you’ve shot this year is 140. Let’s say you do a PS test and it’s 110. Don’t feed him. Post for help and if someone can stay with you during the cycle or at least until we know he won’t drop really low, they should have you shoot the full dose and monitor.
 
Marje and Gracie said:
For MPM, we will work with you to gradually learn how to shoot BGs that are 50 and above. If you look at the sticky on PZ Dosing Methods and scroll down to MPM and further to “How to Handle a Low Pre-Shot Number”, there are options.

The lowest you’ve shot this year is 140. Let’s say you do a PS test and it’s 110. Don’t feed him. Post for help and if someone can stay with you during the cycle or at least until we know he won’t drop really low, they should have you shoot the full dose and monitor.
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Thanks, I did read the info on MPM and I think I know what to do but it would be nice to have someone handy when that happens. I will definitely post if that happens.
 
Alright, why did Opie go up so much again at +3 this PM? I really doubt it is a food bump, though he ate quite a bit after starving all afternoon after nadir. I had hoped that the higher dose would do more for him and get him lower but we are starting off in the wrong direction.
 
Hi there I've been following some of your posts. My boy used to be on prozinc but we got stuck at a low dose & I switched him to Lantus. Suzanne is absolutely wonderful, she helped me so much with Panzer & my other boy Spook. She still helps me when I make a post & need help. I like you made posts all the time in the beginning but rarely do now unless I need help. I've learned Panzer & if you look at his spreadsheet, you will see that I hold the dose for longer than recommended sometimes but like I said I've learned Panzer. I can also look at other kitty's spreadsheets & figure out when they need a decrease or an increase but I'm not an experienced member so I don't give advice on that. Panzer has been all over the place here lately but I'm pretty sure he's either bouncing from a low that I missed while I was working or he possibly has another UTI poor boys had to many. I just wanted to pop in & say that sometimes Panzer is higher @+3 & even +4, sometimes he doesn't nadir until the next shot time. I don't think it's anything your doing it's just cats & there cycles vary from cycle to cycle. That's what I've noticed with my boy. I hope this helps to know that Panzer sometimes goes higher after shot time & than comes back down but sometimes he goes higher or he has a flat cycle. I don't why but I just go with the flow & try to be consistent with when I feed him & test him.
 
LovingOpie said:
Alright, why did Opie go up so much again at +3 this PM? I really doubt it is a food bump, though he ate quite a bit after starving all afternoon after nadir. I had hoped that the higher dose would do more for him and get him lower but we are starting off in the wrong direction.
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He could be starting a bounce. Try not to worry. Take advantage of higher numbers to sleep.

We don’t always know why a cycle might look like it does. Sometimes a bounce overpowers what we expect from a new dose. I’m a scientist and I always wanted definitive answers but FD taught me there isn’t always an answer. Sometimes it just “is”.
 
Chrispooky12 said:
Hi there I've been following some of your posts. My boy used to be on prozinc but we got stuck at a low dose & I switched him to Lantus. Suzanne is absolutely wonderful, she helped me so much with Panzer & my other boy Spook. She still helps me when I make a post & need help. I like you made posts all the time in the beginning but rarely do now unless I need help. I've learned Panzer & if you look at his spreadsheet, you will see that I hold the dose for longer than recommended sometimes but like I said I've learned Panzer. I can also look at other kitty's spreadsheets & figure out when they need a decrease or an increase but I'm not an experienced member so I don't give advice on that. Panzer has been all over the place here lately but I'm pretty sure he's either bouncing from a low that I missed while I was working or he possibly has another UTI poor boys had to many. I just wanted to pop in & say that sometimes Panzer is higher @+3 & even +4, sometimes he doesn't nadir until the next shot time. I don't think it's anything your doing it's just cats & there cycles vary from cycle to cycle. That's what I've noticed with my boy. I hope this helps to know that Panzer sometimes goes higher after shot time & than comes back down but sometimes he goes higher or he has a flat cycle. I don't why but I just go with the flow & try to be consistent with when I feed him & test him.
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thank you very much, all we can do is go with the flow. . . appreciate your comments, much love. . .
 
well it's an extended bounce now. . . all last night and this morning and looks to be continuing relentlessly. Pink, Pink, Pink. . . it's a pink world right now, like the French seeing everything in rose colored glasses
 
Is this cycle 4 of bouncing? I don’t like seeing all those pinks on Opie’s spreadsheet. Oh well… I’ll hope for better things today.
 
So Opie is 86 at nadir, +6. My concern is will he go lower yet or will his BG skyrocket to PMPS? Any suggestions at this point?
 
I guess there is no need to respond to the previous question because within an hour and a half he went up to 204. Another bounce has begun.
 
Is the way Opie reacts pretty normal or is he worse than the norm? Just wondering because I look at other SS and there is a lot of blue and green and relatively quickly after diagnosis. Is he worse because we were told wrong in the beginning? Do you think he has a chance of getting better? Just wondering. . .
 
It seems to me that since we increased the dose to 1.75 it has been nothing but one endless bounce with one small blip of lower in-between to appease us. Do you think we should lower the dose even though nothing has happened like below 50 to warrant doing it? There have been no responses to my posts so forgive me if my mind begins to wander off on its' own. . .
 
LovingOpie said:
It seems to me that since we increased the dose to 1.75 it has been nothing but one endless bounce with one small blip of lower in-between to appease us. Do you think we should lower the dose even though nothing has happened like below 50 to warrant doing it? There have been no responses to my posts so forgive me if my mind begins to wander off on its' own. . .
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I will tag a couple of people for you @Suzanne & Darcy @Shelley & Jess
 
Sorry for the delay. And yesterday I did look at Opie's spreadsheet and saw the green and later the high numbers. I had to take two cats to the vet yesterday. My IBD boy had an ultrasound. So I didn't get a chance to get back on the Board until much later. For some reason I didn't get the email about your post.

Anyway, I don't really think that yesterday's high numbers were a bounce. I think it was just lack end of cycle waning of the insulin's action. But there was this huge jump from the green to the +7.5 yellow number. That was big. However, he got right back into blues last night, which is good. We need to hold this dose for some extra time because of the green nadirs that he's had (he's had some blue ones too.) We need to let things settle a bit hopefully. He may have a combination of new dose wonkiness that can affect the first few cycles and possibly some bounciness. Today he MAY be in a bounce, we will know more if he stays high and has little downward trend in BG in response to the insulin. Some cats do take a little while to settle into a dose and hopefully that's all that's going on with Opie. And some cats will have the dose kind of go stale on them and need an increase, but with the two green nadirs that you've already seen, I don't think that's what's going on with Opie. Was anything going on yesterday with him at the time of the big jump from green to yellow in about an hour and a half? Any clues?
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Sorry for the delay. And yesterday I did look at Opie's spreadsheet and saw the green and later the high numbers. I had to take two cats to the vet yesterday. My IBD boy had an ultrasound. So I didn't get a chance to get back on the Board until much later. For some reason I didn't get the email about your post.

Anyway, I don't really think that yesterday's high numbers were a bounce. I think it was just lack end of cycle waning of the insulin's action. But there was this huge jump from the green to the +7.5 yellow number. That was big. However, he got right back into blues last night, which is good. We need to hold this dose for some extra time because of the green nadirs that he's had (he's had some blue ones too.) We need to let things settle a bit hopefully. He may have a combination of new dose wonkiness that can affect the first few cycles and possibly some bounciness. Today he MAY be in a bounce, we will know more if he stays high and has little downward trend in BG in response to the insulin. Some cats do take a little while to settle into a dose and hopefully that's all that's going on with Opie. And some cats will have the dose kind of go stale on them and need an increase, but with the two green nadirs that you've already seen, I don't think that's what's going on with Opie. Was anything going on yesterday with him at the time of the big jump from green to yellow in about an hour and a half? Any clues?
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I have no clue why he jumped up like that and I have no clue what he is doing today either. I haven't been feeding after the +6 which has been different the last few days, that is all.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Today, can you try to get another test in sometime prior to the PMPS? I know you have your hands full!
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I am sorry Suzanne but all my emails get to me very delayed and I did not get it until after the PMPS. I had wanted to test but things got in the way and it wasn't done. Also, one thing that may or may not have made a difference is that I fed him a little Friskies pate yesterday and today in the AM. It is LC only about 6% but I think that is more than the Fancy Feast Pate which I usually give him. He may just be very sensitive to any carbs. Just a thought. I will have to watch it in the future or just refrain from trying anything else.
 
Well we had a good afternoon with a nice stretch of green. He moved very slowly and then suddenly, POOF! He is up in the high pink again for PMPS. I knew I should test somewhere in-between but I didn't have the heart to do it to him and gave him a little break. I don't know if the data from that time will tell us much or not, we know he is going up right?
 
Poof is right!
Looks like he may have started a bounce but let’s see what he does tonight. If he’s started a bounce it probably will take him 3-4 cycles to clear it — unless he starts clearing them more quickly which is a good sign and always possible. Let’s see if he does that thing again where he goes into blue tonight before going higher and staying there for a few cycles.
 
Last night at +6 when it normally is his nadir, he went to pink and continued so this AMPS he is at 472! Yikes! Isn't there anything more we can do?
 
There was talk that maybe the insulin was losing strength early but today's numbers seem to indicate that the insulin is still going at the +9 hr. So far he has gone from red to blue this cycle. Those huge up and downs must be very difficult for him.
 
I said I thought the vial was only open for a month so I was sure it was still good. But anyway, good for Opie today. He didn't stay up high very long at all this time and has seen a nice long stretch of blue! He likes to keep us on our toes.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
I said I thought the vial was only open for a month so I was sure it was still good. But anyway, good for Opie today. He didn't stay up high very long at all this time and has seen a nice long stretch of blue! He likes to keep us on our toes.
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I'm sorry. I know you said the insulin wasn't too old but I thought you also said that possibly the insulin wasn't holding strength long enough not because of old or not but because it just didn't do the job for him long enough.
 
LovingOpie said:
I'm sorry. I know you said the insulin wasn't too old but I thought you also said that possibly the insulin wasn't holding strength long enough not because of old or not but because it just didn't do the job for him long enough.
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Yes. Some days it’s hard to figure out what’s going on with him. I agree. I haven’t even had a chance to look and see what he did last night. I’m going to look at his spreadsheet now.
 
Okay. Here's the B.O.S. award. According to FDMB tradition, you are supposed to get this award when shooting your first green. Congratulations.
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