3/22 - Xander | AMPS 131, +3 235, +6 194, +9 249

Brianna & Xander

Brianna & Xander

Very Active Member
3/20/25

No post yesterday, sorry. I've been having some ongoing/recurring migraines for this entire week and yesterday and today have been especially bad, so I haven't been around.

Unfortunately as expected, he nosedived. No reduction (yet anyway), but did miss a lot of much needed sleep trying to keep an eye on him and then by the Libre alarm at 5 after I'd finally fallen asleep.

Wonder how we're ever gonna get anywhere if it's just endless flipflopping between a dose not being enough and a dose being too much with only a difference of 0.25 units.

Hope everyone's having a nice safe weekend. ❤️
 
Tim & Pookey said:
No need to apologize! We’re always here anyways, and do think about you two even if there’s no post. It might sound like a cop out answer but maybe he just needs more healing time before he breaks through for good. Hope you feel better soon :)
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Thank you, Tim!! It's not a cop out answer and I appreciate it. You could absolutely be right! Just wish it could get a move on lol
 
Second Tim's comment - we'll always be here, no need to apologize! Sorry about the migraines and the lack of sleep last night on top of it all :(
Curious to see where the next few cycles take him and also what the response is to earning reductions vs. feeding to keep from dropping. Maybe it could be helpful for Xander.

Hope you get some sleep night :bighug:
 
Briana + Binx said:
Second Tim's comment - we'll always be here, no need to apologize! Sorry about the migraines and the lack of sleep last night on top of it all :( Hope you get some sleep night :bighug:
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Thank you, Briana! :bighug: It's been a rough few days. :(

Briana + Binx said:
Curious to see where the next few cycles take him and also what the response is to earning reductions vs. feeding to keep from dropping. Maybe it could be helpful for Xander.
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I'm curious too, but so far I feel like I've never really been able to find out. This morning, it was only about half an hour early for the meal he gets at 5:45 AM, it was nearing the end of the cycle, and he hadn't actually gone under 50 so I thought I'd just try giving him his usual LC meal and see if it worked. He never went below 61 after that so either it worked, or that was as low as he was going to go anyway. I have no idea which it is. :rolleyes: It seems like if it happens more toward the middle of the cycle he just stays stuck down there until the bounce kicks in, no matter what I try. It also doesn't help that I never really know which days he'll decide to do it lol

I wish I knew for sure when in the cycle would be good to try to use food to manipulate it. For his normal meals, I give him half a can each at PM +9, somewhere between +4 - 5.5, +9, and somewhere between +2 - 3. So every 4 hoursish? So far that hasn't been enough to stop or slow the diving when it happens.
 
Oh Brianna,
Sorry to hear you weren't feeling great due to migraines. I also get really bad headaches every meow and then so I totally sympathize with you. Hopefully you'll see and feel some improvement for both of you. Don't worry. He'll find his dose soon enough and will show you the way. They always do.
 
Nestle said:
Oh Brianna,
Sorry to hear you weren't feeling great due to migraines. I also get really bad headaches every meow and then so I totally sympathize with you. Hopefully you'll see and feel some improvement for both of you. Don't worry. He'll find his dose soon enough and will show you the way. They always do.
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Thank you so much, Karolina! I appreciate you. :bighug:
 
Brianna & Xander said:
Thank you, Briana! :bighug: It's been a rough few days. :(

I'm curious too, but so far I feel like I've never really been able to find out. This morning, it was only about half an hour early for the meal he gets at 5:45 AM, it was nearing the end of the cycle, and he hadn't actually gone under 50 so I thought I'd just try giving him his usual LC meal and see if it worked. He never went below 61 after that so either it worked, or that was as low as he was going to go anyway. I have no idea which it is. :rolleyes: It seems like if it happens more toward the middle of the cycle he just stays stuck down there until the bounce kicks in, no matter what I try. It also doesn't help that I never really know which days he'll decide to do it lol

I wish I knew for sure when in the cycle would be good to try to use food to manipulate it. For his normal meals, I give him half a can each at PM +9, somewhere between +4 - 5.5, +9, and somewhere between +2 - 3. So every 4 hoursish? So far that hasn't been enough to stop or slow the diving when it happens.
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I imagine it's even harder too, because most of the time Xander has a pretty flat curve and then sometimes he has a big drop. So how do you know when that's going to kick in!? I just found this post recently that talks about manipulating the curve and it sounds like there's a lot of experimenting, which takes time (classic). If/when Binx gets to the right dose, I want to try experimenting with meal times to see what it can do.

A quote from the post:
carb manipulation is more about learning what your cat's response is to varying amounts of carbs at different times during the cycle, and using that information to your advantage. Learn how many points bump she gets from LC, MC, and HC, both early in the cycle and later in the cycle. Use that information to guide her cycles the way you want them to go. Mocha's AM and PM cycles are very different, so the best feeding times for her might not be the same in each cycle. Take the amount you would feed her over the 12 hour period, divide it into 3-4 meals, and experiment with when to feed them. Whatever changes you make, write them in your spreadsheet and hold it for at least 3-4 days to see if it is changing anything. Mocha drops later at night than she does during the day, so your food schedule might need to be different at night.

Many cats benefit from front-loading the cycle with food. That means feeding at PS, +1, +2, +3 (when the insulin is kicking in) and then NOT feeding after +6 (because for a carb sensitive cat, you would be adding food at the same time the insulin is wearing off, driving the numbers higher). The +9 snack is helpful for some cats when they are trying to go OTJ, because it can stimulate their pancreas. That is more useful if the cat is generally flat, but spikes up just before PS. I wouldn't worry about that yet, until you get to a lower dose.

and another one that actually talks to the reduction question we all had yesterday:
all too often we've seen failed reductions and then the need to take the dose right back up after a single drop under 50. personally, i'd rather see kitty "earn" a reduction from maintaining lower BGs with a flatter cycle for a week than to reduce the dose based on a single drop below 50 when the rest of the cycle's numbers remain high.
 
Briana + Binx said:
I imagine it's even harder too, because most of the time Xander has a pretty flat curve and then sometimes he has a big drop. So how do you know when that's going to kick in!
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Exactly! It's so hard to predict when he's going to dive that way, so how can I prepare for it before it happens? lol

I've spent a ton of time reading that post several times! Thank you for the link. I've done that some of the time in the morning, but it's a little harder with PM (I have a really difficult time staying awake that late much of the time). I wish I could just have some actual indicator of when he's gonna dive so I can take action on those cycles.
 
Ugh migraines are the worst. I had them years ago, but fortunately none in a long time. Karamelle was having the fluctuation, up and down doses for over a year. We finally changed her insulin and its been better, but shes going thru some bouncing and hypo events at the moment so I dont know whats going on really. Hang in there and I hope you feel better. :bighug:
 
Brianna & Xander said:
Exactly! It's so hard to predict when he's going to dive that way, so how can I prepare for it before it happens? lol

I've spent a ton of time reading that post several times! Thank you for the link. I've done that some of the time in the morning, but it's a little harder with PM (I have a really difficult time staying awake that late much of the time). I wish I could just have some actual indicator of when he's gonna dive so I can take action on those cycles.
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Yea, such a good post to refer back to! Definitely PM cycle is harder to monitor and try to manipulate. If only there was some kind of data input system that could analyze the numbers and notice patterns!!

Since you're using the Libre and can see the visual curves in LibreView, I wonder if you can notice any repeating trends before the dives? Like if there's something to the first 4 hours after a dose on how sharp the initial drop is. Not sure if there even would be a tread, but I'm personally very visual and find it more helpful than the numbers sometimes.
 
JoM said:
Ugh migraines are the worst. I had them years ago, but fortunately none in a long time. Karamelle was having the fluctuation, up and down doses for over a year. We finally changed her insulin and its been better, but shes going thru some bouncing and hypo events at the moment so I dont know whats going on really. Hang in there and I hope you feel better. :bighug:
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They really are awful in a way that's hard to describe! :( That's incredible that they've stopped for you! Any idea what made the difference?

Wow, over a year... That's so long for both of you! :( I'm glad she's doing at least better, but the bouncing and hypo rollercoaster is exhausting. I definitely feel for you. Both of you hang in there too! ❤️
 
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Briana + Binx said:
Yea, such a good post to refer back to! Definitely PM cycle is harder to monitor and try to manipulate. If only there was some kind of data input system that could analyze the numbers and notice patterns!!
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That would be so helpful!! I am actually kind of doing that - (please note that I am not using it for dosing advice/decision making, etc) but my partner made me a ChatGPT bot that was trained based on the forum. Again, I don't use it to pick a dose or make any decisions, etc, but I do essentially just tell it everything I put on my spreadsheet (food and time, all of his BG readings, behavior, appetite, all my notes etc) and it gives me a breakdown of each day. It's useful in that it does point out some patterns for me that I may have missed/struggled to see. It's really useful just in terms of spitting back out a summary of the day that makes it more concise and easier to process than the raw data is. Hopefully that makes sense.

Throwing in here for a third time for anyone worried that I do not use it for advice or dosing or anything of the sort - all of that is here and with the vet. I just let it give me summaries of the day and point out any trends, and it's been helpful just for my own understanding/peace of mind.

Briana + Binx said:
Since you're using the Libre and can see the visual curves in LibreView, I wonder if you can notice any repeating trends before the dives? Like if there's something to the first 4 hours after a dose on how sharp the initial drop is. Not sure if there even would be a tread, but I'm personally very visual and find it more helpful than the numbers sometimes.
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For some reason I find the LibreView stuff to be really hard to work with and read (at least for me, the graphs it generates are tiny and basically useless). Maybe I should ask the bot to graph some of those days visually and I can compare them. It's really odd in that I feel like there's no warning. I guess that makes sense because it's a dive and not a slow descent. It's just always... everything's fine up until the exact moment it's not. :rolleyes:
 
Brianna & Xander said:
They really are awful in a way that's hard to describe! :( That's incredible that they've stopped for you! Any idea what made the difference?
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My migraines were stress related. I got them out of the blue when I was managing a restaurant years ago. Soon as I left that position they stopped and I havent gotten them back since. And you are right, they are worse than awful! Absolutely nothing helps. I got lucky that mine were caused by something so specific.
 
Brianna & Xander said:
That would be so helpful!! I am actually kind of doing that - (please note that I am not using it for dosing advice/decision making, etc) but my partner made me a ChatGPT bot that was trained based on the forum. Again, I don't use it to pick a dose or make any decisions, etc, but I do essentially just tell it everything I put on my spreadsheet (food and time, all of his BG readings, behavior, appetite, all my notes etc) and it gives me a breakdown of each day. It's useful in that it does point out some patterns for me that I may have missed/struggled to see. It's really useful just in terms of spitting back out a summary of the day that makes it more concise and easier to process than the raw data is. Hopefully that makes sense.
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OH WOW. My mind is blow - what a smart way to us AI! Confirming very clear you're not using it for dosing advice - a good note to emphasize! But that sounds really helpful in terms of getting a complete summary of the day.

Brianna & Xander said:
For some reason I find the LibreView stuff to be really hard to work with and read (at least for me, the graphs it generates are tiny and basically useless). Maybe I should ask the bot to graph some of those days visually and I can compare them. It's really odd in that I feel like there's no warning. I guess that makes sense because it's a dive and not a slow descent. It's just always... everything's fine up until the exact moment it's not. :rolleyes:
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The graphs are REALLY tiny! And no scalable. I always found it odd how they provide data. Like how the Libre2 app and the LibreLinkUp provide different ways of looking at the data, and then LibreView also another way. Why can't there be one way to see all! I really liked on the LinkUp app how you could drag the time of day across the curve to see exact readings at each 15min interval, but only the last 12 hours. And the Libre2 app you could see 24 hours, but not pick points on the curve to get exact numbers. Sorry, now I'm just ranting about the Libre lol. Would be curious to see what ChatGPT could produce in terms of graphics for the data though! Interesting thought.
 
JoM said:
My migraines were stress related. I got them out of the blue when I was managing a restaurant years ago. Soon as I left that position they stopped and I havent gotten them back since. And you are right, they are worse than awful! Absolutely nothing helps. I got lucky that mine were caused by something so specific.
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That's awful! Stress can absolutely be a trigger. I'm so glad you were able to get out of that situation (and thus ditch the migraines)!

Unfortunately for me it appears that merely being alive is a trigger, so I don't see myself escaping it lol
 
Briana + Binx said:
OH WOW. My mind is blow - what a smart way to us AI! Confirming very clear you're not using it for dosing advice - a good note to emphasize! But that sounds really helpful in terms of getting a complete summary of the day.
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It's great! I love it.

Briana + Binx said:
The graphs are REALLY tiny! And no scalable. I always found it odd how they provide data. Like how the Libre2 app and the LibreLinkUp provide different ways of looking at the data, and then LibreView also another way. Why can't there be one way to see all! I really liked on the LinkUp app how you could drag the time of day across the curve to see exact readings at each 15min interval, but only the last 12 hours. And the Libre2 app you could see 24 hours, but not pick points on the curve to get exact numbers. Sorry, now I'm just ranting about the Libre lol. Would be curious to see what ChatGPT could produce in terms of graphics for the data though! Interesting thought.
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Yessss, exactly all of this! The Libre 3 app is garbage and doesn't let you seek along the curve for exact numbers either, so I literally have an alarm on my phone to go off every hour so that I can go in and use the "add note" feature to tag his +1s etc. :rolleyes: The LibreLinkUp app is probably the best out of the 3 for the same reason you said, but (maybe they updated it) only for the last 24 hours. I'll have to try and see if I can get it to generate some graphs.
 
Brianna & Xander said:
Yessss, exactly all of this! The Libre 3 app is garbage and doesn't let you seek along the curve for exact numbers either, so I literally have an alarm on my phone to go off every hour so that I can go in and use the "add note" feature to tag his +1s etc. :rolleyes: The LibreLinkUp app is probably the best out of the 3 for the same reason you said, but (maybe they updated it) only for the last 24 hours. I'll have to try and see if I can get it to generate some graphs.
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So frustrating that you have to set your own alarm to record the data! So many easy features they could add to make it more user friendly.

Let me know if you get anywhere with generating some graphs!
 
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