? Lola Dosing advice

Elohelay

Elohelay

Member Since 2025
Good morning, all!

Lola's been on .5u since she was diagnosed. I'm pretty sure that a drop down to .25u is in order. I'm just very anxious about actually making the change.

I haven't taken the AMPS yet, but if it's below 200, I'll stall about 20 minutes, and if it's still low (like yesterday) should I be giving a .25u dose instead of NS? Less than .25 if I can? I do have the syringes with the half unit marks.

Yesterday, at PMPS I gave a 6.9% carb food (higher than I usually do) to help slow her drop and I think it worked? I did give more low carb food at PM +2, which (I think) accounted for the last reading. I meant to check at least one more time last night but I slept through my alarm.

Thanks in advance!
 
Now about her dose: Lola actually has already earned (and missed) a reduction twice, and her dose should have been lowered to .25 units. See how she dropped below 90 on two separate nights within the last week? These were not dangerous numbers, but still according to the SLGS protocol her dose should have been lowered 2.25 units. She is actually doing extremely well on the .5 unit dose, and if you were not feeding any dry kibble at all, I would recommend switching to the Modified ProZinc Method where reductions are taken if the cat drops below 50 — but as it is, and since she’s pretty new, I think we should do the reduction to .25 units and see how it goes. If her numbers start creeping up, then I think we need to talk about a custom reduction point for her … modifying the SLGS protocol a little bit for her benefit. This would allow her to spend more time in the normal BG numbers. But for now go ahead and reduce the dose to .25 units and let’s see how she does. I hope to see her in blues and greens.
 
Elohelay said:
She's at 231 for AMPS. I'm going with .25. 🤞

How frequently should I monitor today?
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Can you get a +3 and a +6? If her BG is lower than expected you can always check more frequently.

She should be fine. On Jan13, you shot a 232 with a .5 unit dose. There don’t appear to be any tests that day so we don’t know what her BG did though.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Now about her dose: Lola actually has already earned (and missed) a reduction twice, and her dose should have been lowered to .25 units. See how she dropped below 90 on two separate nights within the last week? These were not dangerous numbers, but still according to the SLGS protocol her dose should have been lowered 2.25 units. She is actually doing extremely well on the .5 unit dose, and if you were not feeding any dry kibble at all, I would recommend switching to the Modified ProZinc Method where reductions are taken if the cat drops below 50 — but as it is, and since she’s pretty new, I think we should do the reduction to .25 units and see how it goes. If her numbers start creeping up, then I think we need to talk about a custom reduction point for her … modifying the SLGS protocol a little bit for her benefit. This would allow her to spend more time in the normal BG numbers. But for now go ahead and reduce the dose to .25 units and let’s see how she does. I hope to see her in blues and greens.
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Okay. How long do we monitor before we start considering this?
 
I was trying to look at your dosing photo but couldn’t.

Place the plunger as close to halfway between the zero line and the half unit mark. Eyeball it.
 
:bighug: She was never anywhere near being too low. I am actually a little disappointed because she probably will be back in pink by PMPS. A nice yellow preshot number would have been wonderful. We wanted her to stay in blue for as long as possible. But I totally understand that it’s new and can be scary! Our goal will be to shoot lower numbers, but it does take time. We won’t be able to skip every low preshot, but if you will be able to monitor we will shoot lower preshot numbers and gather test data to help us with future decisions. Let’s talk to Lola about doing this during the daytime!
 
In fact, I am trying to figure out why she rose so high at +6 which should be more like her nadir time. I see she was fed the Nulo duck and tuna and which is a little over 6 percent so technically low carb. She may be carb sensitive and need less carbs, especially approaching nadir. The way to find out how carb sensitive she is would be to test her at AMPS and then feed her the Nulo and test again at +1. Then, on a different day, at AMPS and feed a lower carb food and test at +1 and see how much of a food bump you get each time. This is also useful information for when you’re managing low numbers. With many cats you don’t need to use high carb and can manage with a few more carbs, or medium carbs. And if you want to try the Nulo at +2 and them switch to lower carb for the +4 snack and any food given after, that may help to get the nadir pushed out closer to +6.
 
That’s just food for thought for later. I am not saying you are doing anything wrong. :bighug: It’s a learning process and each cat is a bit different so you have to know your cat and their carb sensitivity and responses to insulin, food, etc.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
In fact, I am trying to figure out why she rose so high at +6 which should be more like her nadir time. I see she was fed the Nulo duck and tuna and which is a little over 6 percent so technically low carb. She may be carb sensitive and need less carbs, especially approaching nadir. The way to find out how carb sensitive she is would be to test her at AMPS and then feed her the Nulo and test again at +1. Then, on a different day, at AMPS and feed a lower carb food and test at +1 and see how much of a food bump you get each time. This is also useful information for when you’re managing low numbers. With many cats you don’t need to use high carb and can manage with a few more carbs, or medium carbs. And if you want to try the Nulo at +2 and them switch to lower carb for the +4 snack and any food given after, that may help to get the nadir pushed out closer to +6.
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Wait! Am I reading this wrong? I thought it was way lower than 6%!

I *think* she is VERY carb sensitive, and if I was wrong about the %, I’ll take the blame for this one.
 

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Elohelay said:
I think these are them?
Please educate me if I'm wrong! I want to be sure I have a handle on this because I need to make sure I'm making good decisions about her food!

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Well dry matter is what you need. I do see pumpkin in there as a source of carbs, and cranberries. I just don’t know if it’s enough to make it 6-ish carbs. Either way, what really matters is if a particular flavor or food or protein spikes her glucose. Some cats will spike with certain foods. The only way to find out is to test an hour after feeding the food ( first thing in the morning after the AMPS test so no other foods are involved.)
 
344 for PMPS.

She’s been a gremlin trying to get me to feed her early and getting into things for the past two hours. She nearly ate the dog’s kibble, and I caught her licking the salad bowl clean, so I don’t know if salad dressing residue has something to do with this number. 🥴
 
😂 that’s funny. Well her number os pretty much the same as last night of we consider meter variance… but maybe of the salad dressing has sugar in it (which I doubt or that number would be higher, although some salad dressings have other ingredients in them that could do it.) It will be all right!
 
And let’s take her back up to .5 units as soon as you are ready. I don’t like the pink preshots. I wish she could at least be yellow at preshot time. It will be important to keep up with the planned snacks.

Also, I was studying her spreadsheet earlier thos morning and noticed she had a T. of Dr. Elsey’s at 5.5 during the a.m. cycle yesterday. I have seen quite a few cats whose numbers will spike up with Dr. Elsey’s. Yesterday she seemed to go into the yellow quickly after that. Anyway, if she must have it, it would probably be better to give it to her earlier in the cycle and definitely not after nadir.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
And let’s take her back up to .5 units as soon as you are ready. I don’t like the pink preshots. I wish she could at least be yellow at preshot time. It will be important to keep up with the planned snacks.

Also, I was studying her spreadsheet earlier thos morning and noticed she had a T. of Dr. Elsey’s at 5.5 during the a.m. cycle yesterday. I have seen quite a few cats whose numbers will spike up with Dr. Elsey’s. Yesterday she seemed to go into the yellow quickly after that. Anyway, if she must have it, it would probably be better to give it to her earlier in the cycle and definitely not after nadir.
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Yes, I think I’m going to stop any dry food and only give her FF or Rawz (the 96% turkey and turkey liver pate is 0% carb) for a little bit. I was really only giving dry food for the extra calories, but she's gaining weight nicely.
 
The vet says she’s supposed to be about 13lbs, but agrees she’d look really fat at that weight 😆

Before she got sick she was at about 10.9 lbs and she looked healthy but not chunky. She’s currently at about 7.5-7.7 lbs when I get her on the scale.
 
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