03/23 Merlin Help With Depot Questions!

Steve & Merlin

Steve & Merlin

Member Since 2019
Because Merlin desperately needs to put on weight, I have been feeding him higher calorie food that is also higher in carbs. If you look at his SS you will see that doing this only modestly raised his BG numbers from mostly green to blue/green. Then suddenly tonight he is spiking very high. He will probably hit 500+ for his AMPS. We seemed to be in a very stable situation where he was getting more calories at the expense of an acceptable BG rise. No dose increase needed. My questions are:

I increased his carbs without increasing his dose and his BG only went up a little. Was this small response to the increased carbs due to him scavenging his depot for the extra insulin to keep his BG numbers good? Was I slowly depleting his depot and now this spike indicates the depot was exhausted? Or, is this, as I originally suspected, the result of a fur shot?

If I depleted his depot, should increase his dosage to accommodate the higher carb food?

Since he started spiking, I have put him back on his LC food.

Thanks for any help.

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/3-22-merlin-amps-109-3-48-150-pmps-203.212262/
 
What you're seeing may be a bounce. The drop to 48 may have triggered a bounce. It's hard to know what seems to cause Merlin to spike. It's not anything particularly obvious on his spreadsheet. I would have expected a bounce on 3/13 after he visited the 30s.

I don't think the depot will respond to an increase in carbs. Depot type of medications work based on the amount of medication that's dosed. It's an issue of the pharmacology of the insulin, not what your cat consumes. However, you are correct that the more carbs you feed may change Merlin's insulin needs. Again, I don't think that you'd see such a sharp rise in numbers. I don't know what the difference in the % carbs is that you switched to. If it's a matter of it being a few %-points between the old and new food and you're still giving Merlin low carb (below 10%), there could be a dramatic change but it may depend on how carb sensitive your kitty is. Do you have an idea why his numbers skyrocketed earlier this month?

To be honest, with longer term diabetics, sometimes they seem to march to their own drummer. I'd think about a few things. Could Merlin have gotten into anything particularly high in carbs when you weren't looking. (Gabby loved chicken and stole a piece of honey soy chicken off of my plate and her numbers reflected the honey in the glaze.) There have certainly been people here who's cats are better than vacuuming the floor when it comes to finding a potato chip. Could there have been an unexpected source of stress? Stress can also cause numbers to spike.

Of course, if this was a fur shot, then none of the above applies!!
 
Thanks for the fast response to my questions.
I was feeding him foods with carbs around 12% - 15%. He did not seem to be strongly affected by this and moved into the blues. so I never considered adjusting is dose to compensate Then he did have that 48 which surprised me. But I did not expect him to bounce from it. Especially when he didn't bounce from the 30s. I also didn't expect such a nasty spike from a possible fur shot which is why I posted my question. His AMPS was 492 and he his super duper thirsty right now. His ketones are fine. I also gave him a bit of subq fluids as I found he seems to feel better with them when he is hyper. I gave him his regular dose and will just sit back and wait for this to pass. Unfortunately, he doesn't care as much for the LC food so his calorie intake will take a hit by this episode.
 
You could add powdered egg white to his food for a few extra calories and protein. Maybe one meal a day of higher calorie food but still low in carbs. Maybe even give him an extra meal or more at each meal.

I have the opposite with Ollie, I need to keep her from gaining weight yet she loves to eat.
 
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