05/11 Suzie AMPS 232

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Maria & Suzie

Maria & Suzie

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Hi all,

Suzie's glucose levels seem to be on the downward trend, which is a "yay", but she puzzled me this morning by not showing any interest in food. Turns out my husband confessed that she had busted out of the bathroom during the night (you can wonder how, at 15, she's not exactly "Flash Gordon").

I'm still puzzled though, because if she got to the civvies' food, then her glucose level would've been higher this morning. There was a bit of phlegm on the wooden floor, but no way of telling if it was her or one of the civvies that'd eaten grass. There's that CRF that's always in the background of course.

She ate well yesterday, so I am really thrown by the lack of appetite today. So it's "observation mode" today.

She's on day five of the 3.5 IU, started at 232 AMPS, I'll test throughout the day, how low do I let it go before I reduce the dose?

Maria & Suia
 
Good morning.....I don't think I have posted here before.
Generally a newly diagnosed cat needs to go below 50 for a reduction.
It looks like Suzie is slowly coming down nicely from the red and pink.....nice to see. :-D
 
Nice numbers for Suzie! If you have a look at the protocol we use it explains reductions and increases. Typically we say they need to "earn" a decrease by having a number (at any time) below 50. Decreases are done by .25U at a time (same as increases). If you have some time look through the Spreadsheets attached to people here in the Lantus groups signatures (look at some cats who have stopped needing insulin-remission, and some who currently on insulin) you will see how often people test, when they test and how they in response to the numbers raised and lowered the dose.

For example I was giving 2U and got the following numbers one day

AMPS 265 2U
+3 97
+6 68
+8 46
+8.5 52
+9 98
+10 136
PMPS 211 now I reduce the dose to 1.75U

This is just a hypothetical example.

Good luck with new food choices!
 
Hi,

Hope this won't come up twice, I wrote a message and then it just sort of replied.

I feel a bit nervous at seeing a number as low as 50 !

In terms of adjusting for 0.25 IU - do you have a syringe with that fine a scale?

The best I could find was a syringe with a total of 0.5ml, where the total of the syringe is 50 IU, so each stripe on the syringe is 1 IU. We are already squinting to see where the .5 IU is....

I saw a syringe with a total of 0.3 ml online, but it didn't look as if the actual scale of stripes was any finer + it had a shorter needle, which made us nervous about giving her shots (that long fur makes it harder to see...)

Going up to check her glucose now and see if she is interested in eating.

Maria & Suzie
 
Yes there is a ,3ml syringe (BD microfine +demi) it has half unit marks (.5U) you will have to eyeball the quater unit.

Here is the picture guide from the lantus group information

025unit-1.jpg


Here is shown how to place the plunger to get .25U (between the marks)

The syringes have 1 unit markings with little half unit marks (total 30 units) they do have a shorter needle but most people find it better. I have a short haired cat but he is black and his skin is also black so it was hard to see where I was putting the needle. A trick I used was after tenting the skin I would blow on the spot where I wanted to put the needle. This would make a nice little swirl where I could shoot into the middle of.

Here is a place in Germany where most people order the syringes http://www.sanicare.de/produkte/sortiment/Diabetes/Insulinspritzen_und_Kanuelen/1102706-detail.html

I don't know if belgium uses the same product code numbers for medical items (medications) but in germny the PZN for these syringes is 4144150

Here is one in Belgium (says it is shipping from Germany :-D )

http://www.newpharma.be/apotheek/be...fine-ins-sp-demi-03ml-30g-8mm-100-320837.html

Here's another one but only a package of 10 http://www.farmaline.be/nl/Aanbod/0/0/6216/BD-Microfine-InsSp-Demi-03-ml-30g-8-mm/

Oh by the way...I'm kind of the International advisor around here, just so happens I can read/speak 6 languages (and somewhat decipher enough to get a clue of several more) ;-)
 
Thanks for the tips on syringes. It's handy with the languages, isn't it? I live in Belgium but often order stuff online from Germany since they are more "hip" with their online shopping. I'm Swedish, I've moved around a lot. So has Suzie - she's Canadian, so technically she meows in English & French :smile:

It's just so hard with all this stuff, the last batch of syringes I ordered didn't come in less than 100... So now I have a whole load of 0.5ml syringes...

Am worried about her today. Though her last glucose was down to 162, so am happy about that.... she is barely eating today. She does not seem particularly dehydrated (thinking about the CRF), but she comes waddling out from her favourite sleeping spot underneath a foot-stool in the living room and we are back to the sniffing at the food and giving it 2 licks in disinterest.

Yesterday she was eating well, and was happy to get her well-loved Whiskas pouches with fish again, once we discovered that they are low-carb and "allowed". Her poo in the litter tray this morning looked nice & firm and normal.

Not even a few drops of Viyo (a sort of malty sauce the vet gave me) on her food gets her going. Usually she can't wait to have a lick at that stuff.

I'm stumped.

Maria & Suzie
 
One thought may be that as Suzie's numbers are coming down, she may not be as hungry. Diabetes is a "starving" disease. Until better regulated, the food that she's eating that's converted into glucose isn't getting into the cells. It's floating around in the blood. As a result, nutrients aren't getting where they need to go so she was probably hungry much of the time. As you're seeing her numbers improve, she may be less hungry.

The Viyo that the vet gave you -- double check the ingredients to make sure there's no sugar. I'm always suspicious of anything that is "malty" since it could contain maltodextrose (i.e., sugar).

Maybe your vet would buy the syringes from you?

If Suzie continues to be disinterested in food, we've got lots of suggestions. I do think keeping an eye on her to make sure this isn't anything more than a bit of fussiness makes good sense.
 
Thanks, you are right, it could simply be that she is not as hungry. She has been eating a fair amount the last week since she started eating again, exactly like a cat that was making up for lost time & lost weight.

She does have a "I'm not too happy" look about her, as if something is uncomfortable. But of course, you end up staring and staring at the animal till you more or less imagine things.

I'd just hate it if we manage to get the diabetes under control and something else "gets her" instead, like the darn CRF. The vet let me feel Suzie's left kidney - large & hard, but the vet has good hope that Suzie can get by on her right kidney, but of course it's still something I fear = that's she IS 15 and has been toughing it for a while.

Well, they don't say that cats have 9 lives for nothing... so I'll try to not fret too much and wait it out a little.

Thanks for the soothing advice !

Maria
 
Thanks for the tips on syringes. It's handy with the languages, isn't it? I live in Belgium but often order stuff online from Germany since they are more "hip" with their online shopping. I'm Swedish, I've moved around a lot. So has Suzie - she's Canadian, so technically she meows in English & French :smile:
Click to expand...

Ha! Me too...as you can see my name is french (Monique) my mothers family is from Quebec, Canada so I grew up French and English (near Boston MA) I studied French and Latin in a private school which was very international (2 years my roomate was Swedish, the second 2 years from the Dom. republic so Spanish) I was a military cryptolingiust and learned Russian, Vietnamese, and Arabic. My roomate at language school was learning chinese so picked up a bit. I moved to Germany and my best freind here is Finnish. My Ex husband and I had a student worker on our farm for 2 years from Poland, and an Au-pair from Moracco (she spoke: English, French, Arabic and Spanish and was learning German :idea: ) Dutch is well....a mix of German and English so that's easy. I know the Greek alphabet (I went to a university :-D ) and Romanian is almost Latin so I can figure it out a bit.

So dann Ich wünsche dir ein wunderschönen Dienstag abend! Tschüß!
 
Today her readings have been less in a dropping line than yesterday

AMPS 232, 168 1t +4 and 232 just now at +8. I'm still happy at seeing numbers in the 200's and 100's insted of the dreaded "HI"

She's not eaten much today. I'm trying to shift her over to soft food, but she showed more interest in it yesterday than today. She ended up eating some dry in the end (not ideal, but better that than nothing)

I've run a multi-cat household for so long that I don't really know how much soft food a single cat eats in a day.

Suzie weighs about 3.5kg, about 7.7 lbs, after the recent re-gain of weight. In terms of a small can of Fancy Feast (Gourmet in Europe) how much does a lone cat eat of soft food?

I'm thinking that being on day 5 of 3.5 IU I still stick with that dose and see if I can get her to eat more wet food tomorrow.

Maria & Suzie
 
My Spooky is about 4.3 kg and he is eating about 2 or 2.5 of those cans (each 85g) and his weight is pretty stabil. He also steals forbidden things like french fries, cookies, bread.... :twisted: His civie brother Socks is a little thicker at 6kg and he eats the same amount and has not been sucessful in losing any yet :roll: The Aldi cans are 200g each and the label says a 4kg cat should eat 3 cans a day (thats 600g!) My cats eat between 1 and 1.5 of those or about 300g per day. I feed 100g in the morning, 50g at lunchtime (unless I'm not home-which is rare) and 100g in the evening. That's all they get except a few treats before bed or a peice of some sandwhich meat or raw meat while I'm cooking.
 
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