Theresa,
Yes, I was thinking a sort of a sliding scale, but not set in any sort of stone... it was in response to this specifically:
When I look at Poopy's SS, I see 1.6u being too much as it flat lines his numbers, and even goes higher before nadir. 1.4u gives mixed results, and inconsistent PSs. Thought about dropping back to 1.2u or upping past 1.6u but not sure which way to go, really.
The problem is that Poopy doesn't seem to react the same way to a dose (big surprise!). For instance, on 1/22 you shot 1.6 into a 350. You got a 50% drop, but it was a late nadir. It gave you a 220 PMPS, and you shot 1.6 again. Not sure what it did, but it seemed to work well because it gave you a 230 AMPS the next day, so it looked like a good dose. Then that morning, you shot 1.6 again, and it didn't do anything. Dropped him only about 40 points and gave you a 252 PMPS. So you reduced to 1.4, maybe thinking that the cycle was flat and needed to be reduced (I don't remember) and then the next morning he was back up to 305. So the 1.4 didn't look like "enough" to me into the low pink number.
I was thinking maybe draw a line at 300? 1.6 above that, 1.4 below that. Robin is better than me at figuring out the doses and ranges. I used a very crude "sliding scale" with Bob. The ranges were at the "hundreds" and the doses were adjusted by .5 for each range. Like
100-200 1u
201-300 1.5
300-400 2.0
Above 400 2.5
Mine was probably "too crude", but it apparently worked for Bob. But I rarely got mid-cycle tests in, so I really don't know how low he went. I only saw scary low numbers two times, but he probably went "hypo" numbers-wise more often than I thought at the time. I had no problem (ignorance was bliss) dosing aggressively with Bob, but I didn't realize at the time that it
was aggressive. I just thought "the vet must know what she's doing" and went with it. It wasn't until I'd been here a month, and Bob was up to 4u a shot that I decided to start reducing on my own. Now sitting at home, it's easy to think "wow, lots of kitties are being underdosed", sort of what Donna said above. But it's a whole different world when the kitty in question is not "mine". I'm probably more aggressive with dosing advice than many people here, but I "tone it down" because they aren't my cats, you know what I mean? I'm afraid to cause someone else's cat harm by telling them they need to up the dose just because it worked for Bob. I sort of did that with Copper and Lori, and it messed my head up for a while.
Probably the big difference, dosing advice-wise with me is that I think in bigger increments than pretty much anyone else. I think .25 at a time is tiny, but I recommend it because I figure people will freak out and think I'm crazy if I told them to increase by .5 like I want to. If I were to make an adjustment with my cat, I would want it to "do something" easily apparent, so I'd know that it was the change in dose that caused a difference, rather than have to wonder if it was the dose change, or some other random factor like Bob ate an ounce less of food that day, or ate an hour earlier or later than normal. I want the adjustment in the dose to tell me something definite. If I found the .5 was too much too soon, then I'd back off if I saw it happen
more than once (wouldn't change just because it dropped his BG too much just once). I'm a big believer in "you have to force good numbers on the cat to get faster results". But I don't know if that way of thinking is "right". It's just the way I think. But, Bob is Bob, and he's "my cat", and if I screw up with him, it's all on me. I don't want somebody else's kitty to suffer (or his bean to suffer), and have that "all on me". So I try to be more conservative when doling out the advice. Sometimes it is frustrating for me, but I sleep better at night.
Sorry for the ramble!
Carl
Carl
DH helped out and already had the cans open when I came back in from taking the dogs out. :YMSIGH: