10/31 Phoebe AMBG 488 AMPS 536 +2.25 392 +3.25 277 +4.25 135 - first time

Christie & Maverick said:
Oh good, I see in your SS +5.25 is 105 so she's flattened out. I think you can give just a teaspoon of LC now and that should keep her in this range.
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My stress with all of this is that she will not eat a tsp of wet food at one time. best as I can measure, a tsp is about a 4th of a can of FF (or ~7/8 a oz). She will eat half that, at most.
 
Oh, we cross-posted. Your HC/LC mix works just fine too ;), you are getting some good info on what is working for Phoebe. I find with Mav I can steer him with a little higher LC when the drops start, then fed a little LC to keep him steady, but it is a bit of experimenting in the beginning. Ideally you want just enough carbs to slow the drop then keep them flat, too many carbs can cut the cycle short.
 
Maggie&Phoebe said:
My stress with all of this is that she will not eat a tsp of wet food at one time. best as I can measure, a tsp is about a 4th of a can of FF (or ~7/8 a oz). She will eat half that, at most.
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That's ok, as long as she is getting new carbs onboard, ie. eating a little through the parts of the cycle when she is dropping.
 
You all have been quite busy. I’m glad you didn’t shoot last night. She’s nice and safe. If you need a little longer than an hour I think that will be fine. Team Phoebe has done great! You doing okay, Maggie?
 
my times are all weird on the SS as I was typically taking 1.25 between tests so I've adjusted for that now. This means my plan is to test a +8, which is 6:30PM my time.

It may be early, but honestly this drop was quite scary, and I worry about dosing her tonight and leaving her unsupported through a similar cycle. The quick drop is causing her to have some balance issues/wobbliness, and no one will be awake to feed her snacks... :(
 
How long until shot time? She could be way up by then. We won’t know until then. Normal bg for a cat on a human meter is 50-120. So she was never in any danger. We need to find out what’s going on with the balance issue.
 
tiffmaxee said:
How long until shot time? She could be way up by then. We won’t know until then. Normal bg for a cat on a human meter is 50-120.
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5 more hours. I also know that I should be celebrating her being in the blues - that's what we are hoping for, right?

That said, I'm a control freak who wants all the answers RIGHT NOW (as I'm sure we all are) - which makes this whole process really, really stressful. Because I'm so new to it, I don't know if this type of cycle is normal (black PS to blues 6 hours in) or not. I also don't know if the wobbliness/loss of balance is something I just need to get more callous about while we are getting her regulated and it should even out once her body gets used to the insulin.

What I do know is that her behavior with the quick drop today (and her behavior on Wednesday which is what made me stop the insulin until this morning when i could test), is super nerve-wracking and unpleasant to witness. I feel like I'm failing her because I don't have it all worked out and she's suffering because of it.

I'm sorry - I feel like i'm having a pity party right now (or every 4 hours when I feel overwhelmed)...
 
Deep breaths. If anyone told you this would be easy they were wrong. I’ve dealt with many feline diseases but I was crying when I started dealing with FD. There is a huge learning curve. I’m not at all convinced that what she has experienced is in any way related to the big drop. Many cats here go from black to green in 12 hours and you could never tell by looking at the cat. Max was a rainbow bouncy kitty for almost a year. I can point you to many spreadsheets with cats that are bouncy and they didn’t have neuro type symptoms. Max got into the 30’s and other than often becoming ravenous had no symptoms. I wish we knew if Phoebe is throwing ketones or ever did. Can you find out from the ER? Can you have them email her chart to you ? I’m afraid to not give her any insulin if she was throwing ketones or was DKA. :bighug::bighug::bighug::bighug:
 
I think there’s a chance your vet found ketones which is why you were told to give high carb food. You need to get insulin into the cat and carbs allow you to give higher amounts of insulin.
 
Maggie&Phoebe said:
I'm sorry - I feel like i'm having a pity party right now (or every 4 hours when I feel overwhelmed)...
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:bighug::bighug::bighug::bighug: Feel all the feelings, it's allowed. :)
I felt overwhelmed, too. Like Elise, I also cried. I cried a lot, actually. It's a pretty safe bet that most everyone on the board has either felt overwhelmed and/or cried at one point or another. Nothing about this is easy. There is so much to learn, but you have a lot of support here from a really amazing group of people.

I urge you to keep posting a new condo with Phoebe's numbers every day so that we can all keep helping you. And when you have time, read other kitties' condos and look at their spreadsheets. Bookmark new pieces of information. I have a page in Butters' spreadsheet with links to and paragraphs of key info that I collect. You'll be amazed at how it will all start to gel in time. And down the road you'll even be helping and sharing your experiences with others!

I can't speak at all to Phoebe's symptoms. I just came by to empathize and send you hugs. The fact that you were able to follow suggestions on what to feed and when to get BG tests is an accomplishment in itself! You kept Phoebe safe and you got her to do some surfing. Excellent, excellent job today. :bighug:
 
tiffmaxee said:
Deep breaths. If anyone told you this would be easy they were wrong. I’ve dealt with many feline diseases but I was crying when I started dealing with FD. There is a huge learning curve. I’m not at all convinced that what she has experienced is in any way related to the big drop. Many cats here go from black to green in 12 hours and you could never tell by looking at the cat. Max was a rainbow bouncy kitty for almost a year. I can point you to many spreadsheets with cats that are bouncy and they didn’t have neuro type symptoms. Max got into the 30’s and other than often becoming ravenous had no symptoms. I wish we knew if Phoebe is throwing ketones or ever did. Can you find out from the ER? Can you have them email her chart to you ? I’m afraid to not give her any insulin if she was throwing ketones or was DKA. :bighug::bighug::bighug::bighug:
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LARGE BOOK TO FOLLOW: :eek:

They told me she had low levels of ketones when they tested her Sunday (10.25) but I don't have her chart and they didn't test her again before we picked her up the next day. I can call to ask for the labs. The vet didn't recommend high carb food, they suggested either md or DM, but in the end said "all that's important is that she eats." I have been feeding her various mixtures of LC FF and Friskies with HC wet food mixed in for the last two meals. Since yesterday, it's been nothing but LC wet food - I took away her dry food, which is HC, and I don't know if I should have done that or not...

I will do my best to get a ketone test tonight sometime. She is eating and drinking water though, so that, I think is good.

She has moments of being energetic and playful, but she also sleeps a great deal.

When her blood sugars are high (in the red), the neuro symptoms go away. When her sugars started dropping today, the symptoms slowly came back until her 135 and 105 when she was losing her balance on the bed, having to brace against something if she was grooming, and having a hard time jumping up on things (though she was still ultimately successful in getting up and down). That was not as bad as Thursday when she could barely walk and was falling over regularly and the vet told us to skip the shot. Someone here walked me through giving her some HC food to get her sugars up (although, honestly, I didn't have a meter at the time, so who knows what was really happening). That said, the HC food did help her improve and eliminated the symptoms.

I'm going to run and get her +8 test.
 
Sorry I was unable to join you earlier - I've been on the road all day - we're traveling. Looks like you've gotten some great support earlier today. Keep an eye on Phoebe now, looks like she's dropping like a rock today! Sometimes the newness of insulin will affect them this way. Just make sure she doesn't get much lower...don't want to have another reduction today.
 
Christie & Maverick said:
Dang it, I stepped away for a bit, I had hoped she would have stopped dropping by +7. I would give her a bit of a snack. And we nEed to figure out what to do for tonight.
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I'm glad you're back Christie...I'm not going to be on the forum long tonight - we've just driven over 500 miles today...and another one like it tomorrow.

Have a good evening!
 
Christie & Maverick said:
Dang it, I stepped away for a bit, I had hoped she would have stopped dropping by +7. I would give her a bit of a snack. And we nEed to figure out what to do for tonight.
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Just gave her a scant hand full of a mix of science diet C/D (HC) and DM (MC) kibble. She ate almost all of it. But now she's licking her lips alot, which makes me nervous that she's going to throw up again. May try to see if she will eat some more wet food.

Is the solution here leaving out her HC dry food so she can graze? we can still reliably get at least some LC wet food in her at least 3x a day (possibly more) if we do that, and she hasn't stopped drinking ALL the water yet.
 
I have a very unhelpful answer - maybe.

Her back legs do kind of duck in like that, but it's no where near that pronounced. and her front legs are fine. I know neuropathy is a possibility, but I didn't think that it would come and go so completely and quickly. Because when she's "okay" she might have a little "swing" in her back half, but no balance issues or falling over.
 
Maggie, is the Science C/D is wet or dry? Do you have the % carbs available? I would suggest a test 1 hour after your test of 63 please. It is important for me to understand how the food is affecting her, but I am unclear on what carbs we are dealing with.
 
Christie & Maverick said:
Maggie, is the Science C/D is wet or dry? Do you have the % carbs available? I would suggest a test 1 hour after your test of 63 please. It is important for me to understand how the food is affecting her, but I am unclear on what carbs we are dealing with.
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It's the dry and I don't know the carbs :(. I'm probably going to give her a little Royal Canin SO wet in a minute as well (which I think is 20 carbs).
 
Ok, no worries, I'm just trying to think ahead for you. I'm still iffy in what the clinic said about "low ketones", since to my knowledge, they'd have done either a proper urinalysis, or maybe tested with a ketone meter. If it was a ketone meter, since they are made for humans, we'd only worry if the numbers were at a certain range. We'll need to see as you get closer to PMPS what may or may not be possible. If the numbers don't start rising, I am concerned about whether any insulin should be given, and with the possibility of ketones in the past, that is not ideal. Just trying to explain my thoughts, I am trying to help, but I also want to be safe here with my suggestions.
 
I’m sorry. I stepped away too. She is getting a big reaction to the insulin and it’s interesting that it continues to fall late in the cycle. When will one hour after the 63?
I agree Christie about the reluctance to shoot as you would think she would be bouncing by now or at least rising.
 
Christie & Maverick said:
If the numbers don't start rising, I am concerned about whether any insulin should be given, and with the possibility of ketones in the past, that is not ideal. Just trying to explain my thoughts, I am trying to help, but I also want to be safe here with my suggestions.
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I hear you and I appreciate your help. Honestly, if the numbers don't start going up, I am probably going to have a serious convo with my boyfriend about bringing her in again. Our vet is also a 24 hour hospital - but that's it's so expensive and we really don't have the money :arghh:
 
If you skip you won’t need to bring her in to the vet. Let’s not go there just yet. We might need to skip and reduce the dose to .50 in the morning like I originally thought best until the possibility of ketones. Insulin plus hc food might be needed. Has she lost a lot of weight?
 
When Max was first diagnosed I didn’t test at home. I remember going to my vet for a test around +7. His bg was 60 and I freaked inside. Not my vet.
 
I can call and ask that they email them to me. She just ate 1/4 tsp of S/O with like 2 DM kibbles - and that was a struggle to get her to eat. Typically she goes back for another helping every hour or so, so trying to get her to eat again 20 minutes later is tough.
 
Usually they get really hungry when the bg drops. She’s in safe numbers. Have them email it all to you and you can attach it here.
 
tiffmaxee said:
It’s still at least 3 hours for her to start rising, right?
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2 and change. It's currently 8:11PM here and her next dose should be 10:30PM.

I'm going to grab a quick test at 8:30 and I'll put the result in the spreadsheet, but I also have to leave to grab my food order, so I might be on the message board for another hour or so.
 
Elise, @tiffmaxee I had noted earlier that shot time today was slightly delayed, if my understanding is correct, PMPS as proposed would be too early by 45 minutes. Maggie, I wouldn't fuss it if the numbers remained high, but anytime we shoot sooner, ie. more than a 1/2 hour than 12 hours from the last dose it can actually act like a dose increase. Which we do not want.
 
I shot her at 10:45AM. I can make sure not to shoot until then tonight. I'm going to leave the HC dry out while I go grab food and then I'll pick it up when I get home.
 
Elise @tiffmaxee, glad to help. I wish we could see those labs and tests too. I'm on the fence with dose, I pondered 0.25u if we can't see BG tests as we go tonight with food intervention as required. I suppose all dependant on PMPS. The other secondary choice, probably slightly unpalatable to some, is to have dry food available for free feeding tonight if preshot is still flattish from last test, and 0.5u is chosen. Just thinking out loud. Phoebe may yet bounce, the later nadir after only one dose and previous skips is throwing me off.
 
I just sent an email to my vet's office to request the labs, etc. Hoping they will get them to me soon (they tend to have a quick turnaround, so I'm hopeful). If not, I may call them and ask later.

It's possible that my boyfriend will be awake and able to take some additional tests and correct with food tonight, but I'm not sure how willing he would be to post here in my stead. I'll have to ask him. It's also possible (since neither of us has really been sleeping) that he won't stay up as late as normal.
 
If you leave out food will she eat? We will take all this into account with our advice for tonight and the PMPS too. Tell your bf we are a friendly group. If he even just posts bg readings we can advise.
 
tiffmaxee said:
If you leave out food will she eat? We will take all this into account with our advice for tonight and the PMPS too. Tell your bf we are a friendly group. If he even just posts bg readings we can advise.
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Dry food, yes. I heard her eating it throughout the night from Thursday to Friday. Wet food will likely be eaten by her brothers if we leave it out. I could consider locking them out and her in the bedroom and see if she would eat wet food through out an evening, but right now, I don't know if she would. Also segregating them like that will be painful, as all three of them sleep with us, and Leo is a bruiser and will force the door open if he really wants to get in.

I'm considering buying a bag of DM (which is MC) SOLELY to get us over the hump without causing the likely spike that the science diet will...Also just thinking out loud.
 
She just woke up from a nap - went to the kitchen for food and was very disappointed when there was no food there - and then joined me on the couch and spent a few minutes making biscuits with ALL four feet. Something she has done in what feels like forever. :cat:
 
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