11/08 Junga AMPS 167, +2 68 -- when to skip a shot?

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jldnvjld

jldnvjld

Member Since 2010
Yesterday was my first attempt at a BG curve. Junga certainly got tired of my messing with his ear.
At the a.m. +2 mark he had a 58; that was the lowest measured all day, most likely because I fed him some HC at that point.

Our HC issues:
Junga has a presumed wheat/corn/? allergy, with throwing up and itchy rashes as symptoms. As I don't want him to throw up when his blood glucose is low, and I don't want him to get so itchy that I have to give him cortisone (steroid) baths, I am experimenting with grain-free HC alternatives. Laurie says the Wellness pouches (MC) are grain-free; I'm going to look for them.

Now that I have some numbers on Junga's SS, I'm fishing for some numbers:

1. What would be a good 'no-shot' PS number? I've been skipping lots of his shots, and I really don't know what's best. I just don't want him to have a low when I'm not there to monitor him. I work and so I'm away from the house during weekdays, and not always home all day on the weekends.

2. Dosage suggestions? I gather that since I didn't let his BG go below 50 that he didn't 'earn' a reduction, but he clearly felt crummy at 58, and as of yesterday I didn't have a good way of bringing his BG back up, so I was worried when I saw that 58. I hope the experts will forgive the truncated nadir this time.

Thanks,

Yesterday's conversation:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=29252

J.
 
Re: 11/08 Junga AMPS 167, +2 68

Hello!
I'm going to let those with more expertise guide your dosing decisions. However, after a looksee at your SS, WOW!! GO GO GO JUNGA!!

My first suggestion would be to keep giving the 0.10 AM and PM. Leave out plenty of food for him. The last I heard, no kitty goes hypo from 0.10 dose, and it's just enough to give a bit of support to the pancreas while it finishes healing.

The regular wellness is also grain free. I've seen bits of carrots and peas in there, but they are all low carb (under 6%, IIRC). There are also gluten free varietes of FF, but FF actually costs the same as wellness. So... between human grade muscle meat vs by products and organs, I'll go for the human grade meat to feed by baby!!

Congrats to you and Junga!! you look well on your way to a spearmint gum! (an OTJ trial :: antijinx :: )
 
Re: 11/08 Junga AMPS 167, +2 68

Cyn and Cosmo said:
The regular wellness is also grain free. I've seen bits of carrots and peas in there, but they are all low carb (under 6%, IIRC).
Click to expand...

I've been feeding him the Turkey formula Wellness (which also contains chicken) the last few days. He seems to like it pretty well -- better than most of the other canned foods we've tried. He's still pretty lukewarm on canned food in general (other than EVO 95% duck and Wild Blue duck.) At various times I have suspected a chicken allergy, so I'm keeping an eye on him. He's scratched a sore spot on his neck, and I'm hoping this is just a random itchy bout and not the beginning of an allergy flare. Cross your fingers.
 
binks went nuts for the evo duck and the wild blue duck.

i'll leave your question for the wiser folks too...but i have what may seem like a silly question to you.

in junga...do you pronounce the J or is it silent? (i know...we are the weird, silly duo...)

celi & binks
 
mybuddybinks said:
binks went nuts for the evo duck and the wild blue duck.

i'll leave your question for the wiser folks too...but i have what may seem like a silly question to you.

in junga...do you pronounce the J or is it silent? (i know...we are the weird, silly duo...)

celi & binks
Click to expand...

To save you the expense, Junga thinks the freeze-dried duck breast treats are too yucky even to taste. I suspect duck *grease* is the big attraction in canned duck.

I'm hopinghopinghoping for input from the wise. I am a BCS when it comes to low BGs.

Re: Junga's name -- the J is pronounced. My now-ex husband named Junga after a Nepali politician:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jang_Bahadur
Jung, Jang, Junga, and Janga are alternative transliterations of the first name.
Apparently naming the cat after a politician is really funny -- our Nepali friends would just roar with laughter. I never got the joke. It's not a bad cat name, though.

J.
 
hi there

I dont know if you are home yet, but if so, is there any more numbers?
maybe an in-the-door check?

gonna give ya a bump
 
Ronnie & Luna said:
hi there

I dont know if you are home yet, but if so, is there any more numbers?
maybe an in-the-door check?

gonna give ya a bump
Click to expand...

Not home yet; I'm on Pacific time.

My PMPS test is pretty close to an in-the-door test, as Junga wants to be fed ASAP. I will be away this evening again, so I may chicken out and skip the shot if his PMPS is low. I really want to monitor the post-meal +1 and +2. I am guessing I'm seeing is his pancreas kicking in in response to food, and that's where the low is coming from. Just my newbie guess.....

Pardon my ignorance, but what's a 'bump'?

J.
 
a bump gets your condo back to the top simply by someone replying or "bumping" you :lol:

ok, then, how many hours til shot time?
 
Ronnie & Luna said:
a bump gets your condo back to the top simply by someone replying or "bumping" you :lol:

ok, then, how many hours til shot time?
Click to expand...

Re: bump -- ah ha.

Re: shot -- about 2 1/2 hrs.

J.
 
jldnvjld said:
1. What would be a good 'no-shot' PS number? I've been skipping lots of his shots, and I really don't know what's best. I just don't want him to have a low when I'm not there to monitor him. I work and so I'm away from the house during weekdays, and not always home all day on the weekends.

2. Dosage suggestions? I gather that since I didn't let his BG go below 50 that he didn't 'earn' a reduction, but he clearly felt crummy at 58, and as of yesterday I didn't have a good way of bringing his BG back up, so I was worried when I saw that 58. I hope the experts will forgive the truncated nadir this time.
Click to expand...

This probably isn't the answer you want, but on 0.1 units of insulin, there really isn't a need to skip shots almost whatever the number (I wouldn't shoot 40's and would probably stall the first time shooting in the 50-60's). Why? In LL we have not seen a symptomatic hypo on 0.1 units (we do see low numbers on 0.1 occasionally). Additionally, we believe that the pancreas heals when the cat is below about 120. Our goal is to get the cat under 120 all the time. To be below 120 all the time means you have to shoot under 120, right? Then to try OTJ, we are looking for numbers to be pretty much green 24/7 for at least 7 days or for the numbers to drop too low on 0.1. To give Junga's pancreas the maximum healing time, that is where you want his numbers to be.

If you look at other spreadsheets, you'll notice that the lower the preshot, the flatter the cycle usually is. It makes sense, they simply *can't* drop as far from a low number as they can from a high number. As a somewhat extreme example, I didn't worry too much about shooting Lucy when she was green or low blue. She could only drop a little bit from there. Usually she surfed, but if she did drop a bit then it was an easy drop and it was easy to bump her number back up. When she was pink at preshot, holy cow could that cat skydive! I worried a lot more about her hitting too low when I shot her high than when I shot her low.

Really you don't need to worry about 50's at this dose. Some cats just want to surf in that range. Lucy was one of them, and once I got used to the idea I saw that it worked pretty well for her. Sure, when they're dropping fast then it's a good idea to intervene and try to put on the brakes. But if you shoot 70's, for example, and he drops 20 points to surf in the 50's, that is nice and flat and comfortable for him. Dropping from 200's to 50's is less comfortable and probably doesn't feel very good.

Junga does have some fast, early drops. You might want to think about splitting his meal and giving 1/3 at shot time, 1/3 at +1, 1/3 at +2, at least whenever you're home. For a lot of cats who like the early drops, that is helping flatten out the beginning of their cycles.

About the dose, since you have already reduced, let's give it a try and see what happens. You need to shoot every 12 hours, though. If you're ever not sure, post and ask. Good luck with the new dose!
 
Libby and Lucy said:
[O]n 0.1 units of insulin, there really isn't a need to skip shots almost whatever the number (I wouldn't shoot 40's and would probably stall the first time shooting in the 50-60's).
Click to expand...
Thanks; that's great, and a relief to me.

Libby and Lucy said:
Additionally, we believe that the pancreas heals when the cat is below about 120. Our goal is to get the cat under 120 all the time. To be below 120 all the time means you have to shoot under 120, right?
Click to expand...
Thank you; I'd missed that part in the stickies. :oops: I was thinking the guideline might something like "don't shoot under 170 unless you're there to monitor" or something like that, hence my clueless questions.

Libby and Lucy said:
Junga does have some fast, early drops. You might want to think about splitting his meal and giving 1/3 at shot time, 1/3 at +1, 1/3 at +2, at least whenever you're home.
Click to expand...
I have been splitting his breakfast -- giving him some of it just before I leave for work. I can split the first part up into two segments, for a total of three, although they won't be very far apart. For whatever reason he's quite the grazer when it comes to dinner; he spreads it out over about 4 or so hours.

Libby and Lucy said:
About the dose, since you have already reduced, let's give it a try and see what happens.
Click to expand...
Yeah; I hadn't gotten much feedback on the dosage/curve, and I needed to pick something this morning. I was just too chicken to give him the 0.25 and head out to work, so I picked the smaller dosage, figuring shooting every twelve hours has to be better than all this shot-skipping I've been doing on 0.25. I sure could be wrong; if it's too low I can adjust it next week when I have more data.

Libby and Lucy said:
If you're ever not sure, post and ask.
Click to expand...
I will continue to post my questions; thank you. And thank you for your response.
 
Libby and Lucy said:
[W]e believe that the pancreas heals when the cat is below about 120. Our goal is to get the cat under 120 all the time. To be below 120 all the time means you have to shoot under 120, right? Then to try OTJ, we are looking for numbers to be pretty much green 24/7 for at least 7 days or for the numbers to drop too low on 0.1. To give Junga's pancreas the maximum healing time, that is where you want his numbers to be. [....]
Good luck with the new dose!
Click to expand...

Could you show me in the stickies where the 120-target-range description is? I'd like to read more about it.

So far Junga appears to feel good on his new dosage. It's not all-green all the time, but at least he feels good. I should be able to get some more spot checks later in the week.

J.
 
sorry to bump yesterday's condo, but I didn't see one for today yet.

The Tight Regulation Protocol actually looks for numbers to be under 100 overall for 7 days for a dose reduction, and for numbers to be under 200 overall in the "holding the dose" section. Since you're (I assume) looking toward OTJ, the goal is to get those numbers under 100 (here we use 120 as kind of the upper end of what is acceptable) as much of the time as possible so Junga can earn that reduction. :smile:

Does that answer your question? I'm sleepy and I'm not sure if I'm expressing myself very well.
 
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