11/12 Portia AMPS 257+6 236 PMPS 253-dose change?

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portiarita

Member Since 2013
Hi Julie

Yesterday's condo viewtopic.php?f=9&t=107964

The neosporin seems to have helped. I put it on 15 minutes before giving her the shot and then wipe it off after. It seems to have helped. Either that or Ive gotten better. I only have to poke her once now and she isnt hiding as much. So looks like we're both getting into routine.

With the longer needles, are you afraid of going too deep? That my concern. How can/do you control how deep it will go? With the 5/16" long ones, the needle is so short that it really cant go beyond the dermis. Any thoughts.

Rita
 
Re: 11/12 Portia AMPS 257

Glad you guys have found your groove! That's so relieving. With a longer needle, be sure to enter more towards the bottom of the tent to make sure you don't poke right through. Also, you want to be more parallel with the cat so you don't go down into the muscle. I don't know if you've already seen this, but here's some tips. There is a different way to roll up the fur rather than tenting if you find that easier. Marje's testing and shooting tips
 
Re: 11/12 Portia AMPS 257

Hi guys, not sure if I've been to your condo yet so if not, welcome from us! It's nice to hear you are both getting into a groove or routine .. it does definitely become easier after a while .. Portia, how about some nice blues soon? Have a great day guys!
 
Re: 11/12 Portia AMPS 257

See, it doesn't take long to get comfortable w/ all this. You'll be an old hand in no time! :thumbup
 
Re: 11/12 Portia AMPS 257+6 236

Hey guys,
Tara, thanks for information. I will be buying the terum 0.5U needles

Peter, thank you for the warm and wonderful welcome. Im hoping to cruise the blues soon but Portia is determined to stay in the yellow. Might have to increase her dosage. Will take a call on thursday..

Tess, we're getting here. She just bit me for the time ever after the +6 BG. So.... I just have to remind myself that its for her good. I think she just doesnt like the fussing over her ear. I dont think she feels any pain

More later..
Rita and portia
 
Re: 11/12 Portia AMPS 257+6 236

Rita, I can't remember if you have said you had some reason for not being able to test in the evening cycle.

is there any chance you could get a test every evening before you head for bed? it's not uncommon for some cats go lower at night and it would help us see a little more what's going on if we had a pm cycle test. it can also be helpful to vary when you take a test during the day, so if you get a +6 today, maybe get a +2 or +4 tomorrow. Over time those different tests will tell us what his cycle looks like. you don't have to get all of them every day, just vary it a bit.

i'm glad Tara got you the info on the syringes! glad to hear the Neosporin is helping, too. Only a week and you're already getting the hang of it. I remember thinking on Day 4, "well, i've been doing this for 4 days and i'm not doing too badly. i guess i can do it!" :lol: cheering myself along in my head helped!
 
Re: 11/12 Portia AMPS 257+6 236 PMPS 253

Hi Julie,
It has gotten much easier. Remarkable how that happened!!

I dont test in the night for a couple of reasons. Portia is still adjusting to the needle prick and in the night she's usually very cuddly and sleeps with me. I dont want her to associate her night time snuggle with me with the needle so Im waiting till she isnt bothered by it anymore to test. I also find it very difficult to wake up (although if I really had to, I could probably wake up once or twice a week t test).

I was testing her +6 only because I thought that was the most important time point that would determine if she needed a dose adjustments. I agree with you in that I would love to get some addition timepoints in but I want to go slow with Portia. She;s still hiding a bit (much less than before) and Im waiting till shes completely over her fear to ramp up the daily testing frequency. Am I being too cautious here? Would the additional time points also inform decisions about changing dose? Right now, it looks like she's holding steady in the mid 200s which probably warrants a dose increase of 0.25U? Of course I will check in with the vet before doing anything myself. But I would greatly appreciate any thoughts. Also please let me know what additional time points I should test that would help you guys guide me. Im trying to minimize ear bleeds for the first few weeks just till she's used to it. I dont want to stress her out and have that cause her to become more sick with the pancreatitis. Its always a balance with her.

Thanks for the inout.
Rita
 
you don't necessarily have to set an alarm and get up to test her unless her numbers tell us that she might get into low numbers.

what i mean is just before you go to bed, get a test in the evening.

yes, you've got the right idea about dosing with lantus. we base dose changes upon the low of each cycle. some cats have their low point at +2, some at +8 - and within the same cat the nadir can move around. i also started out getting just the +6 for the same reason until someone explained to me that it can move around from one cycle to the next. some cats are very predictable and all cats develop some sort of pattern. for example, punkin almost always hit his low about 5.5 hrs after his shot. but there were times when it was later, rarely earlier. i learned that i could predict fairly well what the low would be some/most of the time based upon where he was at +3. so i always got a +3. Many people get a +2 on every cycle because that's a great pointer for what might happen later in that cycle. what we want to do is to learn how Portia's body works with the insulin. we have a saying here that ECID - Every Cat is Different - and it's true. Our goal is to learn Portia and teach you what you need to know to manage her safely.

that's a long way of saying that we don't know yet when Portia's nadir (low point) is. I'm just suggesting varying the time of the mid-cycle tests so we can get a picture of where her low point might be so that we can know when is appropriate to adjust her dose.

i think of that spreadsheet as a jigsaw puzzle. as pieces get filled in the picture becomes clear. you don't need to test every hour! just get some different times to your testing.

i can appreciate you don't want to wreck the snuggle time! it sounds wonderful! just buy her off with a little treat to make up for the indignity of it all! you'll be amazed at how she'll tolerate it all.

hope you're having a great evening with those snuggles! i'm a bit jealous - our 3 kitties all sleep elsewhere because they keep us up all night - i'd love to have a kitter to sleep with. lucky you - enjoy!!
 
i was just looking for a spreadsheet to show you to illustrate what i'm talking about. take a peek at Gabby's SS

Scroll down until you see 11/12 (today).

amps 315 +3/240
pmps 258 +4/77

Sienne is gone for part of the day for work. She also knows Gabby's patterns very well.

If we were looking at her ss and saw only the amps (315) +3 (240) and pmps (258) we'd say she might need a dose increase, assuming she'd been on that dose for perhaps (i'm just throwing in a number here) 10 cycles. the Protocol says that with nadirs of 200's, after sufficient cycles, we would increase the dose.

But because Sienne had that night time +4 (77) we can see that actually, this is a great dose for Gabby and we would not want to increase it at this point.

Does that make sense?
 
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