? 11/15 Zhoom Boy AMPS 566 - Yet another bounce

CRL

CRL

Member Since 2019
It seems like Zhoom Boy is constantly bouncing. I caught him coming off of a bounce last night and tried to feed him little snacks to ward off another bounce. It didn't work. It feels so frustrating. Am I doing something wrong, is there anything I can do to help him, or does it just take time for his body to feel safe in lower numbers?
 
Sorry no one answered earlier. Bounces are indeed frustrating. All you can do is try to prevent steep drops by feeding, which sounds like you are trying to do, and otherwise get them to a dose where they see good numbers and their body gets used to it.

It’s a little hard to see much of the spreadsheet at once with the blank lines and lines with comments in them. I used to put feeding comments in the Remarks column.

You have been at this dose for two weeks now. I rather suspect he needs an increase. Other than the cycle with the muscle shot, he hasn’t seen any low blues for a while.
 
Thanks Wendy & Neko. I appreciate your help. I guess I feel confused about when to do a curve when he is constantly bouncing. I try to wait for the bounce to clear to do a curve and then he starts bouncing again. Maybe I have enough data to not need a curve to see that he needs a dose increase?

I am also confused about increasing the dose when he bounces so much. I am afraid that a dose increase will just make him bounce more. I thought that maybe I was supposed to wait and try to get him used to lower numbers so that he would not bounce so much. Once he stays mostly in the yellow for awhile then increase the dose if I don't see any blues. Does that make sense or is my logic way off? Will he just rarely see any yellow without a dose increase?

Besides that, I am also waiting to increase the dose because I am transitioning his food (again) from MC to LC. He will be transitioned to the new food entirely on Monday.
 
CRL said:
I am also confused about increasing the dose when he bounces so much. I am afraid that a dose increase will just make him bounce more. I thought that maybe I was supposed to wait and try to get him used to lower numbers so that he would not bounce so much. Once he stays mostly in the yellow for awhile then increase the dose if I don't see any blues. Does that make sense or is my logic way off? Will he just rarely see any yellow without a dose increase?
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This is a common thought. Unfortunately, getting him used to yellows isn't a way to help bouncing. You need to get them used to normal cat blood sugar values. With SLGS, this means getting them to a dose where they see numbers between 90 and 149 as quickly and safely as possible. There may be some short term bouncing, but bouncing is a perfectly normal mechanism. Pretty much all recently diagnosed cats bounce. Be glad your cat is bouncing. It means the part of the system that keeps him safe from lower numbers than he is used to is working fine. I tried to think of bouncing as the inevatable result of the insulin finally starting to get my girl into better numbers.

There is a down side to holding numbers too long. It's called glucose toxicity. Sounds worse than it really is, but it means that a cat gets used to higher number. Once a cat develops glucose toxicity, it takes an even higher dose to break through to get good numbers.

What food are you switching from and too? The Natures Variety rabbit listed in your signature is still low carb. Rather than just saying "old food" and "new food" on the spreadsheet, it would help to say which ones.
 
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I had the same thought as Wendy when I looked at your spreadsheet (SS) -- more insulin. With SLGS, you want to evaluate if your dose is getting Zhoom where you want him on a week to week basis. If the numbers aren't pretty, increase the dose or ask for folks to take a look and brainstorm with you.

Everyone hates bounces. And Zhoom seems to want to live up to his name -- he's got that zooming thing down!
 
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Wendy&Neko said:
This is a common thought. Unfortunately, getting him used to yellows isn't a way to help bouncing. You need to get them used to normal cat blood sugar values. With SLGS, this means getting them to a dose where they see numbers between 90 and 149 as quickly and safely as possible. There may be some short term bouncing, but bouncing is a perfectly normal mechanism. Pretty much all recently diagnosed cats bounce. Be glad your cat is bouncing. It means the part of the system that keeps him safe from lower numbers than he is used to is working fine. I tried to think of bouncing as the inevatable result of the insulin finally starting to get my girl into better numbers.

There is a down side to holding numbers too long. It's called glucose toxicity. Sounds worse than it really is, but it means that a cat gets used to higher number. Once a cat develops glucose toxicity, it takes an even higher dose to break through to get good numbers.

What food are you switching from and too? The Natures Variety rabbit listed in your signature is still low carb. Rather than just saying "old food" and "new food" on the spreadsheet, it would help to say which ones.
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I see. Thank you for explaining it to me.

I had switched his food from Royal Canin Select Protein Rabbit (13% carb) to the Nature's Variety Original Rabbit (6% carb) but he started throwing up every day and I didn't know why. It could have been the new food, the flagyl he had been on or something else. I decided to take it back to before he was throwing up so I stopped giving the flagyl and started feeding him the Royal Canin again. I also started giving him a freeze dried rabbit snack at +8 am/pm. One or all of these made him stop throwing up. Yay.

Now I am in the process of getting him back on a low carb food. I decided to try Rawz rabbit. I think it is only 2 or 3% carbs but it is not on the list that I got from this site. Thanks for pointing it out, I had forgotten to change it on the signature.

Do you think that I should wait to increase the dose until he is fully transitioned to the low carb food?
 
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