Jen&Eddie
Member Since 2013
Eddie's last condo
Today: AMPS/130, +1/136, +2/86, +3/69, +4/54, +4.5/59, +5/68, +6/81, +8.5/135, PMPS/205, +2/150. +3/116, +4/103, +5/113, +6/109, +7/120
Good morning LL!
It's been furever since I posted an Eddie condo - 3 months to be exact. We've still been diligently plugging away at things. Work obligations and trying to do things away from the FD dance left me with little or no time for participating here, unfortunately. I'm hopeful things will slow down at work here soon, and I can be more active on the board again.
I've been trying to get caught up on how all the LL kitties have been doing, and am extremely saddened to read of the passing of several of our beloved kitties. My prayers and thoughts are with all of you who have lost a loved one. I'm happy to see so many new names here, and happy to read about several more OTJ kitties.
On the Eddie front, today is his one year annifursary. I thought I'd be sad about today, but I'm not. When we were a month in to this dance, then three months, then six months, I thought, "there's no WAY I can keep this up for a year!" Well, we've been doing it for a year now, and we have a routine that's livable. Sure, we still miss out on things, and I don't get enough sleep, but we CAN do this, and will continue to do so. :smile:
I'm actually terrified of jinxing things by posting how well Eddie's doing, but here goes: About mid-November, Eddie started to flatten out, as you can see from his SS. I can't really take any credit for doing anything differently, other than following the protocol. Interestingly, as he earned reductions, and his dose went down, his bouncing started to get less dramatic, and now, he's barely bouncing at all. He still bounces some in response to big drops and low numbers, but his bounces are in the 100's rather than the 500's. Eddie hasn't been above 300 for about two weeks, and he's been below renal threshold for about 10 days.
Eddie traveled with us over Thanksgiving and stayed with us at my parents' house. Some of the last 300's on Eddie's SS came while we were traveling. And, following a crunchy raid immediately after we got back. We let Eddie out of his carrier and he immediately ran to the auto-feeders which contained crunchies for the civilians while we were gone, and he got a good mouthful before we figured out that there were leftover crunchies in the open feeders. Oh well. Good to know how much havoc a mouthful of crunchies will wreak on Eddie's numbers....
So now, his spreadsheet is looking pretty darn good, and Eddie's feeling pretty darn good. We are still following a "modified" more aggressive version of the protocol, and are going down by 1/8 of a unit for reductions. We reduce for one drop below 40, and three days with numbers between 40 and 50. We shoot through the bounce, sometimes through more than one cycle if he is still bouncing. The threshold for what we consider a "bounce" has gone lower and lower as Eddie's numbers have improved. Of course with this method, there are times when the depot does get ahead of us, and we've probably been lucky that we've been around to manage it thus far. Disclaimer that this is extremely aggressive and combines the "shaving" method with the three-below-50 method, and is not for the inexperienced or faint of heart.
Now that the game seems to have changed somewhat, I'm hoping for some input from some of the folks that have been around the block for a while. As some of you probably recall, we were steering with food pretty aggressively with Eddie for quite a while to help with some of his diving, and to help prevent reductions. We haven't really been trying actively to prevent reductions lately, as Eddie actually seems to flatten out more following the last couple reductions. We do intervene with food for safety sake. I'm thinking it really no longer makes sense to "steer" since Eddie's no longer really diving, since he's not having high numbers to dive from. He's not really bouncing (much) either, except in response to low numbers, which is "warranted." He's also held his last several reductions. So, I'm thinking that it doesn't really make sense anymore to try to prevent reductions by intervening with food? Does that make sense?
If we get to the point where some of Eddie's "highest" numbers start to come down just a tiny bit, when the protocol refers to "mostly normal numbers" for a week, what does this mean? For example, we almost always test at +1 to see if Eddie's going to dive, and often this number reflects a food spike. I can envision that a cycle would be completely normal numbers except for a +1 test. Would that still could as a "mostly normal numbers" cycle or day?
Edit: Another question. We switched to a slightly higher carb food several months ago - also to help with the bounciness, and have generally feeding in the 5-7% range. Now that the bouncing seems to have greatly improved, is it worth a try to go back down to the ultra low carb food to see if it will bring his numbers down a bit overall?
My other question is more general...does it look like we're on the right track here? Any suggestions for things we can tweak or do differently? Eddie's had 2 times under 50 on his current dose, and will probably earn a reduction again in short order. I was thinking about adding a tiny snack at +9 once we got down to 1 unit. Does that seem like a good idea?
Thank you all for reading and I hope everyone has a good weekend!
Today: AMPS/130, +1/136, +2/86, +3/69, +4/54, +4.5/59, +5/68, +6/81, +8.5/135, PMPS/205, +2/150. +3/116, +4/103, +5/113, +6/109, +7/120
Good morning LL!
It's been furever since I posted an Eddie condo - 3 months to be exact. We've still been diligently plugging away at things. Work obligations and trying to do things away from the FD dance left me with little or no time for participating here, unfortunately. I'm hopeful things will slow down at work here soon, and I can be more active on the board again.
I've been trying to get caught up on how all the LL kitties have been doing, and am extremely saddened to read of the passing of several of our beloved kitties. My prayers and thoughts are with all of you who have lost a loved one. I'm happy to see so many new names here, and happy to read about several more OTJ kitties.
On the Eddie front, today is his one year annifursary. I thought I'd be sad about today, but I'm not. When we were a month in to this dance, then three months, then six months, I thought, "there's no WAY I can keep this up for a year!" Well, we've been doing it for a year now, and we have a routine that's livable. Sure, we still miss out on things, and I don't get enough sleep, but we CAN do this, and will continue to do so. :smile:
I'm actually terrified of jinxing things by posting how well Eddie's doing, but here goes: About mid-November, Eddie started to flatten out, as you can see from his SS. I can't really take any credit for doing anything differently, other than following the protocol. Interestingly, as he earned reductions, and his dose went down, his bouncing started to get less dramatic, and now, he's barely bouncing at all. He still bounces some in response to big drops and low numbers, but his bounces are in the 100's rather than the 500's. Eddie hasn't been above 300 for about two weeks, and he's been below renal threshold for about 10 days.
Eddie traveled with us over Thanksgiving and stayed with us at my parents' house. Some of the last 300's on Eddie's SS came while we were traveling. And, following a crunchy raid immediately after we got back. We let Eddie out of his carrier and he immediately ran to the auto-feeders which contained crunchies for the civilians while we were gone, and he got a good mouthful before we figured out that there were leftover crunchies in the open feeders. Oh well. Good to know how much havoc a mouthful of crunchies will wreak on Eddie's numbers....
So now, his spreadsheet is looking pretty darn good, and Eddie's feeling pretty darn good. We are still following a "modified" more aggressive version of the protocol, and are going down by 1/8 of a unit for reductions. We reduce for one drop below 40, and three days with numbers between 40 and 50. We shoot through the bounce, sometimes through more than one cycle if he is still bouncing. The threshold for what we consider a "bounce" has gone lower and lower as Eddie's numbers have improved. Of course with this method, there are times when the depot does get ahead of us, and we've probably been lucky that we've been around to manage it thus far. Disclaimer that this is extremely aggressive and combines the "shaving" method with the three-below-50 method, and is not for the inexperienced or faint of heart.
Now that the game seems to have changed somewhat, I'm hoping for some input from some of the folks that have been around the block for a while. As some of you probably recall, we were steering with food pretty aggressively with Eddie for quite a while to help with some of his diving, and to help prevent reductions. We haven't really been trying actively to prevent reductions lately, as Eddie actually seems to flatten out more following the last couple reductions. We do intervene with food for safety sake. I'm thinking it really no longer makes sense to "steer" since Eddie's no longer really diving, since he's not having high numbers to dive from. He's not really bouncing (much) either, except in response to low numbers, which is "warranted." He's also held his last several reductions. So, I'm thinking that it doesn't really make sense anymore to try to prevent reductions by intervening with food? Does that make sense?
If we get to the point where some of Eddie's "highest" numbers start to come down just a tiny bit, when the protocol refers to "mostly normal numbers" for a week, what does this mean? For example, we almost always test at +1 to see if Eddie's going to dive, and often this number reflects a food spike. I can envision that a cycle would be completely normal numbers except for a +1 test. Would that still could as a "mostly normal numbers" cycle or day?
Edit: Another question. We switched to a slightly higher carb food several months ago - also to help with the bounciness, and have generally feeding in the 5-7% range. Now that the bouncing seems to have greatly improved, is it worth a try to go back down to the ultra low carb food to see if it will bring his numbers down a bit overall?
My other question is more general...does it look like we're on the right track here? Any suggestions for things we can tweak or do differently? Eddie's had 2 times under 50 on his current dose, and will probably earn a reduction again in short order. I was thinking about adding a tiny snack at +9 once we got down to 1 unit. Does that seem like a good idea?
Thank you all for reading and I hope everyone has a good weekend!
