2/19 Kitty AMPS 106 - Dosing advice

[Julie and Kitty]

As you can see from Kitty's spreadsheet, her numbers have been coming down and I have been reducing her insulin dose accordingly to avoid skipping shots.

Now we are at 0.25 and I skipped this morning because I had to go to work and her number was too low for me to shoot comfortably without being able to monitor.

Can I reduce further from 0.25? It is a bit challenging for me to do the really fine dosages. What would I even go down to from here?

She is still eating a small bit of kibble+ freeze dried chicken, but mostly transitioned to a wet food "tuna for cats", which I am trying to find a replacement for (got some Weruva to trial, thanks to a suggestion here from SnowKat).

Thank you for any advice you can give me

 

[Nan & Amber (GA)]

Kitty is looking good! Not sure she's really ready to go down to the tiny doses, I think you might want to stick with the 0.25U for a while and work on reducing your "no-shot" number. On SLGS, eventually you can work up (down) to shooting as low as 90, and if you can remove all the kibble and switch to TR, even lower. The goal is to get her to hang out in the lower numbers (blues and greens) most of the time.

But, to answer your original question, yes, there are a few smaller doses! They are tricky to manage, but the important thing is to just be consistent with whatever you decide is "your" current dose. Often, from 0.25 we go to 0.1, and then a "drop", where you just squeeze the plunger against the stop and then let go to allow a tiny bit of insulin to enter, but there are some other options. Again, the main thing is to just be consistent as much as possible.

More details on some other tiny doses from the sticky at the top of this forum,
Insulin Care & Syringe Info: Proper Handling, Drawing, Fine Dosing

Fine dose gradations:

• 0.5U = exactly half a unit
• 0.4U = skinny 0.5 touching the line
• 0.3U = skinny 0.5 with daylight under the line
• 0.2U = fat zero with daylight over the line
• 0.1U = fat zero barely touching the line

Pictorial guide using a U-100 syringe marked with half units:

 

[Julie and Kitty]

Kitty is looking good! Not sure she's really ready to go down to the tiny doses, I think you might want to stick with the 0.25U for a while and work on reducing your "no-shot" number. On SLGS, eventually you can work up (down) to shooting as low as 90, and if you can remove all the kibble and switch to TR, even lower. The goal is to get her to hang out in the lower numbers (blues and greens) most of the time.

But, to answer your original question, yes, there are a few smaller doses! They are tricky to manage, but the important thing is to just be consistent with whatever you decide is "your" current dose. Often, from 0.25 we go to 0.1, and then a "drop", where you just squeeze the plunger against the stop and then let go to allow a tiny bit of insulin to enter, but there are some other options. Again, the main thing is to just be consistent as much as possible.

More details on some other tiny doses from the sticky at the top of this forum,
Insulin Care & Syringe Info: Proper Handling, Drawing, Fine Dosing

Fine dose gradations:

• 0.5U = exactly half a unit
• 0.4U = skinny 0.5 touching the line
• 0.3U = skinny 0.5 with daylight under the line
• 0.2U = fat zero with daylight over the line
• 0.1U = fat zero barely touching the line

Pictorial guide using a U-100 syringe marked with half units:

Thank you so much, I will take your advice and stick with 0.25 for now. And try to lower my shootable numbers as I get more comfortable with it!

 

[Wendy&Neko]

Kitty is looking a lot better. Good job so far. I agree with Nan, hold onto 0.25 units for a bit, and lets see if you can get her overall range of numbers down. When you have been skipping, she's gone pretty high without insulin. When you are home to monitor, it would be good to try shooting some of those numbers above 150. And then with that data, you can eventually lower than numbers. Experienced SLGS peeps will shoot as low as 90. You don't have that data yet, but have shot some low yellows.

 

[Julie and Kitty]

Kitty is looking a lot better. Good job so far. I agree with Nan, hold onto 0.25 units for a bit, and lets see if you can get her overall range of numbers down. When you have been skipping, she's gone pretty high without insulin. When you are home to monitor, it would be good to try shooting some of those numbers above 150. And then with that data, you can eventually lower than numbers. Experienced SLGS peeps will shoot as low as 90. You don't have that data yet, but have shot some low yellows.

Thank you, good idea, I will give it a go