2/23 Gizzy AMPS 165 Too Much or Too Little?

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pistull

pistull

Member Since 2011
Hi Guys! I'm very torn...

As I mentioned in my earlier posts, I come from Elizabeth Hodgkin's schooling. I have practiced her TR protocol since 12/08 and have successfully been able to get Gizzy into remission twice during that time. It's all I've known up to this point and since it proved successful, it's hard for me to discount the practice in my head. That being said, I think you have a lot of great suggetions / ideas on this website as well (and I think the people in the community are FABULOUS!!) I'm trying to figure it all out and determine what works best for Gizzy....

When I analyze Gizzy's #'s, I notice:
* His #'s rise quickly between +10 and +12...that makes me feel strongly that I should be dosing him before he hits +12 to keep his #'s as low as possible for as long as possible without the spike that I just need to bring down again....
* 2u seems to be the magic # for him as I'm finally seeing some lower #'s.

BUT...that brings me to my quandary.... I want to believe that his #'s are staying lower longer because I'm dosing him a bit earlier and he's taking full advantage of the overlap (and not running out). But then his #'s bounce and I don't know if it's from too much insulin or his body just getting used to the lower #'s?? I know that's a slippery slope and can go either way....

My plan is to keep him at 2u, but dose at +11 to see if that is a good compromise? I know it's the belief of this site that we should dose 2x / day at +12, but I'm not sure if that is working for Giz?? I wanted to share honestly and to ask for your thoughts. I REALLY want to figure out a game plan and STICK TO IT! I know he needs stability but I don't know what that should look like. :YMSIGH: I will curve him this weekend to see how it's working.

I know the virus that he has is also raising havoc! I'm going to take our other cat to the vet to see if they can tell me 100% for sure if it is feline herpes (they both have eye goop today and are sneezing)....

Thanks for listening and for your support...I'm so sad and frustrated and obsessed with this. It's making me crazy.

Last thread: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=37203
 
Thanks Lisa! I just checked out Do Lou's pics...! I have to say the diaper pics made me laugh out loud! THANKS!!! I needed that today! :mrgreen:
 
My read of Gizzy's SS is that you're seeing some less than ideal numbers due to moving around the shot time. I'm not seeing a consistent pattern of the insulin punking out by later in the cycle. A shift of 30 min. per day will not make a difference but I do think the shot at +14.5 and then the frequent moves to +10 or +11 times is making a mess out of the shed. However, the only way to know for sure is to keep the shots at a consistent +12 and see if the numbers improve vs. what you're seeing now. Also, from the approach that we use, rather than moving the shot time, we'd increase the dose to bring numbers down.

Shooting early is an option for an experienced Lantus user. Most of us do not do this because we don't have the flexibility with our schedules. I don't know that I can adequately evaluate whether shooting early is working or not for Gizzy. There was too much going on earlier on his SS (e.g., shooting different doses at AM and PM, quick, large dose changes) to use those data as a comparison with your current data. If you want to keep with shooting early, try it out for a bit longer. I'd then compare that approach to shooting 12/12 and maybe increasing the dose, if necessary, and see if numbers improve. If others are of a similar mind, it may be worth trying.
 
my thought is that Gizzy's dose just isn't high enough yet to give the duration you are looking for. With Lantus, it tends to be an all or nothing thing - either the dose is enough, or it isn't. All of a sudden one day things just click, but it is not a gradual change and sometimes people can get very frustrated until they get to that point.

Honestly I would give the protocol a chance before you start trying other things. Dr. H's protocol is a good one for PZI, but it has not worked well with Lantus. Constantly changing shot times and doses tends to make numbers higher rather than lower (due to the insulin depot/storage shed, they don't end up using the insulin very efficiently).

IMHO you have plenty of room to increase Gizzy's dose to 2.25 units BID. Put the handcuffs on - he will bounce, and unlike the PZI protocol you really can't try to shoot down the numbers you don't like. Sometimes we call Lantus the Zen insulin - be patient and wait for the numbers to come to you rather than trying to chase the numbers. It's a whole different mindset and it often drives people crazy for a while! But it does work in most cases. For an extreme example of a bouncy cat, you can look at my Lucy's spreadsheet. Most cats don't take as long as she did to get there, but even Lucy eventually flattened out and surfed blue/green. Shooting early can be a good strategy if your cat gets stuck in a string of high numbers and if you are home to test and shoot around the clock, but it can build up a lot of overlap and what can happen is that suddenly your cat can end up too low and become very hard to bring back up again.
 
Thanks for being open minded about my ideas! :? I really want to do what's best....patience is not my strong suit! ha ha Even if I wanted to get back to the +12/+12, it's going to take some time. My ideal shot times are 6:00am/6:00pm and I'm way off track for that. I'm shooting at 12:30am tonight so I will at least try this +11 shooting time until I get back to 6:00 and then make a decision. (does that make sense??)

The bigger frustration to me is this underlying virus situation. I don't know what I'm dealing with... I took my other cat, Myles, into the vet tonight. He's had this upper respiratory situation since November. He's been on countless antibiotics and nothing has helped. The sneezing has ramped up again the last couple days so I'm not sure what it is. The vet is going to research some anti-viral meds for humans...but I understand they aren't very successful either. Sooooo.....since Gizzy has whatever he has, I think that's going to continue to screw up his #'s. Knowing that's the case, the thought of shooting at +12/+12 is very attractive to me - just keep him comfortable while we figure it out instead of being aggressive with it.

Looking at Lucy's SS does give me hope! Goodnight... I really appreciate all of you!!
 
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