Some kitties, just like people, seem to hang onto their weight! We had a little moose, Felix, who weighed 24 lbs at his peak and we had him on 2 Tablespoons (literally, i measured) of dry "weight-loss" food from the vet in the morning and again in the evening. Poor guy. He did lose a little weight, down to about 18lbs, but he was constantly starving. You do have to be careful that cats lose weight very slowly so they don't develop a fatty liver.
Gadget is doing great.
I'm going to copy the conversation from Tonka's condo (thread) here so it's all in one place and attached to Gadget!
You asked: "Are there guide lines posted for getting kitty OTJ? Gadget is doing so well fingers crossed....."
and I replied: "I'm going to respond here to Deborah - I hope that's ok, Jordi.
Deborah, you might want to delay taking a reduction until you actually catch Gadget under 50. You test plenty and it's safe to let him go under 50 as long as you're monitoring. The guidelines are there for a reason - that's what works best. Sometimes a cat does go down the dosing scale in leaps and bounds, but you're still catching enough higher numbers (over 120, which is considered out of the normal range) that Gadget would likely benefit from a little bit longer at each dose. When a cat is kept between 50-120 (human glucometer) that is the range that the pancreas can heal in. From experience, we know that cats will have the strongest remission if they are kept on insulin as long as they need any at all.
Not sure if all of that makes sense, but feel free to open your own thread and we can explain more about it there. I just wanted to respond to your question about going OTJ - because I agree with Jordi, Gadget looks good. You just want to give him as much as he needs as long as he'll take it - and the signal that he's ready for a dose reduction is that he'll drop below 50.
I should add - a second method for taking a dose reduction for those following Tight Reg, is if a cat stays in normal numbers on a given dose for 7 days. So if everything is between 50-120 for an entire week, then you can try to reduce the dose. That's on the TR page under reducing the dose. There is also a section right under that about remission that might be helpful."
That's great info! Thanks for posting!
I am not wanting to take Gadget OTJ yet. But I do have my fingers crossed and I am getting curious about the protocol!
I am writing a post right now for the Lantus Forum. But I only took him down to .50 because of his AMPS OF 57 this morning. I waited an hour, it came up to 74 but I was nervous to give full dose. I also did not want to skip a dose. So what would you have done? Meanwhile Gadget was acting completely normal all day.
What you did this morning was perfectly fine. As I said earlier, some cats come quickly down the dosing scale. Typically, though, if you are following Tight Reg, which it says in your signature line that you are, you'd follow the
guidelines for reducing:
Reducing the dose:
- If kitty drops below 40 (long term diabetic) or 50 (newly diagnosed diabetic) reduce the dose by 0.25 unit. If kitty has a history of not holding reductions well or if reductions are close together... sneak the dose down by shaving the dose rather than reducing by a full quarter unit. See additional notes in the next paragraph about drops into the 20s and 30s. Alternatively, at each newly reduced dose... try to make sure kitty maintains numbers in the normal range for seven days before reducing the dose further.
If i were a betting person, I'd say that Gadget's pancreas is healing. You can see there was a change about 3/15 - since that morning everything has been under 120, all in normal numbers. When that happens, the pancreas can heal and begin to sputter back to life. As it puts out a little insulin, you'll discover that the amount you are injecting is a little too much - you'll know that because he'll go below 50. When he goes under 50, or has 7 days at this dose all between 50-120, you would reduce the amount you're injecting so he doesn't get overdosed.
Some cats go through this process very quickly - some take literally months.
Here's a little more about remission, also from the Tight Reg Protocol page I linked above:
- Since 2006 we've encouraged those practicing Tight Regulation to attempt reducing the dose from 0.25u to 0.1u before stopping insulin completely. During a two week OTJ trial, you want to see mostly green numbers (under 100) with only a few random blue numbers between 100 - 120 to help ensure a strong remission.
Remission:
- From Tilly's Diabetes Homepage:
Phase 5: Remission
"14 days without insulin and normal blood glucose values. Most remission cats are able to stay in the normal range all of the time (50 to 80 mg/dl), although there are a few cases of sporadic higher and lower BGs. Don't stop feeding low-carb and try to avoid cortisone if possible. Test the cat's BGs once per month.
Approximately 25% cats that achieved remission using this protocol relapsed and required insulin again (frequent causes are hyperthyroidism or bouts of pancreatitis). Therefore, it is important to keep your diabetes kit up-to-date. Then you can react immediately by giving insulin and home testing. Importantly, the sooner you react to a relapse (i.e. preventing hyperglycemia and initiating other necessary veterinary treatment), the more likely a second remission will become.
The longer a cat has had diabetes, the less likely it will go into remission. Many long-term diabetics get stuck in Phase 3 or 4. Yet there is a benefit of using this method for such a cat as well: keeping the cat's BG levels as normal as possible is much healthier for it long term. Insulin requirements will often decrease to very low levels too."
I think we've just recovered from that! Dr Lisa got us back on schedule but we had wanted to be at 8:30/8:30 and were shooting at noon and midnight..... Really off!!! So the dose changes were her orders! 