4/6 Merlin AMPS 399

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Merlin

Merlin

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4/6
AlphaTrak2
AMPS - 399; .6U

Good morning to you all. Numbers are much better this morning. I plan to give him .6 this morning. He is wheezing a little this morning. His asthma may be kicking up a little too. I started him on doxy last night so hopefully that will help him with his runny nose.

Question: While taking a blood sample and he shakes his head and gets blood on say your skin, bed headboard or pillow case, can you get the sample from that?
 
Looking a little better this AMPS. :-D

For head shakers, you can get the droplet on a clean finger nail and test from there before they can shake and splatter the drop.
 
I like pink better than black! Merlin is a puzzle. The medication (and just the overall stress) of his asthma may raise his numbers a bit overall until he feels better. And I am wondering if he continued down last night after +3 and he still bounced a little this am.

The more numbers you accumulate (and you are doing a great job :-D ) the better you'll be able to figure him out. For now, it looks like he is a kitty who takes a while to clear out a bounce, seems to do it with a flat cycle or even two and takes a few cycles to clear contraband. All good info to have.

As Jenn has said, there are two ways to shoot bounces - shoot through with a dose to match the bounced pre shot or reduce the dose a smidge and hope it calms the bouncing spike. It looks like your .6 last night calmed the bounce (if there was one) Neither is necessarily better than the other; the trick is to see which works best for Merlin.

Maybe today's nadir numbers will give us a few extra pieces to the puzzle. :mrgreen:
 
Looks like he's clearing off that bouncy pre-shot easily.

That's close to a 200 point drop in an hour or so since the insulin has onset, so I'd probably plan on grabbing some more tests, and he may bounce at the end of the cycle again.

Edited to add: Merlin's patterns look somewhat similar to Eddies. I'm sort of thinking out loud here, but I'm thinking if you see another pattern like you did last night where Merlin stayed fairly flat but his PMPS was quite a bit lower than his AMPS (often times a pattern signaling that a bounce is clearing), if you shave the dose down and see if you get a flatter cycle.
 
4/6
AlphaTrak2
AMPS - 399; .6U
+3 - 222
+5 - 85

Since his nadir yesterday was +6, I am feeding him a little LC food. His numbers sure can drop a lot in a day. Will his numbers eventually flatten out a little i.e. not drop so much?
 
Desertdog271 said:
4/6
AlphaTrak2
AMPS - 399; .6U
+3 - 222
+5 - 85

Since his nadir yesterday was +6, I am feeding him a little LC food. His numbers sure can drop a lot in a day. Will his numbers eventually flatten out a little i.e. not drop so much?
Click to expand...

That's right above the safety line. I'd maybe do MC. Some kitties do eventually flatten out, some are bouncy kitties. I think it's possible that Merlin may flatten out if you can even out his swings a bit, eventually maybe by doing a smaller dose if you are able to catch him on a lower pre-shot number.
 
Thank you so much for your note. I opened a Fancy Feast Beef with gravy and boy did he love that one. Fortunately, he loves just about anything. I gave him about a teaspoon 20 minutes after the hour and will give him another teaspoon at 40 minutes after the hour. By giving him .6 with a 399 AMPS and him getting a 85 at +5, I am hesitant to give him a .6 anything under a 399. Say if it is a 350, then maybe a .4?
 
Desertdog271 said:
Thank you so much for your note. I opened a Fancy Feast Beef with gravy and boy did he love that one. Fortunately, he loves just about anything. I gave him about a teaspoon 20 minutes after the hour and will give him another teaspoon at 40 minutes after the hour. By giving him .6 with a 399 AMPS and him getting a 85 at +5, I am hesitant to give him a .6 anything under a 399. Say if it is a 350, then maybe a .4?
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Sounds good! You've done a great job handling his low numbers. :-D Hopefully, he will give you a little surf rather than spiking back up. :smile:

Edited: Oops! Somehow I missed the last part of your post. @-) I'd probably grab a test at 20-30 mins to make sure he stays above 80. I agree that perhaps a 0.4 might be a good experiment for numbers in the 300's. You might still see a higher flatter cycle with a reduced dose initially, but if Merlin bounces from his dive today, that bounce can look like a high flat cycle, which may look like the 0.4 isn't enough - at least till he clears the bounce. :smile:
 
4/6
AlphaTrak2
AMPS - 399; .6U
+3 - 222
+5 - 85
+6 - 282, 200

Wow what a difference. My first test was 282 and then I did a second test immediately and it was 200. I guess I really only had to give him maybe one teaspoon instead of two. I will take another test in an hour. Could it have bounced up that high? Maybe the beef and gravy was a HC meal. I will have to check the carb levels. I thought anything with gravy would be ok.
 
4/6
AlphaTrak2
AMPS - 399; .6U
+3 - 222
+5 - 85
+6 - 282, 200
+7 - 345

Could I have messed him up by feeding him too much higher carb food with what could have been a really good cycle? He seems so sensitive and fragile. Is that the world of diabetes? Are they usually that sensitive? I know that he must be extremely bouncy and that is the reason for all of this. I was so hoping for a good day.
 
It could have been a little bit of a boost due to the carbs, but it looks more like a big bounce off that 85. When kitty's body senses that it is going too low, or just lower than it's used to, sometimes kitty's liver dumps glucose into the bloodstream. That's what those big spikes usually are.

I don't think you messed up at all by giving some HC at 85. He's dropping so fast and low that his body is panicking. Lets see if he clears off some of that bounce a little bit by PMPS. He might come back down a little or he might sit higher up until his pre-shot time.
 
Oh yeah, I forgot about the body doing that when it senses it getting low. Maybe I should ask what is MC food? I just looked and it looks like according to the carb scale that my food is higher in carb i.e. 19-22% carb. Would medium carb food be something in the range of 10-15%? If so, then I have high carb food and will need to get some MC food.
 
Desertdog271 said:
Oh yeah, I forgot about the body doing that when it senses it getting low. Maybe I should ask what is MC food? I just looked and it looks like according to the carb scale that my food is higher in carb i.e. 19-22% carb. Would medium carb food be something in the range of 10-15%? If so, then I have high carb food and will need to get some MC food.
Click to expand...

Yep! MC is medium carb. It's just another tool for your tool kit. :smile: It's generally in the range of 10% to 15%, so somewhere between the LC and your HC gravy food. It's useful for those times when you want to try to slow a downward slide, or help a kitty "surf" in those lower (but not too low) healthy numbers. Some cats will come up into safe territory with a bit of MC if they are dipping just a little too low. It's nice to have on hand when the LC probably isn't going to be enough, but the HC might be too much. :smile: Every cat is different in terms of their responsiveness to the level of carbs. Deb's Lucian, for example, usually comes right back up with a little MC if he's dipping. My guy Eddie sometimes won't come up with the lower % MC, so I have to bust out the HC to bring him up. I personally have on hand both MC that's about 9% and MC that's in the 15% range, and then the HC that's about 21%. :-D
 
That's it - I will need to get some MC carb. Since Merlin is so sensitive to any little tweaks, I will probably need to get 9 and 15% carb like your kitty, Eddie. I thought mine was MC carb and that HC was food that also had honey, syrup, etc. Awesome...another educational moment for me. :smile: Now I have time to make a run into Walmart for some MC food. Thanks!
 
Desertdog271 said:
That's it - I will need to get some MC carb. Since Merlin is so sensitive to any little tweaks, I will probably need to get 9 and 15% carb like your kitty, Eddie. I thought mine was MC carb and that HC was food that also had honey, syrup, etc. Awesome...another educational moment for me. :smile: Now I have time to make a run into Walmart for some MC food. Thanks!
Click to expand...

You are doing a fantastic job with Merlin! There's so much info to absorb, and you're picking it up really fast! :-D
 
4/6
AlphaTrak2
AMPS - 399; .6U
+3 - 222
+5 - 85
+6 - 282, 200
+7 - 345
PMPS - 381

Well, even though 381 is bad, I thought it would be much worse. What do you think about a .4 tonight? The reason I am thinking is because I gave him .6 with a 399 this morning and if I gave him .6, he may dip below an 85 by nadir. Maybe this is what you said earlier that his hormones are reacting to the extreme highs and lows and since he surfed this afternoon (hoping I get all the acronyms right :smile: ) that maybe it is time for a .4. I think the other reason is that it may level out his bouncing. Am I getting it?
 
Desertdog271 said:
4/6
AlphaTrak2
AMPS - 399; .6U
+3 - 222
+5 - 85
+6 - 282, 200
+7 - 345
PMPS - 381

Well, even though 381 is bad, I thought it would be much worse. What do you think about a .4 tonight? The reason I am thinking is because I gave him .6 with a 399 this morning and if I gave him .6, he may dip below an 85 by nadir. Maybe this is what you said earlier that his hormones are reacting to the extreme highs and lows and since he surfed this afternoon (hoping I get all the acronyms right :smile: ) that maybe it is time for a .4. I think the other reason is that it may level out his bouncing. Am I getting it?
Click to expand...

Yep! Exactly! :-D He didn't come up too much more from +7 to PMPS, so I think it's a good chance to maybe experiment with a smaller dose. :smile:
 
4/6
AlphaTrak2
AMPS - 399; .6U
+3 - 222
+5 - 85
+6 - 282, 200
+7 - 345
PMPS - 381; .4U
+3 - 523

Yikes, I didn't expect this. I know that I gave him a good shot. I guess will just have to see what tomorrow will bring. I did do a ketone test tonight and it was negative. Good night.
 
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