5/17 Suzie PMPS +10 59, AMPS 92 - Nervous again!

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Maria & Suzie

Maria & Suzie

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Since DH had to get up early this morning, he did a PMPS +10 test of her, I came down this morning and saw that it was 59 !!!

Her PMPS last night was 203, so I thought she'd be ok during the night, as in I would not need to set the alarm and get up to check her, and we went to bed a bit early and didn't manage a PMPS +2 like we've been doing. I gave her 3.75 IU last night.

Fortunately, I locked her in the bathroom with an ample supply of food, because heavens knows how low it went during the night !

So, this morning it's AMPS 92. I have not shot yet, I am letting her eat a little and see if I get any advice on sticking with the 3.75 or going down to 3.5 IU. I haven't actually seen any figures below 50, but if she was 59 at PMPS +10.....

If anyone's around - help !

Maria & Suzie
 
I've just given her her shot. I went down to 3.5IU because with a PMPS +10 of 59 and looking at how her cycle has been before, she tends to have her nadir more around +6 than +10, so I think there is a very good chance it was very low last night and may have hit that 50 or below. Anyway, that's my best guess on my own, literally, as DH is away.

DH usually does the injections (since I do all the thinking). I have given her injections to practice of course, but today was my first injection all on my own with her. Fortunately, she was an angel and sat still, and I could not feel any damp fur when I was done.

Gotta work today, but think I can do it mostly from home to keep an eye on her. Fortunately by the time her numbers start to get scarily low, the Board is awake.

I've fed her as well, for good measure, and let her have some dry food.

Fingers crossed for greens today, and hope I took the right decision this morning nailbite_smile

Maria & Suzie (she who did green numbers on her own during the night!)
 
Morning Maria,

I can't give you any advice on dosage, but I'm glad you can work at home so you can keep an eye on her. Your doing great and its nice that you have the help of DH.

Shes got you and food so she'll be fine. Do some spot checks during this cycle so you can see whats going on and get data for the next time shes at this #.

Gotta go to work myself [I can't stay at home though :sad: ]
Have a good day.

jan and sara
 
Hi Maria
I am sorry nobody was around to help you this morning.
Here are a few guidelines in case this happens again and you do not get an answer right away.

1. Stall, wait 15 minutes DON'T FEED and retest.
2. Shoot a reduced dose and feed.

The reason you don't feed while stalling is so when you retest your number is not based on a food spike.
Do you have any high carb wet food in the house? It is best not to feed dry food. It takes longer to get into the system and longer to leave.

Make sure you get a +1. So reducing the dose was fine this morning.
 
I'm just happy to get any help at all !! :smile:

I just tested her at +3, it's gone up sharply to 203.

I couldn't test earlier than +3, I am working from home today, but can't tell clients to stop talking and get off the phone so I can go test my cat (as tempting as it is to do so....)

What amount of carbs in soft food is considered high? I think the highest carb soft food I have in the house is 2.2%, the civvies' food. I might still have some pre-diabetes food around with jelly or sauce on it that is higher in carbs, but don't think Suzie likes it. Suzie's soft food is 0,3 - 1.2% carbs (this happens to be food she genuinely likes, we're lucky that way)

I am transitioning her to soft food only, we are at about 50/50 dry/soft right now. She lost so much weight pre-diagnosis that I want to be sure she keeps eating and gaining, and we're at a point where it's hard to push her over to more soft (but we're working on it). With no teeth, we are also trying out techniques of getting that soft food down (I tried the soup thing - she looked at me in disgust....)

Once I get used to seeing these lower numbers and know how she reacts to them, I might gain more courage to shoot without feeding her (thanks for letting me know the sequence!), but I thought I'd best play it on the safe side this morning and not risk her going too low too fast, seeing that 59 at only 2 hours before the am shot scared/baffled me a bit.

Will test as often as I can today, this is the first time she has actually gone UP in numbers so soon after a shot.

Am I seeing some sort of bounce right now?

Thanks!

Mariaa & Suzie
 
The dry food is definately considered high carb so if needed you could give her that. The problem with the dry is it might take a little longer to get into the blood to raise the numbers and it also tends to keep them high for much longer. You can take a spoonful of the normal food and then spoon a little sauce from another can onto it to give it higher carbs.

I think it was ok to reduce the dose. Just wanted to point out that you were safe to give her shot on time this morning because her AMPS was higher than what she had at +10 so she was going back up when shot. With Lantus it doesn't start working immediatly after you give the shot (usually takes about 3 hours before it starts going down) so it makes sense that she is at +3 nor quite a bit higher because she was already going up between +10 and AMPS and she continued going up after her shot. Now the shot should start having an effect and she will begin dropping again (I hope :-D ) and I hope she gives you more pretty greens today. :mrgreen:
 
We're not suggesting to give insulin and no food. In general, you don't want to feed within 2 hours of shot time. That way you know that your pre-shot test isn't influenced by a food spike. The same is the case when you are stalling a shot.

High carb food is anything that's around 18% carb. Monique can probably tell you what foods are in the HC range. I think several of the European brands are in aspic which is not the same as the "gravy" varieties here in the US and Canada. If you can't find a HC food that Suzie will eat, you can add a few drops of corn syrup (Karo is the brand a lot of people use here), honey, or any other liquid/syrup sweetener.

I want to point out what a beautiful cycle Suzie had when you shot the 90 yesterday. You did a great job even though the first time you shoot a low number is is scary.

(And any reason you can't use a headset for your phone? That way you'll have your hands free and can test Suzie while talking to clients!!! Just kidding...)
 
What scared me this morning was that 59 (and the thought of how low it may have been at night), but you are right, it was on it's way back up again at AMPS, so I'll know to keep that in mind moving forward.

I'll see if I can find something "saucy" she likes for HC. She generally likes licking because of the no-teef thing, perhaps one of those pouches with meatball-like catfood in jelly, she's likely to lick the jelly. I'll do a carb calculation.

The headset is a good idea - I actually looked into it, I would need a rather fancy heavy-duty wireless one with a long range (so I can leave the room), and they are expensive - $200. I'm going to have to turn on the charm and convince my boss that I need one for some serious business reason or other. If he approves me getting one, the next step is to hope that Suzie does not let out a meow during feeding or testing ! (hit that "mute" button very quickly!) I've actually tried keeping her with me in the home office, but she gets bored and start banging at the door!

I'm feeding myself right now, bet if I tested myself, my own sugars would be low ;-) , then it's time to grab Suzie and test her.

All this is taking my multi-tasking skills to new heights!!!
 
+6 was 270. Yellows today it is then. Odd how she just skips the blues...

Hope I didn't flub it this morning by going down to 3.5 IU, that PMPS +10 at 59 was really staring at me !

Well, I'm not complaining, am just happy to stay out of the pinks & dreaded reds, and am consoling myself with the overall downtrend, plus the "I feel fine" level of Suzie.

I suppose I'll stick with the 3.5 IU tonight so we're not yo-yo-ing.

The new syringes with the finer scale arrived today, that'll make life easier too.
 
I would bring the dose back up to 3.75 for the PM unless there's a compelling reason to not do so. There are times when we shoot a reduced (a BCS - "big chicken sh*t) dose. If you do that, put a note in the comments section of your SS (so we don't give you a hard time for dose hopping) and bring the dose back to it's previous level.

What's important to remember is that a lot can happen in the space of a couple of hours. This is why it's important to not feed -- you need to separate what may be a food spike from rising numbers. With perfect hindsight, you had a rising number. You're still really new at this and still gathering data about how Suzie reacts. This is yet another reason why we push for getting as many spot checks as you can in as many differing circumstances -- it gives you the data and the confidence to know what to do when you have low numbers.
 
The headset is a good idea - I actually looked into it, I would need a rather fancy heavy-duty wireless one with a long range (so I can leave the room), and they are expensive - $200. I'm going to have to turn on the charm and convince my boss that I need one for some serious business reason or other. If he approves me getting one, the next step is to hope that Suzie does not let out a meow during feeding or testing !
Click to expand...

Well now, I have freind that like me has Lupus and she problems with her hands (arthritis) she uses a headset like the cheap ones that go to a computer (Skype etc.) of course the cord is usually plugged into the PC so you can't go far but she actually plugs it into the cordless phone which she then puts into her pocket and talks to me wearing the headphone with microphone. If you have a cordless phone look and see if it has a headphone plug-in anywhere. Another thing would be the bluetooth option if you are using VOIP. I have my telephone over broadband cable (Kabel Deutschland) so my cordless phone is also a router and cabel modem (Fritz Fon) I can use a wireless headset as well.

I can understand your reasoning on reducing the dose, but like I wrote before there was no need to wait on the shot after you got an AMPS of 92 (Which you shoot a 90 or so yesterday and had NICE numbers) plus the 92 was a good increase from the 59 at +10 so you know she was going up. In that case I would test shoot and feed (all together it takes 10 minutes) then test again as soon as you can (If for example you tested +1 and got 180 then you could wait till +3 or +4 before testing again) If she was dropping then you would need to test sooner. You have to decide after each test when the best time is to do the next one.

As far as foods that are HC I think any of those cheap Lidl ones that we mentioned the Ragout style with chunks in sauce, the sauce is full of caramel =sugar, so bad for diabetics but the sauce can be feed (if she will lap it up) to raise low numbers. Again mixing a little honey, maple syrup, or anything with glucose in it (in the german forum I have heard some use Whiskas Katzenmilch) appearently it is full of sugar :roll: If you have lower numbers and you need to leave or go to bed (as long as she is stabil and not crashing) after getting them up if your worried about them dropping again you can give a little dry food which will of course drive the numbers up but will also last longer. I'm have like no experience with handleing a hypo using HC wet food because my thick headed kitty crack addict wouldn't eat canned food when he was on insulin. I was shooting insulin to not only treat his diabetes but to counteract the 28% carb dry food. So when he crashed, he crashed hard and 18% carb sauce was less than the carbs in his breakfast so it wouldn't be much help. It was straight for the honey on the finger and into the mouth. Usually that meant a big mess in the kitchen, bitten fingers and a sticky, gooey cat :lol: Depending on how early in the cycle it happened he got a dry food chaser of I a bag of food place in front of him.

Of course now he eats canned food and almost anything else (cookies, french fries, bannanas, cheesecake, bread..) so we won't have a problem finding something HC.....oh yea Ice cream is also good for a sugar source (vanilla, I think chocolate is bad for cats).

What to do about the dose......well seeing as how she is bouncing right now I would say if she doesn't give you a low PMPS or a nice low green on this dose today then probably back up to the 3.75U in the evening (with the new syringes it will be easier too, and more accurate) if you get back to some nicer numbers or she comes up lower again at shot time then you could hold the 3.5U for a few cycles to see if it sticks. if not then the rule is to go back to the last good dose which means 3.75U until she gets a less than 50. I don't think it will take to long before you find one!
 
Thanks everyone!

Her +9 was 238. In fact, her numbers today are a complete mirror image of the usual, her highest number was when her nadir usually is, talk about topsy turvy today !

Looking like a 3.75IU dose tonight then, and indeed, with the new 0.3ml syringes having arrived today, it'll be easier to be precise. (am a little nervous about the shorter needle)

I found some pouches in the house with meatball-style catfood with jelly, she'll most likely lick that jelly, so I've got a soft HC ready for her in case. No worries here about being bitten... no teef !! :lol: Food-wise, I think we are managing about 50/50 dry/soft now, which is progress from a few weeks ago.

Though the numbers have been yellow today, she is clearly getting stronger and feeling better, every day I see her start to do something again that is very "Suzie" that she had stopped doing. Also, it's been my first day all alone with her, no DH around to help me hold her, do shots and stuff, but she has been very good about sitting still while I do one-handed stabs at her ears!

Thanks again, onwards to the next test. All this back and forth about 0,0025ml of insuline, eh? What we won't do for our cats ! :cool:
 
PMPS was 275, gave her 3.75. Much more precise with the new 0.3ml syringes, but must have counted and checked like 6 times before I was sure I got the dose right (not so easy all alone at home with no extra pairs of eyes to help with a new type of syringe).

With Suzie's long fur, that short needle looked awfully scary to me, but she sat still like a total angel, I swear, I think she even flattened out and relaxed to make it easier for me. I didn't feel any wet fur, so it must have gone in.

I'll see if I can stay awake long enough for a test in a couple of hours, and will put the testing kit in the bathroom where she sleeps at night, if I wake up at 4am fretting, I might as well test her.

Going to feed the civvies now, Daisy is loudly telling me it is time!

Thanks for today everybody!

Maria & Suzie
 
I'm not sure what's available in Europe, but the syringes here come in 2 lengths.

It's not unusual for numbers to start dropping as the dry food is transitioned out. Just keep being this attentive.
 
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