55 at +5

Lisa and little

Lisa and little

Very Active Member
soooo.... just steered with LC food and will re test in 30. Not expecting an answer tonight but based on this what do I do in the AM? Thank god I set my alarm. I wa in the deepest best sleep I have had in 3 months thanks to the drugs they gave me in my procedure today and I hope you all are to. Advice for the Am will be much appreciated !:mad: RE TEST 93
 
Last edited:
For whatever reason I can't see your spreadsheet. It says file not found. It's it set to public? Clearly she earned a Reduction. Good job steering.
 
Haha well I wouldn't say it was the best sleep of my LIFE, but it was pretty good. I'm not sure what to tell you offhand about the AM. I think we should wait and see where she's at. Did you feed her any more after that or was the LC food enough to bring her up to the 93?
 
One feed was enough. She went right back up. As do my SS I’m not sure I believe everyone else can see it?... if someone can confirm that would be great.
 
Whew! That means a reduction to 2.0 u because that was awfully low for an AT meter reading! Bouncy cats often have unpredictable responses.
 
Ok. You guys got me just in time. I gave a FAT 2. Will be around today. Another thing I am playing with is where in the scruff I shoot after I read a post about absorption. She’s a Tuxie so very easy to distinguish a “black shot” and a “ white shot”. The last 2 and this am were a black shot ... seems she absorbs more form those if memory serves. Tonight will be a white shot ... and for a few cycles to test if there is any validity to it. Her black is much closer to her head... just another note. Even at 55 she brought me her toy at 1 A.M. to play fetch.... wtf?
 
The scruff is said to absorb the least while the flanks, sides, and shoulders do better. Little is showing some great numbers these days. I think I'd hold again at the Fat2 and not go back up for at least four cycles. Give her a chance to settle down. Of course go down more if she shows another low number.
 
Again. I don’t really know what I am talking about but if the ugly low was a bounce and a bounce and every time that happens we lower the dose how will she ever get used to it if that is the dose she may need? She was on FAT 2 for 2 weeks and it clearly indicated an increase. Does it not make sense to hold the bouncy dose even with the lows ( highly monitored) to see if her body’s adjusts? Or should I have held the FAT 2 longer to see if that dose improved numbers over longer time? So damn confusing... a bounce is the result of her not being used to the dose in this case perhaps?
 
Lisa and little said:
Does it not make sense to hold the bouncy dose even with the lows ( highly monitored) to see if her body’s adjusts?
Click to expand...
Lol...a girl after my own heart! It's not very often someone is more aggressive in dosing than I am. ;) In this case though, I do think I'd hang out at the Fat2 again. You are kind of dancing around between these two doses right now. The reason I'm suggesting that you hold the lower dose is to see if she gets a nicer, safer green again in a few cycles.

Way back in the earlier days of Sam's journey, he would have a nice cycle with a good green, and then he'd be high and flat for two or three cycles, and then he'd be green again. So he kind of went: good-bad-bad-bad-good-bad-bad-good-good. So I'm curious if you hang out and let the bounce "clear" if you won't see a good number again in a few cycles. It's a slower way to go, but needed for some cats. Kris has found something similar with Teasel - she can't change doses as quickly as most of us can because Teasel holds off and then overreacts.

The other option is to ignore the lime green and keep going at the current dose and see if she settles out with a nicer dark green, or see if she drops too low again. You do monitor closely and you know how to steer, so you could do that if you prefer. It's more aggressive though, and can be a little harder on the kitty since lows don't feel great (if you've ever felt low blood sugar yourself you know what a mean - it's a woozy foggy feeling, or it can make you "hangry" as the snickers commercials say). But if you're monitoring you can help steer away from those lows.
 
Actually the red this AM was the bounce, not the lime green low. She rebounded because she dropped too low. A bounce can happen if:
  • BG drops quickly
  • BG drops too low
  • BG drops to a level that's safe but lower than what has been the norm.
Bouncing is common and some kitties are more prone than others. There's not much you can do about it. It's where learning patience will be your best approach. And yes, my approach is coloured by my experience with Teasel ... o_O
 
Djamila said:
Lol...a girl after my own heart! It's not very often someone is more aggressive in dosing than I am. ;) In this case though, I do think I'd hang out at the Fat2 again. You are kind of dancing around between these two doses right now. The reason I'm suggesting that you hold the lower dose is to see if she gets a nicer, safer green again in a few cycles.

Way back in the earlier days of Sam's journey, he would have a nice cycle with a good green, and then he'd be high and flat for two or three cycles, and then he'd be green again. So he kind of went: good-bad-bad-bad-good-bad-bad-good-good. So I'm curious if you hang out and let the bounce "clear" if you won't see a good number again in a few cycles. It's a slower way to go, but needed for some cats. Kris has found something similar with Teasel - she can't change doses as quickly as most of us can because Teasel holds off and then overreacts.

The other option is to ignore the lime green and keep going at the current dose and see if she settles out with a nicer dark green, or see if she drops too low again. You do monitor closely and you know how to steer, so you could do that if you prefer. It's more aggressive though, and can be a little harder on the kitty since lows don't feel great (if you've ever felt low blood sugar yourself you know what a mean - it's a woozy foggy feeling, or it can make you "hangry" as the snickers commercials say). But if you're monitoring you can help steer away from those lows.
Click to expand...
Was going to push through and “ignore” the line but I didn’t.. i wussed out lol. My only concern is after 2 weeks on FAT2 we didn’t really see green.. so why would I expect FAT 2 to give us green now? I have learned she needs ever so slow and tiny dose changes but 2 weeks at 1 dose should be sufficient no? Quandary.....
 
You're still getting more than a 50% drop each cycle, which is a good insulin response. It is a quandry because the PS numbers are still so high, but I think if you keep pushing the dose higher you're just going to keep seeing those unpredictable dives right now.

I have a couple of other thoughts on this, but I really have to leave for work right now. Let's see how she does through today and then think about next steps. :bighug:
 
Lol. I put that in just for me... having an issue with the monoject U 100s. I feel like they don’t dispense the entire dose. So I shoot against my hand not in my hand lol. To see if a drop comes out. Today it did. And yes I leave the needle in place after injection and sometimes even pull back a second time to make sure all insulin went in..
 
Lisa and little said:
Lol. I put that in just for me... having an issue with the monoject U 100s. I feel like they don’t dispense the entire dose. So I shoot against my hand not in my hand lol. To see if a drop comes out. Today it did. And yes I leave the needle in place after injection and sometimes even pull back a second time to make sure all insulin went in..
Click to expand...
You have to do the best you can with syringes. Find a brand you like, try to get out any air bubbles from the drawn up insulin, use good injection technique and beyond that don't worry. We all run into these things from time to time.
 
Last edited:
Yes, consistency is the thing to keep in mind. So if the syringe always leaves a drop in the needle, don't worry about it because it's always one drop. So whatever you are dosing is always short by the same amount, making the dose consistent.

Also, my hunch is you could call your "fatter 2" dose a 2.1, couldn't you?
 
I tell myself that treating FD is complicated enough that I don't want to worry about the myriad little things that are part of it - wonky syringes, the odd fur shot, giving an injection off schedule once in a while. It's impossible to do everything perfectly all the time. I find that "good enough is good enough" as they say and is the key to long term mental health for the care giver. ;):)
 
Last edited:
Mental health for the care giver... without you guys that would have been out the window!!! (Thank you thank you thank you i’d Surely be in the bin by now without you all) As for Fatter 2... feel like I am closer to 2.2 than 2.1. My FAT 2 was more like 2.1. Trying little things.. next few cycles I’m shooting in the white part of her scruff to see if any difference. Call me crazy I know. But I’ve certainly been called worse. She really is so much better and if I didn’t know based on her numbers I’d think she was a perfectly healthy cat. Maybe that’s why I didn’t catch this earlier on. She operates pretty well at higher numbers. I’m gonna keep plugging but do you guys think if I can keep her basically in the blues that would be bad? Just seems every time I get a few greens she ends up Lime in a few cycles no matter what dose gave the green...
 
Look at Teasel's spreadsheet - he's the same way. While ideally having a cat in the blues and greens is great, some cats (like Teasel) just don't stay there very well. Teasel starts showing greens and next thing you know he's in margaritaville (limes....get it? :D;)).

I'm also going to put in another plug for switching to a human meter. It should make those pinks pretty much disappear and will make you feel so much better about all of this.
 
'Tis the curse of the volatile cat! o_O Others looking at Teasel's SS would say, "Why is she letting him run that high?" Well, I know what the dosing limits are with him and have said more than once here that if I wanted to keep him in blue and green testing and steering with food would be an all day, every day job. It's that mental health of the care giver thing, y'know? We all need to find what works for each of us in the long term.

Yes, to getting a human meter - the psychological boost is big and you still know when kitty is veering too low.
 
Not familiar with the benefits of a human meter .. are you saying the pinks on the AT2 may not really be all that pink? I’ve you guys say that AT2 runs high... the only time I consider that is when I get numbers like 44 and 55! If I did a human meter I need a new SS yes? And by the way. I love Margaritaville just not in this case!
 
The AT meter will read higher than a human meter across all BG ranges but the difference is smaller at low numbers and larger at high numbers. Example: using the take action numbers at the low end - 68 for AT and 50 for a human meter (difference of 18). Too high might be 400 on the AT and 300 on a human meter (difference of 100). So, yes, you might get yellow with a human meter when your AT would have given a pink. It really doesn't matter though because we all understand how to interpret human meter numbers. There's a human meter spreadsheet version but the only difference is when the automatic colour coding switches to lime green - at 68 or below on the AT sheet, at 50 or below on the human meter sheet. There are people here who will tweak your SS for you if you make the switch or you can just start a new SS using the human meter instructions.
 
Any particular meter you recommend? At this point I have stock piled INSULIN X (about 400) strips but I don’t think they make the meter any more
 
I use this one: https://www.adwdiabetes.com/product/8177/agamatrix-presto-blood-glucose-meter-kit-and-strips because the strips are cheap, the meter reads consistently and has virtually no error reads, and best of all, you can get the strips online or at any Kroger-associated grocery store, so there are lots of options to avoid running out. Of course, if you don't have a Kroger near you, that doesn't help much. They are the same strips my old CVS meter used too, so you may be able to get them at a CVS or Target (I haven't checked in awhile to see if that's still true though). They all sell them under the store name, but the strips are the same and read just fine.

Most folks around here use one of the Relion meters from WalMart, so if you have a WalMart near you that is another option. They have a few different meters. Any of them are fine, you just have to decide how much you're wiling to spend on test strips. I believe the Relion Micro uses the smallest blood sample (hopefully someone who uses a Relion can chime in and say if that is correct or not), and most comparable to the blood sample of the AT2. Although of course the strips are the most expensive. The Relion Prime uses a larger sample size, but a much smaller price. Most meters need a larger blood sample, but honestly I've never had trouble getting enough blood out of Sam's ears, so don't worry too much about that.

http://main.diabetes.org/dforg/pdfs/2016/2016-cg-meters-chart.pdf

That's a comparison chart that will show you the relative blood sample sizes and also give some good comparison information on meters.

It really doesn't matter much what meter you choose. Just make sure you can easily get the test strips in case you ever run out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top