6/30 Xena AMPS 276, +4.5 280, +7 290 / *** INCREASED to 5.0 U** PMPS 293, +3 288, +8 295

[Don & Xena]

Increase this P.M. Cycle to 5 units. From here, increases will be in .5 Unit Increments.

Question: While I am giving increases of .5 Units, do I continue to increase the dose after every 6 cycles, provided NADIRs are continuously greater than 200?
@Wendy&Neko
@tiffmaxee
@Bandit's Mom



I’ve been feeding her mainly roasted chicken, since we had nearly an entire chicken leftover, but her numbers are still higher than they were before the increase. All I can do is wait and see.

Yesterday’s post:

https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/6-29-xena-amps-255-4-270-8-233-pmps-223-3-5-229.279030/

 

[Breelynne]

It can be so frustrating at times, think you are doing good and boom! Hang in there.

As far as the dosing I was TR it does go up but I am not an expert let's see what they have to say.

I rushed and rushed to get home and Allie was higher when I got home

 

[Wendy&Neko]

The timing of the increases with TR remains the same, just the size of the increase changes as you increase in total dose. Think of the size of the increase as a percent of total dose, around 10-15%. At 5 units it's 0.5 increase, at 10 units a 1 unit increase, etc. Of course, if you are at a dose seeing greens and just want to tweak nadirs down a bit, you might do a smaller increases.

Did you roast the chicken? Commercially done ones could be brined first, which means soaked in water with salt and sugar.

 

[Breelynne]

The timing of the increases with TR remains the same, just the size of the increase changes as you increase in total dose. Think of the size of the increase as a percent of total dose, around 10-15%. At 5 units it's 0.5 increase, at 10 units a 1 unit increase, etc. Of course, if you are at a dose seeing greens and just want to tweak nadirs down a bit, you might do a smaller increases.

Did you roast the chicken? Commercially done ones could be brined first, which means soaked in water with salt and sugar.

Ah crap!
Never thought of that.

 

[Don & Xena]

The timing of the increases with TR remains the same, just the size of the increase changes as you increase in total dose. Think of the size of the increase as a percent of total dose, around 10-15%. At 5 units it's 0.5 increase, at 10 units a 1 unit increase, etc. Of course, if you are at a dose seeing greens and just want to tweak nadirs down a bit, you might do a smaller increases.

Did you roast the chicken? Commercially done ones could be brined first, which means soaked in water with salt and sugar.

Thank you.
As far as the chicken, it is from BJ’s Wholesale club. They definitely brine it, and that was a concern I had, but what I read is that the brining process adds sugar and sodium much more to the skin (and drippings/ fat obviously) which I do not give to the cat. I read that because salt molecules are much smaller than sugar, the meat will absorb SOME salt, but virtually no sugar. This article is the one I read that more or less made me feel like it would be ok to feed the store bought rotisserie chicken without skin/ fat to Xena.
https://genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/sugarbrine.html
However… let me know your thoughts…. In the past I have not noticed it affecting her levels… that I can tell. It’s not a staple in her diet her anything though it’s an occasional purchase that she gets leftovers from. It could be cut out. I just figured that if it’s true, that the brining doesn’t add sugar to the actual meat, it’s a shame to waste it… And of course she loves it.https://genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/sugarbrine.html

 

[Wendy&Neko]

Experiment was with pork, not chicken. I don't know if the meats absorb the same. A lot of brines are for 24 hours or more. I have heard people mention that Butterball turkeys (brined) have made a difference in numbers. However, if this is not a continuing part of her diet, I wouldn't worry too much about it. You were looking for a possible explanation for higher numbers. Try not feeding it for a day and see if you notice a difference. If not, then that's not the reason.

 

[Don & Xena]

Experiment was with pork, not chicken. I don't know if the meats absorb the same. A lot of brines are for 24 hours or more. I have heard people mention that Butterball turkeys (brined) have made a difference in numbers. However, if this is not a continuing part of her diet, I wouldn't worry too much about it. You were looking for a possible explanation for higher numbers. Try not feeding it for a day and see if you notice a difference. If not, then that's not the reason.

Yeah, definitely have to be careful, some places inject stuff into the meat also, you would hope they’d include that in the nutrition facts but who knows… anyway the last of the chicken is gone. The original # bounce was before the chicken, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been affecting the other days.
She hasn’t been drinking as much water lately, and now, since last night, she’s drank quite a bit more than usual. Need to just keep in mind that there’s not gonna be an obvious answer for everything I guess. I was really surprised though when I saw her water dispenser almost halfway empty today. I had to ask my wife if somebody spilled any not the case though. Maybe that’s from the chicken… although I know the canned cat food has a decent amount of sodium also.

 

[Wendy&Neko]

Water consumption could be tied to her renal threshold. That's the point at which there is too much glucose in the blood stream and the kidneys work to remove sugar into the urine. Which means she both drinks more and pees more. What the renal threshold value is for cats varies by cat, but can be from roughly high blues to low yellows. Could be these slightly yellows have taken Xena over that point.

 

[Don & Xena]

Water consumption could be tied to her renal threshold. That's the point at which there is too much glucose in the blood stream and the kidneys work to remove sugar into the urine. Which means she both drinks more and pees more. What the renal threshold value is for cats varies by cat, but can be from roughly high blues to low yellows. Could be these slightly yellows have taken Xena over that point.

Yeah… another thing that had me thinking we were getting close to that correct dose for a minute there. Like ba k when she had those blues a while ago. She wasn’t eating as much or drinking as much and I thought we were making a breakthrough, but it just went right back… that was a bummer. But when that happened, I thought for sure we were at least getting close. Didn’t think we’d be at this overdose in the same place.