7/14 Tubbs AMPS 5.2 Help w/ Dosing Consistently Low #'s

[Mandykins]

Good morning all! I'm hoping for some dosing help based on my sugar kitty's spreadsheet. Based on her spreadsheet, how should I proceed with her dosing? I'm not happy with the inconsistent dosing I've been doing lately, but her low numbers have been a challenge as I'm at work all day (gone for 10hrs typically) and can't check her nadirs.

Tubbs was diagnosed June 22, 2022, started on Lantus June 25, and has now been having consistently low pre-shot numbers over the past several days. I transitioned her over to Fancy Feast pates around the same time we started insulin, with a small amount of Dr Elsey's Clean Protein dry to help with fiber.

Everything has been going well! We have now had consistently low pre-shot numbers over the last several days, and I really need help with figuring out what I should be dosing. Very thankful the weekend is coming up, as that's when I'll be able to do a full BG curve, but I would very much appreciate some help on dealing with these low numbers now, and hopefully what I should expect going forward!

My vet wanted us to come back after 3 weeks to do a re-check and see how things are going, so I'll be booking an appointment early next week to discuss her results with them. This group has been a fantastic resource, and considering what little information I was provided by my vet at the beginning, I feel much more confident with the advice and guidance that I'm receiving here, and using that information in conjunction with the vet advice (they didn't discuss BG monitoring at home with me at all and started with a fairly high dose, so I think this may be a learning curve for the vet too).

Thank you all for the significant difference you're making in cat owners lives! <3

 

[Wendy&Neko]

It looks like Tibbs is reacting nicely to the Lantus. It's a problem, but in a good way.

Since you are gone long hours during the day, those night time tests are even more important to figure out how low she's going on a dose. A curve is good, but with reduced/skipped shots, the depot will not be sorted on any particular dose. Which also makes figuring out a dose going forward quite tricky. How about trying 0.75 units tonight? Provided of course that she's high enough for you to shoot.

 

[tiffmaxee]

Hi. With SLGS you don’t want to shoot a green and leave for the day. Can you start doing a curve on a day off once in awhile or set an alarm at night?

 

[Mandykins]

It looks like Tibbs is reacting nicely to the Lantus. It's a problem, but in a good way.

Since you are gone long hours during the day, those night time tests are even more important to figure out how low she's going on a dose. A curve is good, but with reduced/skipped shots, the depot will not be sorted on any particular dose. Which also makes figuring out a dose going forward quite tricky. How about trying 0.75 units tonight? Provided of course that she's high enough for you to shoot.

Completely agree - I keep telling her she's being TOO good of a girl!

Yes, that's what my biggest concern is, the fact that I've been reducing/skipping has been worrying me, so thank you for confirming. I agree, I think 0.75 would be a great start to see if we can get her properly regulated - I don't think she's too far off regulation, but like you mentioned, the inconsistent dosing is causing some problems! Starting tomorrow PM I'll be able to monitor her after dosing, as well as perform some more night time curves. I find myself cursing those amazing green numbers right now haha! I can't wait until I can just appreciate them <3

Hi. With SLGS you don’t want to shoot a green and leave for the day. Can you start doing a curve on a day off once in awhile or set an alarm at night?

Thank you! This is exactly what I was feeling, and my 0.25 was in hopes of not completely messing up her "depot" so to speak, so I did give her some gravy higher carb wet food as I had to leave for work to make up for it, but I didn't really feel great about that either. It's been stressful as she was just diagnosed at the end of June, so finding this group has been a lifesaver...but also an overwhelming amount of amazing guidance and info to take in! Yes, I'll be doing more curves this weekend; I plan on starting tomorrow night, setting an alarm or two overnight to get a night time curve (I struggled with this last weekend), and will be testing a lot both Saturday and Sunday during the day.

I feel like she's going to possibly be coming off insulin just as fast as we put her on it, so it's been a whirlwind - just when I felt comfortable with the test/feed/shoot, she started spitting out greens. I've been spending a lot of time trying to track down someone to cat sit her next month, as there will be multiple times when we're away and unfortunately won't be able to bring her with us, but I don't want her going without insulin if she needs it (might not at this pace but I'm not counting on it!). This is all following years of trying to sort out why Tubbs overgrooms her belly, I won't get into it but we had a scary experience with a vet that was fired (Tubbs almost died and I ended up having to take her to a neurosurgeon), hence my hesitation to strictly rely on a vet's direction (we found an amazing one after that, but she moved back to Australia, her home country, so going in blind again).

At the same time (started last week), our other cat Boo has been having some ear issues that I took him to the vet for. He's a "red flag" kind of cat when he goes to the vet, so I had to dose him with gabapentin first. In addition to the vet getting a crazy amount of ear gunk out, he MIGHT have a polyp but we need to re-check after running through antibiotics...well, he decided he didn't like the ear drops and ripped out a chunk of fur at the back of his ear the day after we started the ear drops, and is just now settling down when we give them to him.

TLDR....I feel like I could be doing better, but a lot of factors are making it more challenging, so I sincerely thank everyone here from the bottom of my heart for always being so kind and willing to help. Even just having others to talk to about our experiences has helped get me through this.