7/21 Harley 302 AMPS, 190 +4, 97+8

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KKL

KKL

Member Since 2013
Coming down off bounce??
Now we are seeing blues and greens today....not sure what is going on. We are 3 hours from PMPS....
 
Agreed!! Though he seems to bounce a bit...do I try to do a small smaller dose or skip if he's still under 150 at PMPS??


I am beginning to wonder if the wet food he is eating is "too" low carb?? He is a picky eater and we have a complex household (see my wet food question thread for an explanation on that one LOL) BUT I am wondering if I tried a slightly higher carb wellness wet food might help prevent the bouncing by stopping him from getting lower in the first place?They initially sent him home with 1 unit a day eating Hills SD W/D, which I just realized is 26 carbs!! significantly more than he's getting now.

I am hesitant to do a fish based food, so which of the wellness wet might be a step up carb wise but still good for his medical background...provided he eats it of course.

I did some reading and what target carb wise should I put him at?? Turkey is 4 carbs per the chart http://binkyspage.tripod.com/CanFoodNew.html
Wellness turkey, beef/chx, chickeh: 4 carbs
Kitten, turkey/salmon: 5 carbs
Chicken/herring: 6 carbs
Salmon/trout: 8 carbs
Chx/lobster: 11 carbs
Sard/shrimp/crab: 16 carbs

Hills W/D: 26 carbs
Merick: cowboy cookout 5 carbs

Also just how much should I be feeding him?? He dropped down to 13lbs and the vet had me feeding him 1/2 can 2x day. (about 6 oz) BUT he feels so thin still, I'd say 15+/-lbs would be a good weight for his large frame.
 
You can't stop the bouncing.. We all wish we could. He will bounce for a while but eventually the bouncing should stop and then remission hopefully.

The more time he spends in blues and greens the better. If you increase the carbs you may stop the green lows but then his pancreas won't spend enough time in low numbers and wont be able to heal.

Patience..
 
Also..

How much to feed? Required calories per day = [13.6 X ideal weight in lbs] + 70

But it depends on how well regulated he is so you might need to tweak amount. Weigh him every couple of weeks and adjust quantity...
 
Lastly, did you get a test after that 97? Tonite you might want to shoot even if under 200.... S don't feed two hours before, and if under 200 come here and post and let someone advise you.
 
Re: 7/21 Harley 302 AMPS, 190 +4, 97+8, 386 PMPS +3 312

Yes I did, 3 hours later he was up to 386 so I was able to give his shot...at +3 he came back down to 312.

Do you think it's possible he did "good" on one unit once a day because he was getting Hills W/D which is 26 carbs versus now the 4 carbs he gets with the Wellness? I switched him because I have heard HIlls prescription was not really good for them and he eventually didn't like it but loves the Wellness. Maybe I dropped his carbs too much too soon? Granted I think 26 is too high, but maybe something only slightly higher than 4??
Maybe bumping him up to Wellness food with 6 or 8 carbs might slow the drops and thus control the spikes???
 
Kris

I'd like to post this for you for the third time:

Marje and Gracie said:
Buy a higher low carb food such as Wellness chicken/herring (6%) or turkey/salmon (6%) or Merrick cowboy Cookout (5%). If his weight is good based on what you have been feeding him, divide the daily food he gets into two portions. One portion for the a.m. Cycle and one for the p.m. Cycle. Then try to "front load" the cycle. In other words, from the cycle portion, feed him at preshot, +1, +2, +3. I think it works best to feed him a bit more at PS and +1 and the remainder at +2 and +3. Your goal is to slow the drops. It might not happen overnight. You will have to test a little more early on. I would always get a +2 test if I were you to see how fast he's coming down but I'd also get a +3 test. See if the food slows him some.

If you can slow him down a bit, he might not get so low. He might even require a little higher LOW carb food than I have suggested. Every cat is different in how carb sensitive they are.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking he might need a bit of a dose increase to .25u but it would be great to see a +10 test in the p.m. cycle so we can see if he's coming up into AMPS.

I wouldn't go back to feeding him 26% carbs just to get more insulin into him. Instead, I'd focus on feeding enough carbs, as I suggested above, to flatten him out a bit and then consider increasing the dose.
 
Oh no, I wouldn't go near that 26 carbs again...I was just thinking that she was right and maybe feeding a 6 or 8 carb might help allow me a slightly more consistent dose too since he swings so far with a hairline dose.

But I guess my question is, is it possible that since the vet sent him home on a higher carb food is that why he was tolerating 1 unit once a day...and once when I switched him to a significantly lower carb food that he needed much less insulin?

he was a tad high today...if I can sneak out from work Ill try getting some different food and see what he'll eat. He is weird like that. Loves to eat, but is picky about what he eats.
 
Kris....

Yes...to answer your question. The high carb food is very likely why he was ok on 1u and changing to a LC food decreased his insulin requirement. But, as you surmised from my post, it's better to feed under 10% carbs ( and usually more in the 4-6% range) and then adjust the dose as the curve flattens.
 
Perfect, that is what I was wondering :) I

I'll try the 6-8 carb variety of wellness to see where we go, since I know he likes and tolerates their turkey formulation.

I think I'll buy the 3oz cans to see what he likes before committing to the 12.5 oz cans. My other cat CANNOT switch food, he gets violently ill if I switch flavors at all (or if he even eats a random crumb or na-na that he finds on the floor-up and out it comes!)..so I have to make sure he doesn't get even a morsel. Thankfully Harley is not like that.
 
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