7/29/13 Julia AMPS 242 Question

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Elizabeth&Julia&Margaret(GA)

Elizabeth&Julia&Margaret(GA)

Member Since 2009
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This is a quick question that I can elaborate more on if need be when I get home from work. I was reading the shooting low numbers document and I read that if the BG is falling, you stall, restest and wait for the rise. The problem with that is Julia is a night bouncer. I haven't had a night where is isn't in yellow and pinks are commonplace. Because she's sometimes in the bathroom at night due to her "lack of litter box use at night" there are a number of times she's coming out of yellow into blue when we get up and let her out right before the +11/+11.5 time frame. A combination of freedom and the bounce clearing is what I think it is. Do we still want to wait for the rise each morning? I'm thinking if we do that we'll be completely off schedule every day. For example, on 7/15 our +11.5 was 202 but 30 minutes later our AMPS was 156 and I shot anyway. Was that stupid? I would never do it if we weren't monitoring and I read that once you are data ready, almost any number is shootable. It's hard in the morning for Mom to keep testing every 15 min. for a rise when she's caring for Dad, too. Plus, we have nursing, aides, volunteers, and PT that come in so she can't be testing all morning every day for a rise. I should add that once we get to really low numbers (or anything I wasn't comfortable with) I wouldn't do this.
 
Hi there, If you look at Lucky's ss you will see we had those numbers once to, i started shooting lower and lower as I got comfortable with it and got to know him better I wouldn't worry about testing every 15 minutes unless he is in the 40's how much insulin is she on? if you put up ? marks and asked most will tell you to go ahead and shoot at 150 then test in and hour see where she is, I had to just take the change and now were in trial for OTJ . thanks for stopping by today
 
I am not as concerned with shooting lower numbers. My concern was more in regard to shooting a falling number vs. having to wait for the rise and when I talked about testing every 15 minutes it was in regard to waiting for the rise before shooting. Otherwise I'm only testing that often when she's low. I was shooting the falling numbers realizing we are monitoring and if I shoot a falling number I'm more conscious about checking on her. Heck...she went to 38 when her preshot was in the 150's so I know it's going to happen.

I
 
Elizabeth

I understand your dilemma from the standpoint of shooting dropping numbers alot. I think you've been doing a great job especially considering all that you all have going on. Shooting dropping numbers, once you have learned to safely do so, allows yo to take advantage of overlap and carryover. But when you have a kitty like Julia that doesn't get much of a spike from food (she typically just keeps dropping after AMPS), it can be a little nerve wracking.

I don't think stalling works much with Julia because she does seem to keep dropping and so maybe you should shoot on time but then use a higher low carb food at AMPS, +1, +2. I can't really tell what you are feeding her but you say on the SS that you have a notepad with all that info. What %carb food are you giving her early in the cycle? Some cats do better with a little higher low carb food. Do you think that would be something you could try?

The other thing that I did with Gracie on Lantus (because she did this alot but she did it from the AM to PM cycle) was feed a snack just before +10 when she was clearing a bounce. Normally, feeding after nadir slows the effects of the insulin but bounce clearing cycles for her were always really active all the way to PMPS. Of course, that idea is probably very difficult to implement because you'd have to feed her at 5:45 a.m. or so if you shoot at 8.

What do you think?
 
Those sound like some fantastic ideas, Marje! I'm glad you were able to understand what I meant as I was trying to type the questions out on break at work.

Julia always eats low carb FF which is 4% - all of her favorites have the same amount of carbs. In the house I also have the FF grilled chicken feast in gravy which is 13% (I think of it as a medium carb?) and for high carb we have the FF gravy lovers chicken feast at 20%. I was looking at Friskies and they have some 8-9% flavors we can try but I'll have to get those after work tomorrow. She tends to like chicken and turkey best. I'm not exactly sure what percentage you were thinking for the AMPS, +1, and +2?

I like the idea of a snack before clearing a bounce. The clock is our only problem. We try to shoot 7:30/7:30 so I can be awake for her nadir at night since she goes early. I can barely get up for work and her +11 in the morning sometimes. You'll see us sneaking in a +11.5 some days if I hit snooze enough. :lol: Sometimes I do leave the 4% food out (maybe 1/2 can of FF) for her to snack on at night but I can't tell when she eats it. I would go for a timed feeder but this is the cat who when I bought her a nice water fountain looked at me like I was an idiot. And she was right since I wasted money on it. :-D I bought her a bed and she refused to use it. I bought her freeze dried chicken and she put her head down on the treats in front of her and went to sleep. So...maybe tomorrow morning if she's doing one of her dropping deals at AMPS, I could go with the usual 4% and put in maybe a 1/4 of a tsp of the 13% mixed in for the AMPS, +1, and +2 or would that be too many carbs? I don't want to lose any ground but don't want Mom to have a heart attack seeing a 38 like I did the other day so it's a balancing act for sure.

Thank you so much for your help!
 
Elizabeth

I saw your post on our condo. Yes...I use three different foods. Her main one is 4%. If she's dropping fast or she dropped in the 40s or high 30s, I use 10%. And just to slow her a little or bring her up, I use Wellness Core turkey/duck which is 5% but works really great (in fact, it works better than an 8% food I tried).

ECID so you will have to experiment with Julia. Believe me, I made alot of errors with Gracie before I came upon what worked. You will have to see if the 13% is too much for her. I did do the mixing thing for a bit but it was a pain so now I just use each food for a specific reason and don't mix. You could divide her morning portion between three or four mini meals but it will probably help her the most to feed at the AMPS, +1, +2, and maybe +3 so you have enough food on board when she onsets on top of the low numbers from the previous cycle. This is where you get lots of benefit for her....carryover and overlap.

Just as an example, the other day Gracie came down moderately fast, I fed her 10% to stop her and then 5% and she surfed so incredibly flat for hours and hours.

Let me k ow if you have questions or how else I can help. And....sometimes it takes a bit of time for the change to work. Don't expect an overnight fix. Be patient.
 
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