7/7 & 7/8 Pumbaa....lots of stuff including questions!

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Pumbaa

Pumbaa

Member Since 2012
Pumbaa's SS is up to date, so I am not going to post numbers here, but I do have some observations and questions about what I am seeing.

1) I now totally believe in the Somogyi rebound, as, ever since I reduced Pumbaa from a fat 2.0U to 1.50U on 6/29/12 (per Sheila's suggestion), he has now broken out of his "one day of low numbers followed by six days of high numbers" pattern.

2) Pumbaa is still diving on Friday nights, and I don't understand this at all. What is significant about Friday nights, and is this due to something I am doing, without being aware of it?

3) I stopped the bad habit of massaging the injection area after the AM shot on 7/4. Before 7/4, I was trying to not massage the injection site, but it was too automatic for me to consider it not being done any more.

4) Pumbaa has not had any recorded greens on this 1.50U dose, so I know it's not his optimum dose, but I don't want to do an increase just yet since I screwed up the dose time on 7/6, and want him to settle down again before I do an increase so I have good numbers/data to look at later.

5) I am concerned about his very high numbers during the 7/6 AM cycle, as I can't figure out where those reds came from. As someone told me today, "...some kitties will throw an unexplainable high followed by action in the next cycle or the one after it..." So, maybe I shouldn't be worried about those numbers and should just think that Pumbaa's body was messing with us both. *LOL*

6) I know I will have to increase Pumbaa's Lantus dose soon, or switch him to Levemir, which I would love to do but can't afford right now, with 2-1/2 Lantus pens left. Unless someone wants to trade Levemir for Lantus. :)

If anyone has any input, I would appreciate it!

Suze
 
Suze,

Have you considered instead of needing to raise Pumbaa's dose to find his ideal that you may need to still go down? Look at Autumn's spreadsheet from 7/7 to 7/9 you can see she also hit a high red on 7/7 and had some fairly decent numbers before that but instead of going up I dropped her down and today she is surfing the blues so far and going in the right direction instead of going up after her insulin she is once again dropping like she is suppose to do.

It maybe that Pumbaa is hitting lows that you aren't catching or after being on insulin this long his body recognizes the feeling of starting to plummet and jumps into action long before you see those green lows. Which is kind of what I have been suspecting that Autumn's body does, she has been on insulin long enough now that when her body feels the quick drops coming it heads them off at the pass by dumping the counterreglatory hormones and stored sugars. So while I haven't seen her go extremely low her body is beating me to the punch by rocketing her back up. Which maybe where the dives are coming from on Friday nights...his body reacts all week to the overdose and by friday it just doesn't have enough umph to keep it up.

One thing that Sheila beat into my thick head with Musette and for which Autumn and I will be forever grateful for is that a cat on insulin should never see those 400s & 500s if it isn't from an overdose. That those reds and blacks are just as clear of an indicator of too much insulin as those 30s & low 40s. Sure they will bounce but they shouldn't bounce that high unless it is from too much insulin, a bounce is normally from either dropping too fast or too low, but those normally don't hit the reds and blacks..maybe high yellows and pinks but not red and black. Those type of numbers are normally only seen in a cat that is still on a high carb diet and/or not receiving insulin at all. This is really coming home to me with Autumn since she was such a clean slate when I adopted her, unlike Maxwell and Musette, she was never in foster care before being transported to me, so no one but me changed her diet or started her on insulin. I picked her new diet and I picked her insulin, when she first was tested before transport she was 527, she was fed low carb food on her transport and reached me in the 300s, the only time she has seen those blacks and reds have been when her insulin was too high, the moment I drop her dose her numbers start dropping back down again.

Now Autumn may never go OTJ and she may never stay in the double digits all day long just because of how long it took her to start getting any treatment at all, but I am delighted everytime I can keep her in the blues all day with only slight raises to the low yellows at preshots, at least that way she is still well regulated and she remains under the renal threshhold so her other organs aren't being damaged. I knew when I adopted her that she was more than likely always going to be insulin dependent but you know she has come a long ways in a short period of time from a kitty that needed 1.5u b.i.d. to even hit yellow to a little girl surfing the blues on .5u b.i.d. and who knows one day we just might be celebrating her OTJ party or she might just end up being a kitty that lives out the rest of her life as a microdose girl. Either way today she is light years past where she started out when she arrived here, she is healthy, happy and wait until I get new pictures of her stunning new coat that is growing in...lol...she is gonna be a stunning cat full of life.

Mel, Maxwell, Autumn & The Fur Gang.
 
Mel:

Wow! No, I never considered that Pumbaa was still on too high of a dose.

One thing that Sheila beat into my thick head with Musette and for which Autumn and I will be forever grateful for is that a cat on insulin should never see those 400s & 500s if it isn't from an overdose. That those reds and blacks are just as clear of an indicator of too much insulin as those 30s & low 40s.
Click to expand...

Chippendale's was trying to explain the above to me and it didn't penetrate my thick skull.

I never could understand why Pumbaa's numbers would go higher on insulin than they were before he was on insulin.

I'm dropping him down to 1.25U tonight!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for explaining this so that I finally got it! :YMHUG:

Suze
 
Yeah I didn't get it for a long time either. :lol: But looking at Autumn's numbers today on a scant .5u as opposed to what she was getting even at .75u I can help but :-D

+6 she hit :mrgreen: Yeah its a fairly high green at 81 but still within normal range. Now to see how she does as the days progress, who knows I may find out the even .5u is too much for her now that she is getting healthier.

Mel, Maxwell, Autumn & The Fur Gang
 
Mel, what's funny is that I looked at Autumn's SS a few days ago, saw that you had reduced her on 7/3 and wondered "WTH"? *LOL* But it's working for Autumn, and I'm going to pray it works for Pumbaa, too!

So, now when she gets a red, does she get a dose reduction? This is so opposite the raise/raise/raise the dose mentality.

Suze
 
Yep if she hits reds or blacks now that I know she is on a proper low carb diet and getting insulin I reduce, because it tells me it is too much insulin instead of not enough, I just can't see any reason to make her go nearly hypo to get a reduction, her body is telling me that it is too much and it is fighting against the insulin rather than using it.

Mel, Maxwell, Autumn & The Fur Gang
 
Mel, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to deal with me and Pumbaa! :thumbup

Your input is so appreciated I can't begin to tell you. Because you do think outside the box. And look at the entire cat experience, not the last few days of numbers on a SS.

(((HUGS))) to you, Mel!

Suze
 
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