8/5 Stalling BG 118 (Stopping insulin when numbers are low?)

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Bekah and Momo

Member Since 2021
My cat Momo has multiple health issues, but we are very new to diabetes. Her appetite is our biggest struggle, so a consistent diet is out the window. She goes off cat food sometimes and will only eat cooked turkey, which is not ideal for her late stage CKD, but turns out it brings her glucose down to normal range.

Before continuing let me emphasize that we cannot feed her a single food for more than a few days and variety is key. We've had a very difficult food journey, and while it seems like her diabetes could be controlled by diet, that is just not in the cards, so I would prefer it not be the focus of my post. She is on appetite stimulants, anti nausea meds, fluids, etc. A feeding tube is the only thing left on the table.​

When looking at her SS or the attached image: I started offering her the turkey some time on 8/2, and on 3 she was eating that exclusively. (She also had a vet visit that caused the afternoon spike.) She will probably stay on the turkey for a few days. She's wearing a Freestyle Libre, so I can monitor her closely, but she hasn't been high enough for insulin since 8/2 PM. Is it ok to start and stop based on her diet? I would imagine that is not ideal, but not sure what else to do?

Also, her numbers are blue not green, but since she is too low to shoot, is blue w/o insulin an OK place to be? Even with insulin we were not getting to green.

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Bekah and Momo said:
Also, her numbers are blue not green, but since she is too low to shoot, is blue w/o insulin an OK place to be?
Click to expand...

Not really. We want to see most numbers between 50-100 for 2 weeks before taking them off insulin. You might need to try a smaller dose like .25.

Removing insulin too early almost guarantee's that a remission won't hold.
 
Chris & China (GA) said:
Not really. We want to see most numbers between 50-100 for 2 weeks before taking them off insulin. You might need to try a smaller dose like .25.

Removing insulin too early almost guarantee's that a remission won't hold.
Click to expand...

Chris, so what should be the low number where I don't shoot if she's sitting between 120-175? My vet told me 180, I think I read on these forums 200?

And how do I measure a .25 dose accurately? Am I just eyeballing it?

If she stops eating X and I have to give her Y, and Y causes her numbers to go up, do I give more insulin? Do I need to keep track of which foods cause her to go how high so I can predict what dosage she needs?
 
Bekah and Momo said:
so what should be the low number where I don't shoot if she's sitting between 120-175? My vet told me 180, I think I read on these forums 200?
Click to expand...

We recommend shooting if they're above 200 at first (while people are learning to home test and gathering some data) but that number can drop once you have some data and are testing regularly. I'll tag @JanetNJ who has more experience with ProZinc than I do.

Bekah and Momo said:
And how do I measure a .25 dose accurately? Am I just eyeballing it?
Click to expand...

Yes, pretty much just have to eyeball it. Do you have syringes with half unit marks? Or you can use U100 syringes with this conversion chart which would let you make smaller dose changes

Bekah and Momo said:
If she stops eating X and I have to give her Y, and Y causes her numbers to go up, do I give more insulin? Do I need to keep track of which foods cause her to go how high so I can predict what dosage she needs?
Click to expand...

It's a good idea to keep track so you can see if she reacts differently to different foods. You could put the food in the "Remarks" column of your spreadsheet.
 
Looks like a small 0.25 dose might be good just to get the numbers to dip their toes in the greens.
 
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