Aida needs less insulin?

Daphne and Aida

Daphne and Aida

Active Member
Aida is surprising me: we just had a big move, changed countries, very stressful event. However her BG is lower than what it was before, I’ve skipped 2 pm shots, reduced from .75 to .50, and this morning I gave her ever less (.25).

Either stress lowers her BG, the heat does it, or my glucometer doesn’t function any more adequately.
I’m gonna get a new one to verify.

Has anyone ever experienced something like that?

Previous post: https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/new-in-this-group-advice-on-keeping-the-dose.292108/
 
I was noticing this on her spreadsheet when I looked. I think it’s fantastic. Do what you can to keep her in the greens. I would hold the .25 dose unless she withered earns a reduction by going under 50 or if her numbers start to creep up. If she has a preshot like last night (89) you can either stall without feeding her and retest her in 30 minutes to see if her BG is rising. But I would probably try the .25 dose or skinny that dose up just a bit and shoot as long as I was able to monitor the cycle.
 
Oh no, just saw your message!
I really hesitated yesterday and opted not to give her any pm insulin, we were meeting with friends and I couldn’t guess what time I would be back.

When you say “skinny” the .25U, you mean give a slightly less, right?
I don’t have any U-40 syringes left, today I’ll start shooting with the U-100. From the conversion table, I can either give her 0.2 by drawing 0.5, or 0.4 by drawing 1.0. To give her .25 I’ll have to draw 0.6 on the U-100 syringe. Right?
 
Not sure about it…

That is the U-100 syringe (0.3 ml), next to the U-40 syringe (0.3ml)





The 0.25U on the U-40 is between the 0 and 0.5.

I just gave Aida (on the U-100) a dose on the first half marking of the U-100 syringe, which I assume is the 0.5?
 
The closest you can get to a .25 dose of ProZinc using a U-100 syringe would be to draw the plunger to halfway between 1 and 1.5 units. But if you just want to give her a .4 unit dose (so a little less than the half unit dose) you could draw it to the 1 unit line on the U-100 syringe.
 
Oh, ok so I gave her 0.5 on the U-100, she received very little insulin…
Her numbers are ok though.
I really wonder if it’s not a meter problem, wasn’t able to find an open pharmacy today.
Too good to be true, something is off!
 
I’m confused. This morning you gave her .2 units of ProZinc by drawing the U-100 syringe to the .5 mark, right? She’s doing sooooo well! I am really happy!
 
Daphne and Aida said:
Haha! same here!! its also post-dental procedure, that might also come into play
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It definitely could be the dental. We see that a lot here. Dental problems can definitely cause higher blood glucose because of inflammation and sometimes even bacteria (and in some cats pain depending upon the dental problem.). How many extractions did you say she had?
 
Ok, now she’s at 95 PS, can’t decide what to do…Maybe give her a bit less than half a unit on the U-100 syringe? Or no shot at all?
It’s very confusing! I really need to get a second meter and run a curve with both!
 
I see she’s doing okay as of +2. And if you want to try a .1 unit dose (in the future) you draw the U-100 syringe to the .25 mark (which you would have to “eyeball” between the zero mark and the .5 mark, of course.)
 
I keep checking Aida’s spreadsheet to make sure she’s okay. But it’s probably middle of the night for you. I know you will take care of her!
 
Yes it’s crazy!!
Anyone with an idea why it’s happening, is it the heat, is it some long-term effect of the GABA, or else?

I got a second meter, the pharmacist gave me a contour care - really gave it! In France, I had to buy it!
(I also got Feloro’s medications, and I just paid 30 euros for all!! In France it was 220 euros all together!)

Made 2 measurements to compare both meters, the first one was identical, for the second one the OneTouch measured 107 whereas the contour 111. I don’t know if it matters if it’s the first drop of blood?

We found a flat! Tomorrow we’ll sign the papers.
 
Congratulations on the new flat!

There’s no difference between the 107 and the 111. It’s considered the same number. These glucometers are actually allowed to have a 20-25 percent variance, which means that you could get a 100 and a 125 and it’s not considered to be any significant difference. Of course when we get into the lower green numbers we kind of don’t have a choice but to take the numbers at face value, but otherwise we are looking at trends and the overall numbers. It’s a good sign that the two meters were so close.

I really think it’s the dental extractions that have made the difference for her. Cats can even go into remission after a dental procedure — and we definitely see cats who have been in remission getting knocked out of remission because of dental problems.
 
That makes sense, yes, her mouth was pretty sore before the dental!
She’s always needed a dental per year, but it was done later in 2024 (normally it should have been in March).

Now she’s in the green at PS, I tested again at +1 and she’s still in the same numbers, she’s eaten quite a lot. I have to stay here for a couple of hours, so I’ll monitor her, but at +4 I have to leave… So it’s a NS for now, unless she raises her BG above 150, right?

I realise that she might have been low during the night, I was so tired that I didn’t wake up to test her at +2 pm, gave them some food at 3:30 and went strait back to sleep… physically impossible to wait for her to finish eating and test…

So many thanks for your guidance!!!
 
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This is so great seeing those green numbers! Please write and let me know what happened after you got home or in the evening because I just can’t wait to see!

Did you sign a lease for the new flat?
 
Tomorrow I’ll sign! I guess we’ll be moving in the week-end, still haven’t organised it (waiting to sign first before committing to anyone)

Ok now she’s dropping, I gave her a huge snack but I have to leave, is it safe or should I give her some high-carbs kibble?
 
Oh. I see you skipped the shot. So since she’s been eating well and there’s no shot and she’s far enough away from the previous night’s shot that should be enough to carry her (the food she’s already eaten, I mean.)
 
We cross-posted!
I did give her some additionnal kibble, a tiny amount. Since her snack was 1h ago I’m scared that it won’t be enough…

that would be amazing if her pancreas is back!!!
 
When I came back, she was at 97, three hours later she had eaten and was at 132. Now she’s back at 95.
Should I shoot 0.1? Try to aim between the 0 and the 0.5 on the U-100 syringe?
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Although when she was at 93 a few nights ago you shot .2 and she did fine.
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Yes exactly, I saw that and finally decided to give her something between 0.1 and 0.2…
She always licks Feloro’s dish so I guess she does get some additional carbs from it. I didn’t give her any more kibble.

She’s now a bit lower than what I’d like… gave her some extra food, Feloro is happy because it allows him to eat again and again and again! But I’m reassured for his appetite as well, despite his CKD he hasn’t lost his appetite!
 
A 53. Yes. That’s coming close to where we don’t want her to be. I guess you could have used Felori’s renal food to bring her up a bit. Considerations are that it is (was) early in the cycle at only +2 so she had a way to go until nadir. Oftentimes a little LC snack helps the cat to surf in green, but you should watch carefully that early in the cycle.
 
I was just checking in on her and I see the greens are everywhere! Fantastic. You could consider a “drop dose” for her if she keeps on like this for a week on the .10. Have you checked to see how many drops of insulin are in your .10 dose? You can use colored water and draw it to where you normally draw the .10 and squeeze it slowly out onto a paper towel and count the drops.
 
Oh great! I hadn’t thought of that, I’ll check.
Was out yesterday with friends, I really had forgot how insistent Greeks can be and are! I kept saying I should leave and they were super forceful “NO WAY WE JUST STARTED HERE!” Managed to escape at midnight pfew!!!
As a result, I didn’t want to risk a hypo during the night and gave her maybe the half of the 0.1? And this morning she was at 103 - nothing dramatic of course, but it doesn’t feel great…
Anyway.
At this point it’s difficult to really know how much she gets… I’ll check with coloured water, great idea, many thanks!
 
Daphne and Aida said:
Oh great! I hadn’t thought of that, I’ll check.
Was out yesterday with friends, I really had forgot how insistent Greeks can be and are! I kept saying I should leave and they were super forceful “NO WAY WE JUST STARTED HERE!” Managed to escape at midnight pfew!!!
As a result, I didn’t want to risk a hypo during the night and gave her maybe the half of the 0.1? And this morning she was at 103 - nothing dramatic of course, but it doesn’t feel great…
Anyway.
At this point it’s difficult to really know how much she gets… I’ll check with coloured water, great idea, many thanks!
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Are you not Greek yourself? I thought you were because your family lives in Athens. Although you lived in Paris for what? 20 years?

Aida continues to do well on the .10 dose. I saw the 49, which is borderline, but I see she's levelled out and had a slightly higher AMPS this morning (constipation?) Did you give her high carb food with the 49? She went into some (now rare) blues after that so I was wondering.
 
I am Greek yes! Been abroad for 20+ years (Spain, Germany, Sweden and France) - did live a bit in Paris but the last stop was Strasbourg, a small city on the Eastern border with Germany.

I think Aida bounced because of the late-low dose on the night I went out. She did have a bout of constipation, which of course made her BG spike a bit. But she seems to be keeping nicely on the green and low on the blue for now! I had to go out when she was 49 so yes, I allowed her to eat some of Feloro’s renal food…

I counted the drops in the 0,1U I’m giving her, it’s 6 drops.
 
So!
Some changes that might account for Aida’s not so regular BG…

First and most importantly: I’m STILL waiting for her food! I made an order for a huge batch since I can’t seem to find it here, and it’s more that 1 week past my order and the parcel is still in Czech Rep! So I had to buy some MC that are rather on the high side of carbs (18 to 23%). I’ll explore a bit tomorrow to check in another area where there are some other pet shops.

Secondly: I’m officially out of OneTouch test strips, since yesterday midday. From now on it’ll be Contour Care. It measures a bit higher, I guess it’s more accurate to her true BG.

Thirdly: we’re in the new flat! I’m a cleaning maniac and totally obsessed with bug control and Athens is full with cockroaches which I absolutely LOATH so I was maniacally cleaning the flat and sanitizing it and filling all the tiny holes and putting products and and and … yesterday I was finally done with the kitchen (an absolute horror, I guess it had never been cleaned like that…) and I brought them today! With Gaba of course. They seem to like it so far, of course I have to account for the fact that they find again all their known furnitures and stuff from France and before, but there is also a super long balcony! And we never had a balcony! I had secured it of course, Aida is in love with it!

That’s it for today, I’m going to sleep a long and I want to believe well deserved sleep!
 
I was just thinking about you yesterday and wondering how the new flat was coming along. So you do already have your familiar furniture in the new flat? And the balcony? You say you have made it so that there’s no way they can jump off/fall off? How did you do it? I know they will enjoy it a lot!

That’s so annoying about your food delivery being so much delayed. Aida is still doing well despite the higher carb food. Of course it will be better when her regular food arrives. At least you have a lot of data to know that she’s doing well on the .10 dose — I think the Contour meters are good. It’s mostly important to be consistent with the meter you use so that you are comparing apple to apples, as they say (and not comparing apples to oranges!)

I am totally with you on the cockroaches! Hate hate hate those things. And, of course, we have to be careful about what we use around our cats to clean and try to control them. Many cats do find them to be a tasty snack :eek::eek::eek:
 
Cockroaches yikes! They actually have never seen one, Northern European countries have almost none of them, you have to live very filthy to invite them into your home! Here, they just barge into your home no questions asked no invitation needed and it’s a pain to get rid of them, so I’m doing my best to create an environment as hostile as possible to them!

Aida is currently playing! I unearthed her favorite mouse-toy, she’s playing all over the house with it!

To secure balconies they use here something like bambous attached together. You can still see through it, Aida prefers the spot I’ve secured because she feels less exposed I guess. But she cannot go through and pay a visit to the neighbours for example. I still have to put some on the other end that makes a corner, it makes the place more private. I’ll try to send a pic tomorrow (it’s dark now here).

It is kind of reassuring that, despite the food, her values are good!

Thanks so much for checking on us!
 
She’s having higher BG these past few days, I wonder how to determine when the insulin should be increased? I got used of having her have green numbers…

Edited to add that she’s having such a nice time! Playing bouncing and running after her mouse, going out on the balcony and feeling the air, she’s really enjoying herself!
 
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I see her numbers are creeping up just a bit. Can you think of anything else that might have made her numbers go up? Does she have her regular food yet (was it delivered?). Let’s see what happens over the next few days before deciding upon an increase. Okay?
 
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