amazing amps, now what to do?

Status
Not open for further replies.
donnahc

donnahc

Very Active Member
Hi Kids:
Asher had an amazing amps this morning: 131. Yup, I didn’t believe it either so we checked twice.

He was pesting me on and off for food since 4:30 this morning and it’s now 8, so it’s not like I couldn’t feed him or feed his brother and not him.

Any suggestions with this low number and that I had to feed him?

Last night we gave 2 units. Two days ago when his pmps was 160, we shot 1.5 instead of two. 131 seems a bit low for that tho.

This gray fur baby just does his own thing :)

-d.

ps: and yes we will be home to test all day.....
 
Looks like u did a no shoot for that. I am hoping to do a token shot since no shoots seem to make us bounce around so much. But only if I get some opinions here that it would be safe.....

-d.
 
You're a brave one, so I would say check him in a half hour to make sure he's going up, then give 1/3 to 1/2 his normal dose if he's on the rise. Can you watch him today?
 
I wouldn't say I'm brave at all. We have not shot yet because I am still wringing my hands as to what to do.....

I was thinking 1/2 or 1 unit max if we shoot at all.

-d.
 
Well 1/3 of 2u is .6, and 1/2 of 2u is 1... so I think that .6 would be a safe dose as long as he's on the rise. If you're feeling bold, try .8 (I've neverbeen the bold dosing type myself.)
 
Well, how about splitting the difference and doing .75, if you are sure he is on the rise? (I think Claudia's .6 is a good idea too.) If you will be home to test and feed, I think it is okay to try it. He has not had a low nadir yet, so it would be good information to have.

I
 
Just tested him again and he is 164. This is a little over an hour after the low amps.

Donna
 
So what are you thinking, Donna? You have made very good choices with some interesting numbers, lately. We have been a sounding board, but you are getting good at this.
 
Ok we did a rich .5 or a skinny .75. I chose to eyeball on the u40 syringes.
We'll keep you posted. Thanks for jumping to it for us first thing in the morning!!!

This made me realize I am not confident about the markings on the u100 syringes. I am sure we gotvthe correct ones with the half unit markings because I returned some incorrect ones.

I can scan one and put it up so maybe we can chat about what each horizontal line is on either side of the vertical center line means.

Didn't want to make a mistake this morning.

Thank you so much!

Donna
 
And here is a post with Gator's take on mini dosing:


each mark on a U100 syringe with half unit markings is .2 worth of U40 insulin. In between is .1 worth. And in between that is "0.05" worth. Believe it or not when he actually eats about the same amount over a couple days and I have him dialed in, "0.05" U is the difference in PSs of about 20 points. Of course one could argue that the meter error is within this amount but W/E at least I believe it in my head.

Microdose increments:
Anyway, I do have a method for getting fairly accurate 0.05U measurements at least on the every .2U like .4, .6 etc. So .4U is with the very tippy of the plunger at the bottom of the line for 1U on the U100 syringe. 0.45U is with the very tippy of the plunger on the top of the 1U mark on the u100 syringe. Then 0.5U is with the very tippy of the plunger in between the 1 and 1.5U mark and 0.55U is a little more tricky.
 
I wonder if he comes up after the shot due to the food in his belly.

The last week or so he has been pretty consistently eating one of the small cat food cans (3.5 oz) per meal, with chicken treats at tests and few here and there in his dish. He seems to come back to his food dish to get any remnants or ask for extra around +2, morning and evening. He also looks for (at least) a treat mid cycle, and if he keeps asking then, I give him a tablespoon or two of food between noon and 2. I take away the food in late afternoon, dishes are usually empty by then anyway.

So from how we started at the beginning with 3/4 big can (3/4 of 5oz) of food twice a day with nothing in between, he has spread things out a bit now. Maybe that is a factor here? He seems more contented to be able to eat a few times, not just morning and evening only. I know he’s a hoover kitty but even if he gets in on a bite or two of his brother’s food, which is exactly the same as his, he is not eating tons of food.

Thanks for the links on the syringes. Now that I look at the lines on the gif image you sent of the syringe markings, if I wanted to give .6 this morning, if I drew 1.5 (one full line on the right plus one line on the left) I should have been good. Plus the needles are shorter on these syringes. I was a bit worked up to make that call this morning. Now I can see what to do. Thank you for sending all that info.

I may have to get stronger bifocals to do these U100 syringes :mrgreen:

-d.
 
Yeah, some people use magnifying glasses.....

So, IF this is a pattern :mrgreen: , we can assume he is pretty carb sensitive. How that helps you is to know that if he ever gets into low numbers, try lo carb first. It may bring him up without bringing out the high carb. I can't remember exactly what flavors you feed, but you might check the food charts and see if you can feed flavors on the lower end of low carb. That may help bring down his numbers.
 
Right now we are feeding Blue Buffalo Wilderness canned. The consensus here (after a little back and forth) is that it is between 1 and 2% carb, so it is already low. And the ONLY other thing we feed him is baked chicken cubes for treats. Both cats eat exactly the same thing by design, since I know Asher always wants what his brother has ;)

I do have one can of his old purina canned food and a bag of unopened dry Greenies treats in the cabinet in case I need food (something other than karo syrup) with more carbs.

-d.
 
+7 is 311.

So I guess he’ll be pretty high tonight for pmps.

In a situation like this, do we go back up to our 2 units?

-d.
 
I wonder if you go back up to the 2 units, if you end up with a low amps and not be able to shoot a full dose tomorrow. Depending on your pmps, I think I would consider 1.75 or 2. Remember, there are no wrong or right answers. Just data.

The nice thing would to be able to give a safe dose every ps and keep it at that dose for several cycles. Of course, he is not making that very easy..... :mrgreen:
 
Yeah we were trying to stay at 2 units because we thought he’d end up around there. Who knows, just would like to avoid him back in the pink and red numbers again.

I guess we’ll check the pmps and take it from there. If he stays around mid 300s maybe the 1.75, but if he goes real high, then maybe 2?
And what might cause a bounce? Or is that inevitable when things are moving around like this?

-d.
 
It does seem like he reacts (bounces) often and he seems to bounce from numbers that are not really low (greens). Which makes it really hard to figure out how much to give him. But don't lose sight, Donna, of the blues you are seeing on a regular basis. You are definitely headed in the right direction. It is taking awhile because you are approaching it cautiously. Others might suggest dosing more aggressively - you really have never seen a low nadir - but you have to be ready to do that and feel like you can deal with it.
 
Yeah the last day we saw something low mid cycle was that 54, but we were only 9 days into it at the time. He showed no symptoms. (I had a lot of symptoms of freaking out). That’s the last time we shot 3 units.

My partner Tom is leaning towards giving 2 units again tonight. I am cool with that, I was just trying to avoid a bounce if 2 units would do that.
We are home all day tomorrow but have work Thurs afternoon and Friday all day. If we are going to be bold, I don’t want it to be on a day I am not here looking at Asher all day.

I’ll report in on the pmps. Me thinks he’ll start talking to us about food in 1.5 - 2 hours or so.
 
You know, you might send a pm to Gator or Joanna and ask them to take look at your spreadsheet. They haven't checked in lately and they may have a different take on your numbers.
 
Blue Buffalo Wilderness

Where did you get your breakdown of the Blue Buffalo Wilderness and the carbs?
The lowest that I have seen is a 2% and that was the kitten canned.
http://binkyspage.tripod.com/CanFoodNew.html

Looked on the Blue Buffalo site and they really don't have a breakdown.
It's pretty rare for a food to be that low in carbs. Some are listed as that low on
the chart but some of those I would wonder about since they are Wal-mart or
Sophisticat and not your more popular or/high end cat foods. Even the FF are 10%

Hate i missed that discussion.

Bebe and Little Man
 
The web link to the spreadsheet (Google Documents) is: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B8Uu8g ... NThk&hl=en

Gator sent me this after we had a discussion about the Blue Buffalo Wilderness and I used a food calculator to come up with the 1% carbs.
He was skeptical of figuring out the carbs that way, but in the document above, carbs are listed as 2 for the Wilderness, and apparently the calculations are done correctly on this list.
I am not too tech savvy on this but I understand it that you want to know the %Kcal from carbs. Not % carbs “as fed”.

Hope this helps.

-d.
 
BGs will usually go up after a shot, to address one comment I noticed above (if I understood right). The old shot is wearing off (or completely worn off) and the new shot hasn't kicked in yet. PZI onset is somewhere around +2 for many cats, so you would expect the BG to keep climbing until the new dose kicks in. If you have good overlap between shots (which many cats don't get), the #s can hold more flattish between shots, or at least not rise too dramatically.

For your SS on the 2/1 AM shot (sorry to seem picky!) you should put the actual # you shot on (164) in the PS column, as that is the actual PS. Otherwise people will think you actually shot on the 131 (I wouldn't count on people (guilty here!) reading all the notes). Then put in the notes that the shot was at +13. (Or I would usually put that in the next box, like the +1 box, at least at times when you don't have a BG reading at that time).

I like the 1.75 you shot tonight. 2 looks potentially too strong to me, and I probably wouldn't bother trying anything 1u or lower. You shot 1.5 on a similar PS on 1/30 and it looks like the dose was too low. Hopefully if you can get a spot check in tonight that will give you an idea how this dose did, and then you've got great data!

It looks like he is doing quite well with the lower carb food. I might try just a hair under 2u on the higher PSs and see if that flattens the curve a little. If you don't get good #s I'd go right back to 2u though. I'm thinking though that it might be a hair steep, with some of the drops from pink down to green, and then also the vast improvement in PSs like you saw today, from pinks AM to blues PM. Things look like they are shaping up really nicely to my eye though. You are seeing some picture-perfect PSs, so hopefully it's just a matter of finding the dose that will give you #s that are good but not too good, and then seeing if you can get some consistency with that. Fine-tuning is a great place to be!!!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top