? AMPS 725 - when to test today?

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Panic

Panic

Member Since 2019
Morning FD forum!

I just tested little Panic this morning - Alphatrak read HI so I tested again a couple minutes later and it was at 725. I was not home last night to test (had family member give insulin of course) so I don't have a reading of last night any. I'm still learning about best times to test so I was just curious when I should do it and see if she's going down any? She just got 4u a few minutes ago, yesterday I tested for ketones and she was negative.

Prozinc is coming tomorrow so I'm excited to switch her to something better but in the meantime Vetsulin it is!
 
Tested +2.5 Alphatrak reads HI (750+). Someone mentioned previously it looked like she has a later onset so I was expecting it to still be high at this point.
 
Panic's pattern of BG seems odd for Vetsulin with BG elevating instead of dropping within a few hours of shots. Is Panic still on steroids? If steroids are no longer in the picture, that could be naturally lowering her need for insulin. Any history of DKA?
You only gave a dose of 2u on June 9th at a pre-shot of 536 and PMPS was down substantially. I have to honestly wonder if the dose is too high and her body is fighting it. If there is no history of DKA I'd be inclined to drop the dose to 3u and see if that brings her numbers down at all? From the spreadsheet it looks like you went from 2 to 4u which is a very big increase of insulin. We recommend dose changes in increments of 0.25u to 0.5u at the most to ensure the best dose is not totally missed.
I don't think you need to keep testing at this point today.
 
She is no longer on steroids, no. She was on and off for a long time (long story, basically I didn't realize the pills the former vet was giving me for her flea allergy was a steroid and just said to give once a week) but she has not been on steroids for at least a year, probably two. I do not know if her FD is steroid induced with it being so long since she was on it, just an uneducated guess.

My current vet did indeed jump her too fast in units in my opinion and some other members suspect she is on too high a dose.

No history of DKA thankfully, I've been asking PZI forum what her new dose should be when the insulin arrives because I personally feel 4u is too high. I will ask what they think of 3u.

Thanks for the advice, I will leave her alone until PMPS time.
 
@MrWorfMen's Mom I should mention - she had 2u on June 9th because she wouldn't eat enough for a full dose but her numbers were still high. She did not eat hardly anything that day - normally she will consume about 9oz food a day -we are not concerned about her eating too much because she is very underweight. So no food spikes that day I imagine.

I understand you/everyone here are not vets but would it be wise to change her Vetsulin dose to 3u for now? She will start her Prozinc on Friday when I'm home all day to monitor.
 
The lack of food may have played into the lower reading on the 9th PM but with the reduced dose given may have played a role too. I'm more concerned about those black readings and would try the lower dose with the Vetsulin. Your ProZinc dosing will take your results with Vetsulin into consideration so just as well to try to find a better dose with Vetsulin than to wait till you start the ProZinc. If you lower the dose with Vetsulin and can get at least one test per cycle you'll get an idea of whether the reduction is helping or not.
 
Thank you - would it be ok if I started 3u tonight then or wait until morning when I'm awake? Any particular +hours I should aim for to test? Still learning!
 
my personal opinion, only mine -- arrange the test, feed, shoot hours for your own convenience -- when you are awake, when you can do followup testing, when Panic is available, to match with your day to day responsibilities and routines .. consistency is an excellent idea when dealing with sugarcats

even more so as you switch to a different insulin -- has been more "wiggle room" with Vetsulin since it rarely lasts a full cycle
 
It's up to you. Personally I never did dose increases at night but would do decreases. I don't think Panic is going to immediately throw you any low numbers so if you could get a test before bed tonight if that is in the +3 to +4 post shot timeframe, that will tell you how things are going i.e. whether he is dropping slowly, fast, a lot or just staying pretty flat then you can take action with food if need be to slow him down or if he's just coasting, curl up in bed and gets some shuteye.
 
Sorry for the late reply (back from work), I thought about it and decided I would try her on 3u tonight and stay up a little late to monitor, maybe it'll help her to have a better cycle tomorrow. She still read 743 at PMPS but like Candy said Vetsulin has long worn off haha. I will see if I can get a +3 or +4 tonight. :bighug: Just want this sugar baby to feel better!
 
+3 she is at 489! Never thought I'd be happy to see a high 400s but after nothing but 700s today I'm relieved. I know it's still really high but I'm not sure if I should be feeding her a little to help ease the drop or not.
 
Just seeing this now. I doubt Panic went much lower last night but that was quite the drop and may cause another bounce. Don't be upset if her BG is up again this AM. It's a natural phenomenon and it will take a few cycles to get a better idea of what 3u dose can really do for Panic.
Anytime you see a major drop such as last night, it's fine to offer some LC food if for no reason than to try to slow down the drop to help keep the bouncing to a minimum. Since Panic drops a lot fairly early in the cycle you could try feeding her pre-shot and another snack at about +2 to see if that helps slow the drop.
 
That's okay, I figured everyone else was asleep by then. I got a +4 last night to double check and she was 420. This morning AMPS was 384 :D

I will give her a +2 snack today and see how she does. I'm happy to see some lower numbers even if they are short-lived. Very appreciative of your insight with her. :)
 
Not too bad so far! +2 she's at 389.

I'm bummed though because that was my last Alphatrak strip...hate to switch meters in the middle of the day. :/
 
Best to pick a meter and stick with it. It's much easier to get strips for the human meter but if you choose to use the AT2 then you really have to be sure to keep a supply on hand. I always kept an extra vial of strips in my hypo kit and every time I got a new supply, I switched out the vial in the hypo kit.
Sticking to one meter also makes it easier to really see what is going on with kitty. The difference between human and pet meter readings will get confusing and make dosing decisions more difficult.
 
doesn't really make logical sense either, but the numbers you see on the human meter, don't at first glance look as scary as those on the AlphaTrak

if they're high, they're high, and you'll see the same color coding on a spreadsheet designed for human meters with the ReliOn values,. as you would with the numbers from the AlphaTrak on the spreadsheet designed for the pet meter

always a good idea to have an emergency supply of extra strips --- of course I had to, I get too many error messages for "not enough blood" and wind up having to load a second test strip and often re-stick poor Catcat because the initial drop has coagulated
 
I ended up running out of the human meter strips because Walmart was out of stock and had to ship them...at the same time I got the AT2 in the mail and wanted to use up the few strips they came with because they were expiring soon. Definitely not my intention to flip flop but I did want to try them both out. I prefer the AT2 because understanding the numbers are definitely easier but the strip prices are probably going to keep me on the Relion.
 
CandyH and Catcat said:
if they're high, they're high, and you'll see the same color coding on a spreadsheet designed for human meters with the ReliOn values,. as you would with the numbers from the AlphaTrak on the spreadsheet designed for the pet meter
Click to expand...

I hadn't thought about this - does this mean that (for example) a blue number will always be a good number, whether it came from a pet or human meter? And obviously a red/black number will always be bad? I hope that made sense haha.
 
yep, within the limits of the spreadsheet setup -- obviously numbers near the separation lines between colors, could be read as being either --
say, for example, your 394 is pink, but it's not much different from your 420 which is red; well within the 15% that meters are allowed to vary

or taking from my spreadsheet == very little difference between 204 (yellow) and 194 (blue) -- though it's the lower blues and the mid to upper dark greens, that are what we're eventually aiming for

further to that, we'd need to ask the originator of the spreadsheets, name is not on tip of my tongue at the moment, I'm preoccurpied ...
 
The colour coding on the spreadsheet, while somewhat indicative of good or bad is simply split into 100 point increments other than in the lime and dark green ranges. On the human meter SS, the dark green is 50 to 99 & the lime green is 49 or less. On the pet meter, dark green is 68 to 99 and lime green is 67 or less due to the difference in the meter readings. The difference in readings at higher ranges is not indicated on the spreadsheet because they really don't matter......they are just interpreted a bit differently.
The goal is for normal range BG and preferably the lower/mid range of normal rather than the top end. Normal on the human meter is 50 to 120 and on the pet meter it's 68 to 150 (some labs say up to 175).
 
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