alicia.1771
Member
Boy it has been a while since my last post...Life has been very busy with work and packing/moving/unpacking and taking care of Beau on my own. We're still in the process of settling into our new space and I'm living amongst piles of boxes that have yet to be unpacked.
Where do I even begin? Let see...we have gone through a few dose reduction trials since mid August and Beau has dropped to the blue zone a few times on various doses (0.8, 1.2, 1.8, 2.0, 1.6, f1.2). The rest of the times he cruises in the yellow, pink, and red zones with an occasional black PS. We have not seen a green since 8/9 and it seems every time I try to increase his dose we get into the red/black zone even if he did not drop low at nadir. There is almost no consistency with him when it comes to dosage and BG #'s. A few times I felt like giving up but then he would give me a good day and hope to carry me on. Then the bad days come and the seemingly endless cycle continues. It's amazing how one can get used to the pink and red zones and be ecstatic to see yellow when before the yellow and blue zones were the norm.
Other happenings during this time: Beau had one bout of bloody urine in late August so we did an urine culture and abdominal x-ray to rule out UTI and stones and he was put on antibiotic Orbax once a day for 14 days. Both tests came back negative but we continued the antibiotic in preparation for his dental, which was done on 9/6 with a total of 3 extractions. His numbers looked promising after the dental, dropping to as low as 116 at nadir. Once the Orbax was finished he had a flat day and I started to decrease his dose since per vet his BG would be elevated while on Orbax and now we have taken care of possible infections (dental, bladder) I felt a dose reduction trial seemed reasonable since chronic rebound was always on the back of my head as he appeared to be quite sensitive to insulin from the beginning and would sometimes respond better to reduced doses. Looking back though I wish I had hold the doses a little longer on a few occasions instead of reacting to the BG readings. For example, if I had held the 2.0 for a few more days after 9/11 or the f1.2 after 9/19, we may have seen some better numbers (or not). But having done the dance for almost 3 months now it's still hard for me to hold the dose when the numbers are (seemingly) getting worse.
Anyway, fast forward to the present. I was feeling down again over the weekend because I just could not get Beau out of the high pink and red zones for most of the day and that for sure was not good for him. Our vet has commented that Beau is having duration issues with ProZinc since he can drop but just can't hold the drop for long and had suggested we switch to Lantus. I had thought about it on several occasions but had been too scared to go forward with the switch, not quite sure why, maybe it was the strict 12/12 schedule or the totally different mechanism of action between the 2 insulin. Either way, I was so frustrated with not been able to get him into a more regulated zone that I started reading up on Lantus over the weekend and had decided last night that we will go ahead with the switch and I was going to contact the vet for a prescription this week. Then what do you know, BAM! tonight he throws me a yellow PS!
Not sure why he’s giving me such good numbers tonight. I did notice before his PM feeding he was licking his mouth like he was having an upset stomach but he ate his dinner fine. At +2 check-up I found evidence of vomiting on the floor. He is one of those cats that eat his own vomit if there is food in it (yes, gross). But if the vomit only has liquid/bile he will leave it alone. I wonder if that contributed to the steep drop tonight? One thing I have also started doing differently this past week is adding water to his feedings (4x/day) which he seemed to enjoy quite a bit; and also injecting on the sides of the body further away from the shoulders. I don’t know. Beau is a mystery to me but I love him
AMPS - 389
+5.5 - 260
PMPS - 292, 277, 315 (30 min span)
+2 - 247
+4 - 119 :shock: Looks like I will be up for a while…fed his normal pm snack
+5 - 106
+6 - 118 fed another 1/4 FFC as he seemed hungry
I'm almost afraid to even imagin what tomorrow's AMPS will be like. I really hope we are finally on to the path of regulation.
Where do I even begin? Let see...we have gone through a few dose reduction trials since mid August and Beau has dropped to the blue zone a few times on various doses (0.8, 1.2, 1.8, 2.0, 1.6, f1.2). The rest of the times he cruises in the yellow, pink, and red zones with an occasional black PS. We have not seen a green since 8/9 and it seems every time I try to increase his dose we get into the red/black zone even if he did not drop low at nadir. There is almost no consistency with him when it comes to dosage and BG #'s. A few times I felt like giving up but then he would give me a good day and hope to carry me on. Then the bad days come and the seemingly endless cycle continues. It's amazing how one can get used to the pink and red zones and be ecstatic to see yellow when before the yellow and blue zones were the norm.
Other happenings during this time: Beau had one bout of bloody urine in late August so we did an urine culture and abdominal x-ray to rule out UTI and stones and he was put on antibiotic Orbax once a day for 14 days. Both tests came back negative but we continued the antibiotic in preparation for his dental, which was done on 9/6 with a total of 3 extractions. His numbers looked promising after the dental, dropping to as low as 116 at nadir. Once the Orbax was finished he had a flat day and I started to decrease his dose since per vet his BG would be elevated while on Orbax and now we have taken care of possible infections (dental, bladder) I felt a dose reduction trial seemed reasonable since chronic rebound was always on the back of my head as he appeared to be quite sensitive to insulin from the beginning and would sometimes respond better to reduced doses. Looking back though I wish I had hold the doses a little longer on a few occasions instead of reacting to the BG readings. For example, if I had held the 2.0 for a few more days after 9/11 or the f1.2 after 9/19, we may have seen some better numbers (or not). But having done the dance for almost 3 months now it's still hard for me to hold the dose when the numbers are (seemingly) getting worse.
Anyway, fast forward to the present. I was feeling down again over the weekend because I just could not get Beau out of the high pink and red zones for most of the day and that for sure was not good for him. Our vet has commented that Beau is having duration issues with ProZinc since he can drop but just can't hold the drop for long and had suggested we switch to Lantus. I had thought about it on several occasions but had been too scared to go forward with the switch, not quite sure why, maybe it was the strict 12/12 schedule or the totally different mechanism of action between the 2 insulin. Either way, I was so frustrated with not been able to get him into a more regulated zone that I started reading up on Lantus over the weekend and had decided last night that we will go ahead with the switch and I was going to contact the vet for a prescription this week. Then what do you know, BAM! tonight he throws me a yellow PS!
Not sure why he’s giving me such good numbers tonight. I did notice before his PM feeding he was licking his mouth like he was having an upset stomach but he ate his dinner fine. At +2 check-up I found evidence of vomiting on the floor. He is one of those cats that eat his own vomit if there is food in it (yes, gross). But if the vomit only has liquid/bile he will leave it alone. I wonder if that contributed to the steep drop tonight? One thing I have also started doing differently this past week is adding water to his feedings (4x/day) which he seemed to enjoy quite a bit; and also injecting on the sides of the body further away from the shoulders. I don’t know. Beau is a mystery to me but I love him
AMPS - 389
+5.5 - 260
PMPS - 292, 277, 315 (30 min span)
+2 - 247
+4 - 119 :shock: Looks like I will be up for a while…fed his normal pm snack
+5 - 106
+6 - 118 fed another 1/4 FFC as he seemed hungry
I'm almost afraid to even imagin what tomorrow's AMPS will be like. I really hope we are finally on to the path of regulation.
I wish you very very much luck with Beau I will watch and see how you are doing and if I try anything with callie and it works I will let you know, hang in there ! :YMHUG: cat_pet_icon cat_pet_icon