Buddha's bean is totally confused

[Donna & Buddha]

Oh, bother. My weekend experiment of changing shot location from side to closer to shoulder AND feeding smaller amounts (Buddha will inhale whatever and however much I put in front of him) seemed to be working. On Friday I guided a HI amps down to a 217 pmps, with 2.2u. Friday evening I shot him with 2u, and his Saturday amps was 295. Cool. Gave him 2u and his bg went down to 84 at +5.5 (and he would have eaten then too). But later that afternoon, his bg went shooting up again. HI at pmps but back down to Sunday morning amps of 295.

And then today. Today. What happened today? He bg dropped down to 50 at +3. I fed him a fistful of Wellness Core Dry, and mixed a couple of drops of honey into wet food. Half an hour later, he's still at 50. So, Buddha had lots of dry food this afternoon and his pmps is HI. (And he jerked his ear while I was poking and it must of tore a bit and it was very gorey.)

Not a good day. So now my thought is that 2u is WAY too much. But now he's HI and he's chockful o'carbs. So ... what to shoot ...

Questions:
1. Is 50 too high a number to panic over? I watched the video at Cornell U. website and they call 80 hypo range. But you all seem to embrace 80 as a good target.
2. And then, do I have this correct, 50 on my Contour is probably 80 in cat terms?
3. Liver training. I've been hearing this a lot in discussions, what is it? Is there another term for this or a good source to read about what this is?
4. What does a glucose curve of a cat who doesn't need insulin but gets it anyway look like?

Any and all advice is appreciated.

 

[Joanna & Bix (GA)]

And then today. Today. What happened today? He bg dropped down to 50 at +3. I fed him a fistful of Wellness Core Dry, and mixed a couple of drops of honey into wet food. Half an hour later, he's still at 50. So, Buddha had lots of dry food this afternoon and his pmps is HI. (And he jerked his ear while I was poking and it must of tore a bit and it was very gorey.)

Not a good day. So now my thought is that 2u is WAY too much. But now he's HI and he's chockful o'carbs. So ... what to shoot ...

I would probably stick with this dose until you see good #s again, and then he may be on a dose reduction path. What happened with Bix was I had to go up to 1.8 to get action, but then as soon as he got good #s, his body started getting used to it and fighting it less and less (liver was in training), so almost every day or two I was reducing by 0.1u or 0.2u. If you see 50 at +3, then you know to reduce the dose (probably by 0.2u, but depends on what kind of PS you see) at the next shot. The rule of thumb I used is that if the PS was too low to shoot, or any mid-cycle # was too low, then I reduced immediately on the next shot.

If you are using a human meter, 50 is generally considered the low end, and 80 for cat meters. (following Dr. Rand here). Do you have a civie you can test? That can give you an idea of what is a good # for a non-diabetic on that meter. My civie tested 81 on my cat meter, and 54 on my human meter.

I wouldn't panic over 50 (ok, well *I* would panic, but that doesn't mean it's necessary!!!), but it's the low end of what is considered safe, and a little scary at +3. If it comes up again, my suggestion would be to give him a few bites of HC, and then retest every 30 minutes or so past nadir, giving a little more HC as needed along the way to keep the #s above 50 (but not shooting way up high if you can help it, though that's better than dropping too low). Sounds like that's what you did, so great job!!!

[ETA: I just saw you shot 1u tonite. That is fine! See how he does, but don't be shy about increasing the dose tomorrow if his #s go higher. You've made awesome progress the last couple days!!! My guess is his liver is calming down with the good #s, and that's why you are getting a better response now. So he probably doesn't need as much as 2 units, but he may end up needing something close to that for a bit.]

 

[Ele & Blackie (GA)]

Wow! You've had some weekend! I hope the week goes better. I think Joanna is on target. I too would get panicky, but not panic with a +3 50. But you handled it well, so give yourself some credit. I've tested my contour meters against the vet's blood test and it was a minimum of 20 pts lower than the vet's at numbers under 150-200. At higher numbers it was even more off. I think that's why Cornell's threshhold is different than here. I hope things calm down and Buddha helps you out.