OK, like I said earlier, I've been watching Jennifer's progress with Katie. She joined the first week of August, and quickly got on board with the whole test, diet change, dosing routine. A few times since then, she's posted various questions in Health, and I've responded, always looking at Katie's SS. What always struck me was how quickly she grasped the sliding scale thing.
When I was new to this, for like a month before I joined the board, my vet had me on a sliding scale. All she was really interested in was Bob's preshot numbers. I rarely got mid-cycle tests in. I had no clue, just went along with her directions. Bob went from 1u BID to 3u BID rather rapidly. At that time, we had a long conversation on the phone and she gave me the guidelines for adjusting his dosage based solely on his pre-shot tests. I don't recall exactly what they were off the top of my head, but they were in whole unit or half unit increments. So it was like "if Bob is over 300, shoot 3, between 200 and 300, shoot 2, below that shoot 1 and if he's under 100, call me asap."
So that's what I did from that point forward. Once Bob got up to 4u BID, I decided to take things into my own hands, and came up with my own scale. I started reducing his overall daily intake, and stepped down instead of up, but again, in whole or half unit increments. I remember many days, more often than not, where he'd have on PS lower significantly that the other, so I started giving him doses based on his PS readings, and they were rarely the same dose AM and PM. Some days it was 2.5 at night, and 1u the next morning, based on the numbers. Amazingly, his numbers rapidly came down day and night, and within 4 or 5 weeks, he went OTJ.
The other thing that impressed me every time I looked at Katie's SS was the amounts of insulin Jennifer was shooting into "low" numbers. Again, it reminded me so much of how I treated Bob. ECID, but it almost seemed like Bob and Katie were twins. I regularly shot Bob 1 or 2 units into Blues, I even shot him a couple times when he was "green". I didn't realize it was "wrong", and I'd seen him not flinch from those in the past. The lowest number I ever got was a 44 but while I might have been a bit concerned, and kept watching him closely, I didn't reach for the caro syrup, and he never displayed anything "hypo" indicative. So, when I saw that kind of dosing being done with Jennifer and Katie, it always impressed me, because it seemed to work well, and because she seemed to have a really good feel for what she could and couldn't do with a dose.
Sidebar - about a month and a half ago, I was reading a thread by Mel (momma of muse) and Lori (and tom), where they were talking about dosing and stuff, and they swapped posts using the term "BOS". It was the first time I'd seen it used, so naturally like a newbie I posted "excuse me, I'm not familiar with the lingo - what does BOS mean?" Well, after they got done giggling (I'm sure they were), one of them tactfully explain it this way: "Part of the male anatomy, Of Steel...lol" and the other added "that rythyms with 'falls' cause sometimes you need them when shooting low numbers!".
OK, whenever I saw the dosing with Katie, my first thought was "Wow, Jennifer must have BOS". She shot a 1.5 into a 190, and a 1.0 into a 160. I just counted 17 times where she shot something into a blue pre-shot. She never got into the high doses like I did, but she had a lot of confidence it looks like, with shooting blues knowing that Katie wouldn't go too low. And even when she saw those high pink and red numbers, she didn't go crazy and adjust too much higher. Really good instincts, and a good bit of BOS.
I hope she does come over and wants to talk about how/why she did what she did, because there may be other kitties who can benefit from it. There's also one thing that seems to be a recurring problem with Katie, and that is diarrhea. I know it happened recently, and I can remember a couple other times over the weeks where she's posted that Katie is having a problem with loose stools. I think she's taken Katie to the vet about it, but so far they haven't figured it out. No parasites, according to her latest posts, but I was thinking it might be some sort of lingering infection somewhere along the digestive tract, and I hope she is able to find out what it is and can get it fixed. Katie appears to be ready to go "you-know-where", and it would stink if an infection or some other condition were to set her back.
Carl
(it would make me very nervous to not be testing every 2 hours though with low greens like that, I think that's why I was so shocked...but that's just me, I worry a lot lol!)
