Does anyone's cat "throw a low" at random?

[MaryB & Chester]

Last night, everything seemed normal. Chester gave us a 400+, then his regular shot (same old insulin), regular food, regular everything.
This morning, he tested at 42 (!!) I triple checked it - twice on the Vital (42, 45), once on the Alpha Trak (68). No shot for Chester!
That's a scary number. He seemed fine - bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and just as happy to see us as usual. WTH?
I'm waiting on a lunch test.

I would prefer if Chester's "sugar dance" didn't resemble a mosh pit...

 

[Hope + (((Baby)))GA]

Mishka has done this many times over the course of almost 10 years.....just recently a 53 one night and a 32 one morning. Same food, same dose, and it wasn't the phase of the full moon either. Other morning MC was at 38! I don't trust either of them and have never given a shot without testing first, many times I do a test about 2 hrs. before feeding and shooting so if I get a good number I will know if they are still going down or on their way back up. Both cats bright and perky while my heart raced :lol: One night MC was in the 300's, fed her, shot her and at +2 she had already dropped 200 points! She also kept dropping and decided she wouldn't eat a thing. Long night with testing and karo. I also test before I have to go out just to be sure. Mishka has done this on U, IDEXX and now BCP so it's not the insulin....it's the cat having fun with me.

 

[Larry and Kitties]

Yes, my Patches gave me a PS of 46 a few days ago.

 

[BJM]

There are numerous factors which mediate the blood glucose levels. Insulin, food, and water are the only ones we steer externally. Hormones, neurotransmitters, activity levels, manufacturing food batch and more all may have an impact on the glucose levels.

 

[Squeaky and KT (GA)]

Oh KT is the KING of doing that to me! Took me a long time to figure out what was happening with HIM. He sleeps soundly - he slept all night, didn't get up and eat anything after his shot time meal thus the insulin had no food to support that cycle. It happens every once in a while during the day but mostly overnight. A lot of times, even a +6 doesn't show me anything more than a good number off his PMPS BUT that number just keeps going DOWN instead of up. I changed his shot schedule so I can get a +10 as soon as I get up in the morning. He grazes all day so it usually doesn't happen in daylight hours... ;-) This works best for US!

BIG HUGS! I don't particularly care for that particular step either...

 

[MaryB & Chester]

Maybe that was it - he overslept! I-)

 

[Lisa and Witn (GA)]

Oh yea, that has happened to me lots of times and with different cats and different insulins.

At least once a week I get a low number from Ricky. Most of the times they are between 70 - 90, but every once in a while it is around 50. This also happened with Witn & Spot (both GAs). My vet thought that I was nuts until I had to go out of town and boarded them with her. I left very detailed instructions that included testing before every shot with my meters. Fortunately they did follow my instructions exactly and saw what I was talking about. I have had it happened both on Lantus and BCP PZI.

As we all know, ECID (every cat is different) and also ESID (every shot is different). ;-) ;-) ;-)

 

[Simon'sMommy]

So really, if you are working and leaving them during the day, you run the risk of having them hypo while you are gone, even if you are pretty sure of their patterns? YIKES. How do you live a life with this? We are not here during the weekday although my hubby is rushing home to test at +6 so we can be sure during this fragile first month or so. Also, since many go lower at night, what happens when we are asleep can't be monitored either. nailbite_smile

 

[Deb & Wink]

One way to help with that 'going low at night', is to leave some food out. Many cats will instinctively eat to raise their numbers back up.

 

[Wendy&Tiggy(GA)]

I am losing my mind. I am SURE I posted here.

I think what I said was, I havent read back through your posts but are you sure this is random?? he seems to throw a green that you catch every so often but I would bet dollars to donuts there are greens you are missing - and after a green he bounces to a red or black!!. You can see for example on the night of April 1 how you got a mid cycle green in between a red and black. He could well be doing that every cycle - or every few cycles.

If he was my cat I would spend 3 days doing more tests - to see if you can "curve" him and catch that low. Maybe every 3-4 hours even at night.

42 means a dose decrease anyway.

Wendy

 

[KPassa]

Remember, nadir is only typically +5 to +7 hours after a shot. I've caught Mikey doing this a few times where he nadirs at his next shot time and even a couple of hours after his next shot time (when he ends up with a double nadir). This is one of the reasons you have to "shoot low to stay low" sometimes.

I also purposefully shoot Mikey in the scruff whenever I'm nervous about shooting low because I know when I shoot in the scruff vs. the flanks, his nadir is often delayed by about 2 to 4 hours.

Another factor is that insulin absorption rate can also vary. There's a discussion over in the Think Tank about micro-dosing and one of the posts contains a link to a study done about this.

Quoting from a recent post on another FD site:

Dr. Bernstein is a diabetic who found out that low-carb foods were the key to controlling his diabetes and wrote several books on the subject. It may explain some of the weirdnesses we all see from day to day:

When you inject insulin, not all of it reaches your bloodstream. Research has shown that there’s a level of uncertainty as to just how much absorption of insulin actually takes place. The more insulin you use, the greater the level of uncertainty.

When you inject insulin, you’re putting beneath your skin a substance that isn’t, according to your immune system’s way of seeing things, supposed to be there. So a portion of it will be destroyed as a foreign substance before it can reach the bloodstream. The amount that the body can destroy depends on several factors. First is how big a dose you inject. The bigger the dose, the more inflammation and irritation you cause, and the more of a “red flag” you send up to your immune system. Other factors include the depth, speed, and location of your injection.

A number of years ago, researchers at the University of Minnesota demonstrated that if you inject about 20 units of insulin into your arm, you’ll get on average a 39 percent variation in the amount that makes it into the bloodstream from one day to the next...

http://web.archive.org/web/20080122100350/http://www.diabetes-normalsugars.com/book/chapter7.shtml

 

[KPassa]

So really, if you are working and leaving them during the day, you run the risk of having them hypo while you are gone, even if you are pretty sure of their patterns? YIKES. How do you live a life with this? We are not here during the weekday although my hubby is rushing home to test at +6 so we can be sure during this fragile first month or so. Also, since many go lower at night, what happens when we are asleep can't be monitored either. nailbite_smile

What I personally do after having monitored Mikey for months to gauge his reaction is that I'll sometimes shoot his morning dose a half hour late (and sometimes his evening dose a half hour early). That way, if he's going to throw low numbers, it'll be at night when I'm home to monitor. He does run a little higher during the day, but since it's only a half-hour to an hour dose variance, he's still hitting greens. This is not "by the book," so I add the disclaimer to follow at your own risk!

Another thing I do is leave his "higher carb" (8%) food out if I won't be around. Mikey is really carb sensitive and just the difference between 5% and 8% can increase his BGs ~20-50 points. And he's an eater when he starts getting into lower numbers. I've been on hypo watch with him more times than I can count and I've never had to intervene since he's never dropped into hypo because he just grazes his numbers along for hours at a time. :mrgreen: