Dosing advice

[Jaque Schitt]

For some reason buddy is fine during the day on .5 units but at night his numbers seem to stay blue overnight. Is the pm dose ok to do .75 or just stick with .5 and hope he comes down in a few days at night?

 

[Chris & China (GA)]

That is kind of unusual because most cats go lower at night but no, you don't want to give a different dose for the PM cycle.

Lantus craves consistency so needs to be given at the same dose both AM and PM. Part of the problem may be that you've given 0.5 sometimes in the last few days and 1.0 at others. Each time you change the dose, the depot has to stabilize before you know how well that dose is working. If you keep changing it, the depot never has the chance to stabilize and you can end up with wonky numbers.

If you're trying to do TR, he should be on 1.0. He hasn't earned a reduction yet. He has to drop below 68 on a pet meter (50 on a human meter) and when he does earn a reduction, you'd drop from 1.0 to .75. We only do dose decreases in .25 unit increments.

 

[Jaque Schitt]

That is kind of unusual because most cats go lower at night but no, you don't want to give a different dose for the PM cycle.

Lantus craves consistency so needs to be given at the same dose both AM and PM. Part of the problem may be that you've given 0.5 sometimes in the last few days and 1.0 at others. Each time you change the dose, the depot has to stabilize before you know how well that dose is working. If you keep changing it, the depot never has the chance to stabilize and you can end up with wonky numbers.

If you're trying to do TR, he should be on 1.0. He hasn't earned a reduction yet. He has to drop below 68 on a pet meter (50 on a human meter) and when he does earn a reduction, you'd drop from 1.0 to .75. We only do dose decreases in .25 unit increments.

The problem with giving him a higher dose during the day is nobody is able to monitor him beyond the 3 hour mark and I get panicked when he's at 80 and I have to leave for work. Husband is home all day but is on meds that makes him sleepy and he has no desire to wake up to test or to coax the cat from under the bed when he's hiding. Wednesday Rich got "LO" and instead of doing a retest just got carb treats and fed him those. I'm slowly working on getting him better at testing. Husband disability is epilepsy so sometimes he has difficulty remembering procedures.

 

[Bron and Sheba (GA)]

Have you thought about getting an automatic feeder so that you can leave food out for Buddy when you are not there? it’s not uncommon to see a Ss like Buddy’s where the BGs are green in the am and blue in the pm….or visa versa. I would stick with the same dose as well.
Are you giving the same food in the pm cycle as in the am cycle?

I can’t see the LO recorded on the SS anywhere.

 

[Jaque Schitt]

Have you thought about getting an automatic feeder so that you can leave food out for Buddy when you are not there? it’s not uncommon to see a Ss like Buddy’s where the BGs are green in the am and blue in the pm….or visa versa. I would stick with the same dose as well.
Are you giving the same food in the pm cycle as in the am cycle?

I can’t see the LO recorded on the SS anywhere.

I figured it was a false read so I didn't record it. Buddy was skittish for him after so I'm certain he was not actually low. But not doing a second test I don't know what the blood was. I stressed to him absolutely test a second time when you get a low read.

 

[Bron and Sheba (GA)]

I figured it was a false read so I didn't record it. Buddy was skittish for him after so I'm certain he was not actually low. But not doing a second test I don't know what the blood was. I stressed to him absolutely test a second time when you get a low read.

I would note that in the remarks column of the SS as it’s good data even if it’s suspect…thanks