Dosing help-tweaking the scale

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Teresa and Poopy

Teresa and Poopy

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Ok. I am lost and need help. Even after upping Poopy's dose I'm not seeing any change in numbers. SS is up to date.

Recap for today:
AMPS 276, shot 2.0u and fed 5.5 oz. (done eating by +1)
+3 316 (figure food related from breakfast at AMPS)
+5 225
+7 211 and fed 3 oz.

All food is 4% carb. With or without food, Poopy is running high (200-300s) with an occasion dip below 200.

Any ideas? Suggestions? Thoughts? In all other ways he seems fine (except a bit larger urine deposits).
 
Re: Dosing help

Well, he is still headed down so let's see where that goes. You have gotten lots of nice regulation range numbers with many different doses.

Let's see what others think, but if he doesn't have a longer, lower end of the cycle, I think you could increase.
 
Re: Dosing help

Looks to me like you have room to increase a bit if you’re around to test and keep an eye on him. But I am one of those “keep the pressure on” kind of folks, so FWIW.
 
Re: Dosing help

At first glance, I said "increase" too, but then I saw the sliding scale doses, and saw that you've been shooting the 2.0 consistently and I'm thinking....

It looks like on the two recent cycles that you shot 2.0 into a number below 300, you got similar results. A higher number at +3 or +4 than he started out the cycle with. On the days you shot 2 into a number over 300, you don't see that. It looks like he goes down like he's supposed to. I'm wondering if 2.0 isn't too much on a lower PS and it's causing some sort of unwanted BG rise. I don't see numbers that would be likely to cause a "bounce" from going too low, just odd that he reacts to that dose differently with a lower PS number.

Carl
 
Re: Dosing help

In a way I think like y'all do - increase. But increasing to 2.0u hasn't done a thing to lower his numbers...and he was getting even better numbers before the last increase. So I'm just lost.

Part of me is saying to go back to where we were on the scale before the food mutiny...when we were getting pretty yellow pre-shots and nice blue nadirs. Another part of me is saying, "Are you nuts!?! His numbers are higher, shoot higher!"

I've got to shoot him soon (my, that sounds bad) so....I think I'm going to go back to the old scale and see what that does. Would rather shoot too low than too high, right? Maybe we'll see something, anything! If shooting lower doesn't work, then I'll have to go higher.
 
Re: Dosing help

Holy Cow! Poopy's PMPS? 442! I went ahead and shot 1.6u. Thought about shooting higher but didn't want to react with emotions. This is so tough.

What could have helped lead to a higher BG? We just got back from visiting my mom (45 minute drive each way) and Poopy was not a happy camper the whole trip, even at mom's house. He was growling and hissing at everything...until the ride home and he calmed down but still wasn't pleased.

He also may have eaten a bit while I was in the office on the computer...so he could have eaten a bit an hour or less ago.

I'll check him again at +3 (should be done eating within an hour so that would be 2 hours after eating) for comparison.
 
Re: Dosing help

Retest? Could have been stress also. It sounds like for Poopy it might have been the equivalent of a vet visit and that can up numbers by 100 in some cats.
 
Re: Dosing help

Thanks, Sue. That's what I'm hoping. In less than 2 hours I'll be testing him again so we'll see. I didn't want to do another test at PMPS due to all the previous stress, ya know?
 
Re: Dosing help

+3 304 - quite a drop from the 442 in 3 hours. Will test again in an hour or two - depending on how he is and how long I can stay awake.
 
Re: Dosing help

+5 245 - not much different than the AM cycle, but with less insulin. Will stay the course for 3/17 AM and see what it shows. (Forgot to hit submit last night after typing this. That's what happens when I stay up past bedtime on purpose! LOL)
 
Re: Dosing help

AMPS is ugly at 429. Probably should have gone back to the 2.0u but still half asleep. Can always up dose this evening if numbers call for it.

It's really been bugging me about the higher than expected numbers so I've been doing a lot of thinking (which isn't always good! :lol: ). I'm on the last 1/4 or so on the bottle of ProZinc, the food cans all say "new and improved" or some such, and I'm using u100 syringes without the 1/2 unit markings (not that I think the syringes have anything to do with it as I'm careful about the dosing but heck, I'm looking for differences).

From other posts I know it's possible the insulin is losing it's Oomph, I've checked the food ingredients and don't see anything harmful now added (other than Brewers Yeast now added but my research says that shouldn't be a problem), and I've been very careful about the dosing amounts with the syringes. Any thoughts or suggestions?
 
Re: Dosing help

Teresa and Poopy said:
Holy Cow! Poopy's PMPS? 442! ...

What could have helped lead to a higher BG? We just got back from visiting my mom (45 minute drive each way) and Poopy was not a happy camper the whole trip, even at mom's house.
Click to expand...

Sorry I'm a little late responding to last nights shot, but I have to say, visiting MY mom sometimes has that effect on me! :lol: Don't know that Poopy has the same issues as me, but I can only imagine how fun it was to ride in the car for that long! Mom tells me I'm much nicer after 2 hours in the air than 20 hours behind the wheel - imagine that!

Yesterdays 316 could've been stress induced, followed by a PMPS that reflected the trip. The 304 was almost a yellow, and he was clearly coming down, so I don't know that I'd be too startled by the pinks or even the red, given the ride.

With my limited knowledge, it looks like he typically has between a 35-50% drop during a cycle. I think the desired drop is in the 50-60% range - right? So maybe he does need that slight increase to get him "over the hump"?

... or maybe just a threat about being pinched if he doesn't show us some green today? :mrgreen:
 
Re: Dosing help

+3 259 - now that's a drop! And on only 1.6u! That's, what, a 30% drop in 3 hours, and 2 hours after finished eating? I'll keep an eye on him and test again in 2 hours, if not sooner.

I was hoping the bump up to 2.0u would have given him a better drop and was actually surprised at how high the numbers remained, even during the cycle. Just not real sure what is causing the higher number trend. If I could afford it, I'd get a new bottle of ProZinc to test out the Oomph. I'll just have to make do with what I have and go from there.

I'm always sure to thoroughly mix the insulin so I'd hoped it would stay the same strength throughout the bottle but who knows. Grrrrr.

I've written the makers of Special Kitty to get the As Fed Values so we'll see what they have to say.

Back when I put Poopy on the same food for a week, his numbers were pretty darn good - yellow PSs with nice dips down into the blues, and he was getting 1.4-1.5u (week of 2/5-2/10). After the food mutiny and me bumping up the dose a couple times, the numbers have just gotten higher. After bumping up this last time to the 2.0u, I had hoped to see lower numbers but the higher number trend continued, with funky numbers on the lower PSs.

I may need to go higher with Poop. I just am not sure yet. I'll see what happens with this cycle.

I appreciate everyone's thoughts and suggestions. I am listening. :-D
 
Re: Dosing help

+10 264 (no food since +6)

While I'm not thrilled with the numbers, they really aren't that much different than the 2.0u dose. Wonder what PMPS will be.......

Also makes me wonder if I should lower the dose a bit.

Where, oh where is the crystal ball?
 
Re: Dosing help

PMPS 361, shot 1.6u, fed 5.5 oz.

Better than the red. :dizcat

Guess I'm going to need to make a decision come morning. Stay lower or go higher.
 
After encouragement from Robin (and thank you again! :smile: ) I've gone back over my data and have tweaked Poopy's scale a bit. I considered the February and March numbers, AMPS versus PMPS and doses, with an eye to how low the BGs might have gone during the cycle. I was surprised to see trends! I transferred all the data to Excel, sorted in a variety of ways, highlighted great dose results, and - voila! - here's the tweaked sliding scale:

Sliding scale:
151-200 1.3u
201-250 1.4u
251-300 1.5u
301-350 1.6u
351-375 1.7u
375-400 1.8u
>400 2.0u (updated 3/17)

Please don't hesitate to share if you think it should be tweaked more. :-D
 
I sure hope so too, Robin. These higher numbers have me worried.

I was surprised to see how Poopy reacts to insulin when he's in the 300s. The lower half (300-350) he did best with the 1.6u, but it wasn't as good with the higher. And 1.7u just wasn't enough at the highest end of the 300s, and 1.8u at the mid was just too much (numbers flatter or too much of a following PS dip).

AMPS 380 so shot 1.8u. Negative ketones.
 
Looks like a really good sliding scale for the Poopster. I need to follow your example and do some analysis for myself on Grayson! I'm sure there are trends I'm missing as well!

Thanks for pulling my head outa the sand!
 
After tweaking the scale, I was a bit nervous about today's numbers:

AMPS 380, shot 1.8u
+4 254
+7 257
PMPS 285 (Yellow!), shot 1.5u

Unbelievable! The cycle numbers weren't that great, but I do like seeing a pretty yellow at the end of it. Hoping to see his numbers drop overall.
 
AMPS 288, shot 1.5u.

I think the higher doses were causing Poopy to have the higher numbers. I also discovered earlier this weekend Poopy has been helping himself to DH's milk. DH pours himself a glass of milk and leaves it by the bed to drink during the night. The glass is large enough for Poopy to get his head into far enough to lap milk, the little stinker. We're dealing with this issue (different container with a cover). I wonder how many carbs are in milk? :lol:
 
They certainly are good at finding new naughty stuff to do :lol:
Good luck with your new scale. The yellow pre shots are great!
 
Teresa and Poopy said:
AMPS 288, shot 1.5u.

I think the higher doses were causing Poopy to have the higher numbers.
Click to expand...

Hi Theresa, typing this from my cell so pls forgive any typos. I have notices that your statement above seems to be true with regard to Poop. You had great success when you were dosing lower. Going more aggressive on the dose seemed to have pushed him into higher numbers as I cannot recall when I have ever seen Poopy throw a number above 400. No access to Goole docs to confirm that. Even though Im not on as much ( stupid laptop) I try to follow everyone's SS.

It seems like you had greater success previously, when the dose was lower...the preshots were always in the 200's. I know you have been trying to get a drop with the nadir but seems like he isn't adapting to that as well as he could. He seemed to be under renal threshold for the majority of the time previously. Perhaps the higher end of the dose is too high?
 
You may have a very valid point, Lisa, and something along the same lines has been eating at my gut. We shall see what this next cycle shows as his PMPS was 379 so I shot a 1.8.

Here's something odd...after polishing off the whole 5.5 oz within an hour this morning, I left another 5.5 oz out when I left for work, knowing I couldn't make a run home during the day. I come home to virtually none of it gone. If any is gone, it's sure hard to tell. And with the higher PS, I'm wondering if it's rebound related and he dipped lower today. Not likely, but a possibility. Poopy is currently in the kitchen eating as if starved.

I used to feed both kitties 2 13 oz cans per day, with little to none left over. Now it seems they hardly eat three 5.5 oz cans a day as I end up throwing a half to a whole can worth away. I wonder what would happen if I only fed them the two cans?
 
Hi Teresa,
If you only fed them 2 cans then they would begging you for three!
I am just not sure about Poopy so I say stick with the scale and I will
cross everything or you both that he stays in good numebrs!
 
dmartini4 said:
If you only fed them 2 cans then they would begging you for three!
Click to expand...

Or poor Mia would waste away! Poopy doesn't hesitate to shoo her away from her bowl. ohmygod_smile

And thanks for keeping things crossed. :lol:
 
Oh Teresa,

Hope you can figure out Poppy soon. I've been holding dose on copper now for almost 2wks and he finally settled in a bit. Maybe just try staying on the dose that gave you the good numbers and stick for a longer amount of time. Just thinking out loud. I'm no expert on dosing in anyway. Just a thought!

Do hope you see good cycles soon!
 
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