Ozzy Pawzbourne
Member Since 2016
After playing phone tag with Ozzy's vet over the last few weeks, we finally were able to connect today. Below is the feedback I received and I'm curious your guys' thoughts. Appreciate any feedback. Thanks in advance!
His overall recommendations moving forward were:
- His first comment was that based on Ozzy's numbers and that with us giving the lower doses of insulin and him still maintaining relatively the same numbers overall, he thought Ozzy was headed for a partial or full remission. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT WE WANT! I am trying not to get excited and know we have a ways to go and that this still may not happen, but STILL....isn't that what we ALL want to hear?
- He also thought Ozzy was responding well to the Vestulin and that he sees a lot of cats on this insulin and usually they still have a lot higher numbers just a few weeks in. He said he was really impressed with Ozzy's numbers and he is headed in the right direction. He would like to see him with more blues and greens though.
- He was very impressed with the spreadsheet and the amount of data we have collected over the last few weeks. SHOUT OUT and THANK YOU to FDMB for this assistance and guidance in helping me get this set up and able to monitor.
- I asked if he thought Ozzy was bouncy to the insulin and he did not think so. He said normally you will see a very high PS number followed but a steep drop and then a high rebound number. We specifically discussed the AM cycle on 12/23 and he said the steering with food was good advice but overall he did not think that cycle was overly concerning.
- I asked him about the TR protocol and he was honest andadmitted he had never heard of it. He also says he does not base dosing on nadirs or PS alone- he looks at the entire cycle and curve to make a judgment on what dose seems most appropriate. He said there are other protocols out there as well.
- I also asked him about doing the ear pokes and if there are any concerns about the number of times we are testing (could we damage any vessels in his ears) or infection. He stated that cats normally do well with ear pokes and he understands us doing this so frequently now as we are trying to get Ozzy regulated, but he said long term we should think about our kitty's quality of life and if poking him 10xs a day is ideal for our kitty's happiness. He stressed that many kitties are given insulin and their owners don't test at all. It was something for me to consider, I have to say. Of course this is when we have Ozzy regulated. I guess my question after hearing this feedback is...where do we draw the line between testing for safety and being obsessive?
- We also talked about switching insulins and he said he likes lantus and would be willing to write me a script if this is what we wanted.
- He also talked about the importance of trying to hold Ozzy at the same dose for a period of time (he recommended a week). The vet said with us jumping around with doses, it's hard to tell where an increase or decrease is necessary until we can see how Ozzy responds to a particular dose for a period of time.
His overall recommendations moving forward were:
- Stick with the same insulin for the next week. He thought switching up will only confuse things since we have not really had Ozzy on the same dose for any length of time to see how he is responding.
- Give Ozzy .75U of vestulin for the next week.
- Curve Ozzy this coming weekend. And we can discuss next steps then.
