Fergus New 1 week in. When to test?

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Supurrkitten

Supurrkitten

Member Since 2017
hi.
I was wondering when testing bs, should he be fed then dosed then do the every 2 hour tests and not fed again till 12 hours later?

Currently, we have breakfast, preshot snack, shot... then dinner, preshot snack, shot.
How would you feed and test?

Thank you for any input.

❤️❤️
 
The mantra is test/feed/shot - all in about 20 minutes or so maybe half hour if your kitty is like Jones. :rolleyes: I tend to shot when I know he has had a few bites and shot when his head is in the dish. With Lantus you have about 2 hours to get additional food in.

Many people here do structured snacks through out the day or you can free feed. It is what ever works best for your cat. I think one point of the curve is to see, based upon a normal feeding structure, how is Fergus doing with the dose he has. You can make notes if he is free feeding of when he takes a nibble or two I personally would not restrict food except for the 2 hours before your pre-shot test. You want to know where he is at without the influence of food before giving the shot. If you don't, then you might give a shot thinking he is ok then the food wears off and he may go low on you.
 
I often fed at pre-shot.... then again at +3 and again at +7 then make sure the 2 hours before shot time .... no food....
so the latest they should have a snack /mini meal is +9...... that way the food does not influence the preshot number.
 
Hi and Welcome to Lantus and Levemir Forum. Good job on testing! So important to know whether it is safe to shoot insulin and to know how low the insulin is taking him through the cycle. Since Lantus dosing is based on the nadir, (or the lowest point in the cycle) with some consideration to the pre shoot, that information is so important.

As was said above, the routine is test/ feed and shoot T/F/S and if your cat is like Bubba and eats quickly, the whole process can take less than 10 minutes. If you have a grazer that likes to take a while to eat, you can still shoot as the insulin doesn't kick in until somewhere around +3 for most cats. Most of us are feeding several mini meals a day as it is better for their pancreas to not have a big food load all at one time. I am currently feeding 6 times a day, all equal amounts. If you work outside the home, lots of us use food safes that are times to open up to dispense the meal while we are not home. I use the PetSafe 5. There are other ones online but I only have experience with the PetSafe 5

Good job setting up your signature. Could you add to it what kind of meter you are using, human or the AT2? That will be important information if ever you have a question about dose or the number that you just got on your meter.

Can we get you to set up a Spread Sheet like the rest of use? It will help us to help you with dosing questions also it will be an important tool to you to see trends . If you look in our signatures you will see SS or chart and if you click on it you can see our SS and we will be able to see yours. How to create our spreadsheet


I noticed about food in your signature. We recommend low carb ( under 10% carb) wet food. Here is Dr. Lisa's new chart on wet food with all the carb % recently updated. The Wellness wet food puts cranberry into the formula for the urinary health and to help prevent the crystals from forming. You can find them on the list and see their carb count. That is just one that I am familiar with.

Keep asking questions as that is how we all learned and we will help you all we can.
 
Tracey&Jones said:
The mantra is test/feed/shot - all in about 20 minutes or so maybe half hour if your kitty is like Jones. :rolleyes: I tend to shot when I know he has had a few bites and shot when his head is in the dish. With Lantus you have about 2 hours to get additional food in.

Many people here do structured snacks through out the day or you can free feed. It is what ever works best for your cat. I think one point of the curve is to see, based upon a normal feeding structure, how is Fergus doing with the dose he has. You can make notes if he is free feeding of when he takes a nibble or two I personally would not restrict food except for the 2 hours before your pre-shot test. You want to know where he is at without the influence of food before giving the shot. If you don't, then you might give a shot thinking he is ok then the food wears off and he may go low on you.
Click to expand...
Thank you for responding
 
Hi and welcome to Lantus and Levemir Land, the nicest place you never wanted to be.

You've already gotten some great feedback. I will just add a couple of things. Testing every two hours is called doing a curve. You don't have to do that every day. Have you had a chance to read the stickies at the top of the Lantus & Levemir page? We have two methods we follow here - either Tight Regulation (TR) or Start Low Go Slow (SLGS). As long as you are still feeding any dry, you would need to follow SLGS. With both methods we strongly recommend you to always test at shot time (t/f/s), and then get some other tests in during the day as your schedule allows. With SLGS you would do a curve once a week and use the results to determine if you need to increase or decrease the dose. With either method, if you get a BG under 50 (or 68 on an Alpha Trak) you would decrease the dose by .25 immediately. If you can get Fergus onto all wet food, you can follow TR, which allows you to make dose adjustments more often. With TR we recommend that, in addition to testing at shot times, you also get AT LEAST one mid-cycle test, in each of the day and night cycles. Somewhere between 4 and 7 hours after the shot is ideal. That is because Lantus and Lev dosing is based on how low the BG goes during the cycle, with some consideration given to the Preshot number.

Most people try to feed several smaller meals early in the cycle (generally before +6 - six hours after the shot), as it is easier on the Pancreas and helps kitty make it through the day without begging for food. You want to pull all food two hours before shot time so the test you get will not be influenced by food.

There is a ton of info on this site, and lots of caring people here that will be happy to help you, so ask lots of questions. We put together a post for new members that might answer some questions or explain a few things: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/updated-tips-for-new-members.173572/. Let us know if you need help setting up your spreadsheet. We have people for that! ;):)
 
Bobbie And Bubba said:
Hi and Welcome to Lantus and Levemir Forum. Good job on testing! So important to know whether it is safe to shoot insulin and to know how low the insulin is taking him through the cycle. Since Lantus dosing is based on the nadir, (or the lowest point in the cycle) with some consideration to the pre shoot, that information is so important.

As was said above, the routine is test/ feed and shoot T/F/S and if your cat is like Bubba and eats quickly, the whole process can take less than 10 minutes. If you have a grazer that likes to take a while to eat, you can still shoot as the insulin doesn't kick in until somewhere around +3 for most cats. Most of us are feeding several mini meals a day as it is better for their pancreas to not have a big food load all at one time. I am currently feeding 6 times a day, all equal amounts. If you work outside the home, lots of us use food safes that are times to open up to dispense the meal while we are not home. I use the PetSafe 5. There are other ones online but I only have experience with the PetSafe 5

Good job setting up your signature. Could you add to it what kind of meter you are using, human or the AT2? That will be important information if ever you have a question about dose or the number that you just got on your meter.

Can we get you to set up a Spread Sheet like the rest of use? It will help us to help you with dosing questions also it will be an important tool to you to see trends . If you look in our signatures you will see SS or chart and if you click on it you can see our SS and we will be able to see yours. How to create our spreadsheet


I noticed about food in your signature. We recommend low carb ( under 10% carb) wet food. Here is Dr. Lisa's new chart on wet food with all the carb % recently updated. The Wellness wet food puts cranberry into the formula for the urinary health and to help prevent the crystals from forming. You can find them on the list and see their carb count. That is just one that I am familiar with.

Keep asking questions as that is how we all learned and we will help you all we can.
Click to expand...
No lie the SS sounds daunting. I will start it soon. I just did his s first blood sugar. It was 385 @ +5. He had not eaten since right before shot at 1130. I just got a meter today for him. Human. Relion from Walmart USA. I had difficulty sticking him a bit. Hard for me. He is only gettin 1 U. He was 600 a week ago.i will check him at +11 also if that helps. But he will be fed in a few hours. I am doing a food on the list. Thank you for the reply. I have to run get my kiddos. I will re read this again later. ❤️
 
If you need help setting it up, just yell and someone can help you.

Here is an explanation of how to interpret the SS



AMPS is the AM Pre-shot test (always test before shooting to make sure they're high enough to give insulin)...then the U column is for "Units" (how much you gave)

The +1, +2, +3, etc are for how many hours since shooting...so +2 is 2 hours after the AM shot, +9 is 9 hour after, etc.....Since we're all over the world here, saying "he was at 148 at 8pm" doesn't tell us anything...we need to know how long since his last shot

At the end of a 12 hour cycle, it's PMPS time! (PM Pre-shot) and the whole thing starts over
 
For urinary issues, low carb food and plenty of water is key. Low phosphorus also helps. Depending on the urinary issue, cranberry may be contraindicated ( for idiopathic cystitis). Dr. Lisa has a great page on foodnfor urinary issues. http://catinfo.org/feline-urinary-tract-diseases/

On Lantus, many people find the +2 test a good one to do. If it's quite a bit lower than the preshot, you'll want to do more testing that cycle as it will be an active one.
 
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