Help me make sense of Sam's Spreadsheet

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Catdaddy87

Catdaddy87

Member Since 2017
Hello everyone. Sam's numbers were coming way down a few days ago but she has been all over the place lately. Seemed like she was bouncing so I held her insulin at .75 for a while to see how she would do. Numbers were slowly normalizing but she has been going higher at night which I know cats are normally lower at night.

She is eating Hill's A/D twice a day at shot time and sometimes mid day. I have some Dr. Elsey's dry food she will eat every once and a while. I'm in the process of mixing in FF classic with the A/D until she will eat only the FF Classic.

Her Vetsulin vial has been open since late April but always stored correctly. It seems like the big drop doesn't come until +3 or +4 and sometimes later. Is her insulin taking longer to start working and do I need to change her bottle?
 
Vetsulin usually results in nadir between +4 and +6. She's just bouncing a little at night ;). Curious to see how the reduced dose to 0.5U works :)
 
Yong said:
Vetsulin usually results in nadir between +4 and +6. She's just bouncing a little at night ;). Curious to see how the reduced dose to 0.5U works :)
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So you think going to .5 is correct? I find myself second guessing myself sometimes because it seems like too low of a dose and too high of a dose look similar.
 
Her numbers stayed fairly high today. I assume that may be why her appetite is back. She is gobbling up the wet food now. I guess I will try the .5 unit for another 2-3 injections and see how she is looking.
 
Catdaddy87 said:
Her numbers stayed fairly high today. I assume that may be why her appetite is back. She is gobbling up the wet food now. I guess I will try the .5 unit for another 2-3 injections and see how she is looking.
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It'll be interesting to see if she's less bouncy on the lower dose.
 
So I missed giving her a shot last night which I'm still aggravated about but she was at 167 this morning. I stalled her 20 minutes and she went down to 158. My wife is having health issues and cant get down to give her a shot in the morning fairly often right now. I told her to skip the shot since we won't be home to monitor Sam. I hope this isn't taking steps back on her BG levels. I swear she seems to do better with no insulin!
 
It might be that her good dose is tiny - 0.25 u or less. There's a lot of bouncing and then low numbers that result in NS. I'd try eyeballing 0.25 u and give it consistently AM and PM for a few days. If there's any way to avoid skipping a shot that's important too.
 
Kris & Teasel said:
If there's any way to avoid skipping a shot that's important too.
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Agreed! Life keeps getting in the way once we get on a roll. We are going to be out of town next week also so I haven't found a solution to her getting her insulin twice a day yet. She doesn't do well boarding and usually won't eat while she is there.

If I give her .25 when her BG is 150 or so, will that still drop her too low at +4 -- +6 or will the food balance her out?
 
Catdaddy87 said:
Agreed! Life keeps getting in the way once we get on a roll. We are going to be out of town next week also so I haven't found a solution to her getting her insulin twice a day yet. She doesn't do well boarding and usually won't eat while she is there.
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Any family members/friends who might take it on? If you have the cash there are bonded pet sitting services who will come to your place and also administer meds.
 
Yea, not having any luck with that either. Found one girl locally who offers it but apparently that's not a high demand thing here.
 
Catdaddy87 said:
If I give her .25 when her BG is 150 or so, will that still drop her too low at +4 -- +6 or will the food balance her out
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The only way to know is to try it but so when you can monitor her closely. I would test her at +2 and if she is dropping swiftly or a lot, give her some food then to slow her down. The trick is to balance out the timing of the food intake with the drop caused by the insulin. Nadirs don't occur at the same time every day and while most cats might reach nadir between +4 and +6, some reach it sooner, some later. They usually start dropping between +1.5 to +3 so testing earlier can give you an indication of whether the cycle is going to be pretty active or not.
 
Kris & Teasel said:
How many days are you away? Worst case is she doesn't get insulin from your pet sitter.
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We will be away at least 8 days. I doubt she will get too high without insulin but I do worry about that if she can't get insulin while we are gone and don't want to lose ground and have to start all over with the dosing amounts and her levels being crazy.
 
MrWorfMen's Mom said:
The only way to know is to try it but so when you can monitor her closely. I would test her at +2 and if she is dropping swiftly or a lot, give her some food then to slow her down. The trick is to balance out the timing of the food intake with the drop caused by the insulin. Nadirs don't occur at the same time every day and while most cats might reach nadir between +4 and +6, some reach it sooner, some later. They usually start dropping between +1.5 to +3 so testing earlier can give you an indication of whether the cycle is going to be pretty active or not.
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Unfortunately the only time we are available to test her after shots is on the weekend or at night. I won't be able to test her this weekend because we will be out of town so I will try to resume her dose of .5 tonight. Or, I think I will post here after seeing her PMPS and try to get a recommendation. I'm not sure if she will be bouncing high.
 
You can still try the 0.25u with your current testing if pre-shots are in the high 200's or 300's to see how that works for her. With any pre-shot that's lower, I'd recommend monitoring more closely. Hopefully she'll give you a lower number to monitor one evening in the near future. ;)
 
MrWorfMen's Mom said:
You can still try the 0.25u with your current testing if pre-shots are in the high 200's or 300's to see how that works for her. With any pre-shot that's lower, I'd recommend monitoring more closely. Hopefully she'll give you a lower number to monitor one evening in the near future. ;)
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Thanks for the help! My wife may have stayed home from work today so if she did I will get a mid day BG and see how she is doing after eating with no insulin.
 
Sam had 220 for PMPS which seems pretty good for no insulin for 24 hours. Switched over to Prozinc because that is what the vet wrote a RX for but gave me Vetsulin so I'm not sure what happened there but it seems that Prozinc is a little better for cats according to what I have read. Gave her .25 and will test again at +2 or +3 to make sure she isn't dropping too fast.
 
ProZinc is a good insulin that doesn't drop the BG as quickly or as steeply as Vetsulin can, it lasts a little longer in cats than Vetsulin and the nadir with ProZinc will be a little later too, usually between +4 and +7. The best insulin for your cat is the one that works so see how Sam does with the ProZinc.
I agree the 22o is not bad at all for 24 hours with no insulin and the 214 this AM looks good too. Those numbers may be giving you a much better picture of what Sam's BG is running "normally" right now. I'd monitor her as closely as you can with the insulin change until you see how she is reacting.
 
MrWorfMen's Mom said:
ProZinc is a good insulin that doesn't drop the BG as quickly or as steeply as Vetsulin can, it lasts a little longer in cats than Vetsulin and the nadir with ProZinc will be a little later too, usually between +4 and +7. The best insulin for your cat is the one that works so see how Sam does with the ProZinc.
I agree the 22o is not bad at all for 24 hours with no insulin and the 214 this AM looks good too. Those numbers may be giving you a much better picture of what Sam's BG is running "normally" right now. I'd monitor her as closely as you can with the insulin change until you see how she is reacting.
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Yea, I think the higher doses of Vetsulin had her bouncing plus missing a few injections. She seems to be normally around 200-250 without insulin as far as I have seen. Hoping the .25 dose will get her numbers to start creeping down slowly. Also, she is eating half Hill's A/D and half FF Classic chicken and liver. I would think after I transition her to 100% FF she may run lower numbers consistently.
 
Yes the diet switch to FF only would likely being her numbers down a bit more. Just monitor closely when you remove the A/D. Since you are going away for a week +, if you could get the transition done before you go, it might help keep her numbers down if no insulin is going to be given in your absence.
 
MrWorfMen's Mom said:
Yes the diet switch to FF only would likely being her numbers down a bit more. Just monitor closely when you remove the A/D. Since you are going away for a week +, if you could get the transition done before you go, it might help keep her numbers down if no insulin is going to be given in your absence.
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Thankfully I found a vet tech willing to come and feed and give insulin while we are out. It's not cheap but I would like to keep things going. Hopefully Sam will play nice and eat and take her injections with someone other than us. She can be moody at times. lol
 
Yeah! So glad you found someone to look after Sam's insulin as well as her other needs. Bonus it's a vet tech who can test before shots! When I had to leave my girl for a week, I did some dry runs with the friend I trained to look after her. I went outside, let my friend enter the house alone and go through the whole process of testing, feeding and shooting while I waited out on the stoop just to make sure I wasn't going to be faced with being a 1000 miles away and my cat was hiding from her temporary caretaker! :)
 
Hi Andrew! I hope your wife is feeling better :bighug:. Sorry I've not been around much the past few days, things happened (good things though!). I hope Prozinc helps Sam stay in the comfy numbers while you're away and glad to hear you found a Vet tech to care for her :cat:. Will be checking on you guys when I can ;)
 
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