Hitchcock 394 AMPS gave .5

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dana moore

dana moore

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I will not be home today to monitor but I will be a little stressed at work!!!!! I fell asleep lastnight so i didn't get a 5+ reading
 
Dana, I'm sorry if I've forgotten this, but ... tell me again what you're feeding Hitchcock and how much he gets and when (including snacks). Then I'll advise on tonight's dose.
 
Oops, see you already gave a half-unit & that's fine. Still want some info re: his feeding, etc. Also ... what does he weigh?
 
Is 8 lb the ideal weight? When he eats, does he eat all his food at once or does he graze?

Sorry we weren't around! I think 0.5 was fine. :)
 
dana moore said:
No he was alot bigger but recently lost related to the diabetes. He's a little thin.
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That sounds like what happened with Bat-Bat the first time she was dx'd in 2013. Had weighed 18+ lbs (!), then I started reducing her rations (mainly dry kibble, what a dope I was) & - silly me! - I actually believed the weight loss was due to my efforts to put her on a diet.Ha! Nope, it turned out that she was on the "Diabetes Weight-Loss Plan." :facepalm:

How many days has he been on the antibiotic now?
 
4 days on antibiotics. I should of know sooner because he was losing weight but he was an outdoor kitty 7 yrs old. I thought he was just "shedding for the summer weight" smh. 1+ 407
 
He didn't really say why he was giving the antibiotics. He just said there was definatley ketones in his urine but he wanted me to bring him back today to chk his BG but he said he wasn't worried about ketones?? I had no time to take him back plus I'm afraid he'll be mad if I tell him what I've been doing. Isn't it bad to have a kittys sugar that high for that long? Is just the little bit of insulin giving him some relief? He's not walking great should I give him Zobaline? I still have some. The vet did a full bloodwork panal.
 
I think his WBC count was high. Not really sure they saw me as an emergency so I didnt really have time to ask and he normally goes over everything but this time he didn't really say much he just assumed I knew what to do I guess!
 
dana moore said:
He didn't really say why he was giving the antibiotics. He just said there was definatley ketones in his urine but he wanted me to bring him back today to chk his BG but he said he wasn't worried about ketones??
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dana moore said:
I think his WBC count was high.
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I'm somewhat flummoxed at your vet's attitude ... He needs to tell you why he prescribed the Clavamox, Dana - really, he does. What does this mean, that "he didn't say": Was he unsure what the infection is, only noting that the elevated WBC indicated some sort of infection, so ... prescribed an antibiotic???

An infection where, and from what? Urinary tract? Respiratory tract? Gastrointestinal tract? You need to know these things; you are entitled to know these things because you plunked down money to have this vet treat your cat, and you are the one who ends up dealing with any fallout that can result when a vet does not give you adequate information and/or makes treatment decisions based on ... (?) or whatever he saw in the labs he had run, but did not share with you?

I'd suggest you call the vet's office in the morning, have them pull the record and tell you what the diagnosis is that has required the antibiotic. If it's a urinary tract infection, for example, sometimes they need to run a culture on that type of infection, because some bugs have become resistant to certain antibiotics now. (I went through that with Bat-Bat a few years back when she had a UTI - we went from one antibiotic (I can't recall the name of that one now) to Clavamox, then finally to Orbax before the vet was able to get it eradicated.) So yes, you definitely need some more details from your vet's office about what type of infection Hitchcock is being treated for...

Your cat showed ketones in the clinic, yet the vet said he wasn't worried about ketones? Dana, I'd really recommend you start checking Hitchcock for ketones. Just ask @Bobbie And Bubba - she uses a meter (Precision Xtra) that takes ketone strips, and you use a blood droplet to get a very accurate result. She can tell you all about how to do it. (That way you don't need to try to catch him while/right after he's taking a pee with a urine-activated strip.)

Finally ... about the dose of insulin. We're five cycles in so far with that dose of 0.5, and I think it would be worth increasing some, to 0.75 - only on a cycle that you can carefully monitor his BG levels, though - and see how that works to bring the preshot #s down a little more. So unless you are willing to wait until the weekend rolls around again, that means you'll need to do the dose increase on a PM cycle. (Which, unfortunately, means less sleep for you on that particular night.) Mr. Hitchcock was dropping too deep & low during cycles on a full 1.0 unit of ProZinc; but his pre-shot BG #s are remaining higher than we'd like to be seeing, so it would make sense to shoot at a level in between those two dose amounts: the 0.75. Do you think you could eyeball that? (I'm assuming you're using the u40 syringes at present. I found that using reading glasses helps a lot.;))

Not trying to overwhelm you here Dana, but knowledge is power - and you are, indeed, entitled to be made fully aware of the reasoning behind every treatment decision a veterinarian makes about the kitty you love. (Don't settle for anything less.) :bighug:
 
Okay I will call this morning and find out. Yes, I would love info on those blood testing strips and I will increase the dose this evening. I will stick to .5 for this a.m. Thank you so much I will let you know what the vet says.
 
You want to raise when you can monitor. So, whenever you will be home and able to keep an eye on numbers. You just want to know what the new dose is doing and make sure he doesn't drop too low.

Yes, Robin is right. I'll tell you, when I go to the vet, I question them until I'm satisfied. I often end up calling a few days later with more questions too! Last time I went to the vet, I asked several questions and the vet asked if I was a nurse! I was like nope...just an advocate for my cat. :) Heck, I've even requested that they print out the results of my cat's tests and provide a copy and they do!
 
Rachel said:
You want to raise when you can monitor. So, whenever you will be home and able to keep an eye on numbers. You just want to know what the new dose is doing and make sure he doesn't drop too low.
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So glad to hear you'll be getting the meter that can read ketones (you will have to order the ketone strips separately, because they are different from the glucose-monitoring strips). I agree with @Rachel: You do need to raise the dose a little when you can be around to monitor Hitchcock. Yes, his AMPS # is a big improvement over last night's PMPS; however, our goal here is to get your boy into pre-shot #s that are below the renal threshold (the threshold at which glucose is spilling into the urine stream; in most cats, that's somewhere between 250-300 mg/dL on the meter). Even if it means that you need to go with just the 0.5 dose during the daytime cycles when you're at work for added safety, I think now it would be a good idea to give the slightly higher dose a try when you can monitor him through that cycle. And if we're extra-lucky, he'll surf that dose safely and you may be able to feel confident about giving him that same 0.75 during the day, too. (But if not, it's really not the end of the world if you end up having to lower it a bit for those times when you're not around ...)

Dana, you may want to switch over to the U100 syringes with half-unit markings soon - you must use the conversion table with these syringes for dosing the ProZinc - many of our ProZinc users do this once kitty is down to doses that are less than 1.0 unit because it helps to more accurately "fine-tune" the doses in smaller increments. Here's the link to that conversion chart:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/insulin-conversions.htm
Feel free to ask us any questions about using U100 syringes. You'll want to make sure that your local pharmacy gives you the U100s that are marked on the half-unit. (Ha, at least twice I had to return a box for exchange because the pharmacy tech wasn't paying attention, and when I got home I realized they were U100s, but without the half-unit markings on the left side of the barrel! :banghead: Isn't it annoying sometimes, how often you have to make sure other people are doing their jobs properly? ;) Sheesh!)

Sometimes the pharmacy wants proof as to why you need the syringes; I always took the vet invoice with me that showed Bat-Bat's vial of ProZinc on it. I'd show it to them & just tell them I'm using U100s with a conversion table, and they were always fine then with selling me the syringes. You can either get a full box of 100 (more cost-effective), or just try a single package of 10 syringes the first time you get them - that's up to you. But really, you'll find that using this type of syringe will make small doses MUCH easier to manage.:)
 
Thank you so much I'm going to look into that a little later I called the vet's office and ask them why he was taking antibiotics and they said because he had ketones and "stuff" in his urine! what's stuff???you mean bacteria????:banghead: So I didn't get much of an answer that was my answer from the vet tech. I didn't know that antibiotics are used for keytones? :cool:
Anyways I was able to go home and I took his blood sugar at 6 Plus and it was 404. I'm going to go a little higher tonight with a dose and I can monitor him.
 
Hmmm...interesting. He could be just needing time to get used to a dose. Or it could be food or anything really.
 
Hi, Dana! Great job deciding on the dose this morning, since you'll be at work.:) I think Hitch will do just fine on that during this cycle.

And see how his AMPS is lower today? That's the sort of thing we like to see; this is why it's a good idea to start low and do the increases slowly. As @Rachel said above:
Rachel said:
He could be just needing time to get used to a dose.
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It can take a while for a kitty to stop the bouncy-bounce thing (which I think he had been doing). So ... let's see what your PMPS is, and depending on what that # is (since you're around then to monitor), you may want to bump him back up to that 0.75 for the nighttime cycle. (I'll be glad when the weekend gets here, so you can see how he does at that 0.75 dose during both AM & PM cycles ...)
 
208 PMPS!!!!!! What do I do now? :bighug: Let's hope this is something that continues and gets better!! He got outside today so I know he was much more relaxed. Thankfully I was able to grab him and get him back inside. I hope his stress level doesn't go up.
 
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