Human health question -- how do you sleep with all this?!

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Vidya & Boo

Vidya & Boo

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I don't mean those first few days of overwhelming anxiety, but later, once you've settled into a routine.

I've very lucky that, as a student, my schedule is usually flexible and most of my work can be done at home.

We (generally) test, feed and shoot at 9am and 9pm; test the nadir values at 1pm and 1am, and, sometimes, put out a little extra food at 6am and/or 6pm, if things are running low. Even without a 6am feeding, this leaves me about 7.5 hours at most to sleep each night, with no catch-up sleeping in. Since Boo's dad has health issues and isn't able to stay awake for long periods or sleep according to a regular schedule, I feel I need to be awake from about 8:30am until the 1am test is done, to make sure that the testing gets done as scheduled whenever possible.

Do most people skip the nighttime nadir testing, even if the cat is hitting low-ish numbers? Take afternoon naps? Invest in a lot of energy drinks? Advice, please!
 
Re: Human health question -- how do you sleep with all this?

We will skip the nighttime testing during the week unless we see something is going funky by a +2 number.

We've been "lucky" with Smokey having hit her needing insulin during tax seasons both times, which is my long days at work and weird hours so its allowed us a little more testing ability - I do 9am, testing and then test until I leave for work. My husband tests as soon as he comes home and does the 9pm shot and will test before he goes to bed if he remembers. I am often coming home from work at 1am or even late enough to catch that 3am nadir. If I am home early and see a lower trend, I will stay up to make sure the 3am passes without dropping to low. Yeah, I don't get a lot of sleep.
 
Re: Human health question -- how do you sleep with all this?

It is just like having little kids, you learn to live sleep deprived.


That said, when Simba got diabetes in 2006, I was "lucky" to get disability retirement the same year and the remaining work I had done I've been able to do at and from home, so I've been able to "babysit" him and Gustav in a very different way than if I had had an ordinary away-from-home 9-5 job. Especially since I am disabled, alone and have had no help with them and the situation.
 
Re: Human health question -- how do you sleep with all this?

I have set my cell phone alarm to go off when I need to take care of Goomer. The couple of times I left it in the living room he has come in and woke me up. :lol: He knows that sound means "mom needs to take care of me so get out of bed" :roll: . This is what works for us!
 
Re: Human health question -- how do you sleep with all this?

As the others have said, you get a routine and it's OK.
My routine was the following:
Shots at 6am/pm so I was up at 5am, to get ready for the day and test Oliver as he had a late nadir.. I would test him at 5am and then 6am. I'd get ready for work, get the food ready for the cats, and do the test, shoot and feed at 6am.
I would try to be home for 5pm or earlier, then repeat the morn testing and then shots and food.
In the evening, if I was up for awhile or expected some action, I'd get a couple tests, but always got a before bed test. It could be at +3 or +6, but I did not stay up later unless the bed test needed me to stay up. And that was the Monday to Friday routine.
On the weekends, I would try to get a couple curves done, testing here and there, and I would have a good idea how the doses are going. I still got my chores and errands done, and just fitted testing in here and there with no real pattern.

If you think about it, you would do the same for you or your child, so your cat is no different.
It's not like you would not be home for breakfast or dinner, and you are around more on the weekends, so a few pokes for test numbers can be done at the same time as you are feeding your cat.

In the beginning, you would do well to get more than normal number of tests, but just until you know where your cat's nadir is, and how your cat reacts to the insulin. Then once you have gathered your data, you will know when you have to watch closely or if a cycle is a writeoff and you can call it a save-a-strip cycle.... if you are in a bounce, there's no real point in getting lots of tests as the bounce has to clear... the same goes for a skipped shot because you know what you will see, rising numbers would be a good guess.

You'll see; it gets much better once you are settled in YOUR routine.
 
Re: Human health question -- how do you sleep with all this?

Vidya & Boo said:
Do most people skip the nighttime nadir testing, even if the cat is hitting low-ish numbers? Take afternoon naps? Invest in a lot of energy drinks? Advice, please!
Click to expand...

I never got up in the middle of the night to test Boo. I have to be up for work at 4 am and I work 12 hour shifts. Getting up in the middle of the night would break up the too little sleep I was already getting and make me too drowsy at my job. Once we settled into a routine, I mostly just checked preshot levels. Being out of the house for 12+ hours even made midday testing impossible.

Boo survived nearly 5 years with diabetes and pancreatitis and made it through 2 bouts of DKA in the early days so we must have been doing something right.
 
Re: Human health question -- how do you sleep with all this?

Yup, definitely you just adjust to the routine. I couldn't test at all in the day because of work (I have 2 jobs, with my M-F job having me gone from 7am-7pm), so I had to get Bandit's nadir test at 1am every day. So I either set an alarm, got up, tested & fed, and then went right back to sleep, or I just stayed up til 1 and got 6 hrs of sleep. I don't remember it being a huge deal, just kind of a pain. However, it was worth every single late night test for him to get to remission and only have to test him now a couple times a month, and to not have to be home in exactly 12 hr increments.

And I do remember consuming lots of red bull.

I remember things being MUCH easier his second time around on insulin because by that point I had convinced both my brother and my boyfriend to help test him late at night, so there was less alarm setting.
 
Re: Human health question -- how do you sleep with all this?

I was fortunate to have a friend who could test and shoot the nights I had other obligations.
The last 6-8 months or so of Spitzer's life, however, I adjusted my schedule at work so I could drive home mid-day and test, as Spitzer was never stablized, and I never knew if he'd be high and need supplemental R, or if something had happened (vomiting, diarrhea, or inappetance) which had thrown him low requiring some carbs to prop him up. It was very stressful.

... Spitzer turned out to have IBD and chronic intermittent pancreatitis. This caused wide fluctuations in his appetite and sometimes provoked bouts of vomiting, and thus his insulin needs were never stable, so it was like chasing a comet. I never got close, and I often got burned.
 
Re: Human health question -- how do you sleep with all this?

I was fortunate to have used PZI, which is pretty flexible in terms of timing compared to some others. But Bob got tested around 6am and 6pm every day. I had an additional complication in that I worked four different shifts during the time he was on insulin. I switched shifts every week, and had different days off every week. So I had no routine to begin with. :smile:
Two of those shifts required that I be up in time for the 6am tests so those weeks weren't a problem. The other two weeks, I'd set my alarm, get up to test shoot and feed, then go back to bed. I didn't do the middle of the night tests. One week a month I was awake then anyway, so he got tested a few times overnight, but nowhere near on a regular basis.
Bob was only on insulin for 10 weeks. I don't know how long I could have kept up with that "routine", but luckily didn't have to find out. But for those 10 weeks, I never really got to sleep in. Some days, I was pretty much a zombie.

Carl
 
Re: Human health question -- how do you sleep with all this?

Pretty much, I've gotten used to it and, but don't do this, have occasionally taken a full hour-long nap during my tuesday and thursday class because it's a breeze to me and it isn't particularly interesting. But that's a bad idea. Also, I have lots of friends that are constantly hyper, so that helps me stay awake. That, and I forced the insulin to work with my schedule, I get up at 6:30am anyways, she gets her insulin at 7(after being fed at 6:30), and the same in the pm. And I figure, I don't need that much sleep on the weekends and can make it by(barely) on 3 hours of sleep, since my friends are usually over until late at night and then there in the morning. Other than that, I just take the time to sleep whenever I can afford it. Thankfully I'm also quick to adapt as I've only been doing this since Feb. 14th or so.
 
Re: Human health question -- how do you sleep with all this?

Sayania said:
Pretty much, I've gotten used to it and, but don't do this, have occasionally taken a full hour-long nap during my tuesday and thursday class because it's a breeze to me and it isn't particularly interesting.
Click to expand...

I guess I'll have to be more sympathetic to the students who fall asleep during my tutorials -- maybe they have diabetic cats too! ;-)
 
Re: Human health question -- how do you sleep with all this?

Vidya & Boo said:
Sayania said:
Pretty much, I've gotten used to it and, but don't do this, have occasionally taken a full hour-long nap during my tuesday and thursday class because it's a breeze to me and it isn't particularly interesting.
Click to expand...

I guess I'll have to be more sympathetic to the students who fall asleep during my tutorials -- maybe they have diabetic cats too! ;-)
Click to expand...
^.^;! At least I try to make sure it's known it isn't recommended?
 
Re: Human health question -- how do you sleep with all this?

I had a hard time with this at first - I am very very partial to my sleep. However, I learned to 'sleep test' after a while and it got a lot easier. Sleep, wake up to alarm, test, and set a new alarm based on the number - then right back to bed. (This is for when kitty is in low numbers and you are seeing him drop, otherwise I get a +2 before bed and that's it. However, my husband and I work opposite schedules, so he is able to get nadir checks for me.) If you are able to take naps a couple times a week that helps too. ;-)
 
Re: Human health question -- how do you sleep with all this?

Aaahhhhh...I remember many long nights with the kitchen timer. Based on the numbers, I would reset to +1, +2, +3, etc and leave my regular alarm on to get me up and off to work on time. On the especially low number nights, it was harder to get back to sleep. But you do settle into a routine...until your cat changes the nadir. They do that to keep you on your toes! :) Sleep when you can!
 
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