Josie 02/26 & 02/27

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Holly and Josie

Holly and Josie

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Josie's numbers continue to baffle me.

AMPS - 375
+3 - 249
+5 - 128 - gave a small amount of wet food
+6 - 108
+8 - 166
PMPS - 444!!! (WHAT?)

I don't understand why her number skyrockets between 8+ and the PMPS. This has happened several nights in a row. I am currently thinking the following are possibilities, but I'm not sure which one:

-she is rebounding

-her shot isn't lasting long enough

-the medicine she is receiving for her UTI (Albon Liquid) is messing with her numbers. I give her a very small amount of food around 9pm and then her medicine around 9:30. So maybe this medicine is bringing her numbers up? I don't think it's the food, since it's usually a very small amount. But this medicine actually is listed as causing possible hypoglycemia, not hyperglycemia. So it shouldn't be doing this!


I was leaning towards thinking it was the medicine, but her numbers today are even weirder. At +6, 327 and +8, 343. It's as if her insulin last night made almost no difference whatsoever! I have never seen her have this high of a +6, unless we didn't give her any insulin at all.

I am just so frustrated and sad. The harder I try, the worse her numbers are. She was doing better eating high carb dry and getting 3 units twice daily. At least her numbers were consistent. Now they are all over the place.

In other news, I am slowly increasing her wet food from the dry EVO. She is currently getting about half of each. And she is eating just twice per day, for the most part. (Right before her injection).
 
Re: Josie 02/26

This won't be helpful, but it could be any or a combination of all. :mrgreen:

The first cycle you had was beautiful! The second was likely a bounce. Some cats have flat cycles after a low number.

I know it is discouraging but she is doing fine. Keep repeating- it is just one cycle, just one number.

Someone once said that they didn't become diabetic in a week or even a month, they won't get off insulin fast either. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

I am full of platitudes today. Sorry :mrgreen:
 
Josie's AMPS was 277. This just keeps getting weirder! Fed her quite a bit and gave 1.0 unit. I hope that will be OK. I have a feeling I will be testing a lot today, to make sure she isn't going too low.
 
Re: Josie 02/26

Sue and Oliver (GA) said:
This won't be helpful, but it could be any or a combination of all. :mrgreen:

The first cycle you had was beautiful! The second was likely a bounce. Some cats have flat cycles after a low number.

I know it is discouraging but she is doing fine. Keep repeating- it is just one cycle, just one number.

Someone once said that they didn't become diabetic in a week or even a month, they won't get off insulin fast either. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

I am full of platitudes today. Sorry :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

Thanks for your encouragement! I was really pleased with yesterday's cycle, but so confused by the high reading later. I am going to try delaying her antibiotic tonight and see if she goes really high again. That should at least help me figure out if it is the medicine or if it's something else.
 
She is interesting. But if you go back to your ss, there are clues. On 2/24 the second cycle she went down to 76. Next cycle flat. Same on pm2/25 and am 2/26.

Hopefully she is getting used to the lower numbers and your latest number 277 shows that. Your dose should be okay. The other thing to know is that you want to make sure you shoot a rising number, not a falling one. With your lower dose, it should be alright but keep an eye on her today.
 
Sue and Oliver (GA) said:
She is interesting. But if you go back to your ss, there are clues. On 2/24 the second cycle she went down to 76. Next cycle flat. Same on pm2/25 and am 2/26.

Hopefully she is getting used to the lower numbers and your latest number 277 shows that. Your dose should be okay. The other thing to know is that you want to make sure you shoot a rising number, not a falling one. With your lower dose, it should be alright but keep an eye on her today.
Click to expand...

I just went back and looked and you are right! I don't know how I didn't notice that!

I just tested her at 2+ and she's at 227 already. Usually she's not that low until about 3.5 hours. Now I am concerned that we did shoot a falling number. I wanted to retest her again but my husband disagreed. I don't know why I let him have his way... I know more about this stuff, plus he's at work and now I'm the one at home dealing with it. I fed her again, plus she has eaten more today anyway, so hopefully that will help. I guess I will just have to be on guard until about 7pm tonight. I don't mind having to keep testing her, but she minds AND her poor ears are just not looking great.
 
i know their ears can look bad, especially in the beginning. Are you holding the spot for a few seconds after poking? That helps, as does neosporin with pain relief. Just a tiny smear on the poked place.

There are people here who have poked their cats every day for years. And their ears look fine. It does get better, honest.

She isn't crashing at +2 so she will probably be fine. It's good you are home and can keep an eye on her. Yes, offer a little extra food if she seems hungry.
 
Sue and Oliver (GA) said:
i know their ears can look bad, especially in the beginning. Are you holding the spot for a few seconds after poking? That helps, as does neosporin with pain relief. Just a tiny smear on the poked place.

There are people here who have poked their cats every day for years. And their ears look fine. It does get better, honest.

She isn't crashing at +2 so she will probably be fine. It's good you are home and can keep an eye on her. Yes, offer a little extra food if she seems hungry.
Click to expand...

Yep, I'm holding her ear with gauze for at least 30 seconds after the poke. Sometimes she wants to run away immediately, though, and I think that's accounting for the spots that look bad. I had been using regular Neosporin and I just bought some with the pain meds recently.

Yes, I am very glad I'm home! Although if I weren't going to be home, I probably would have insisted my husband re-test her after the first reading. So maybe it would have been better if I had gone to work. At this point, I am thinking I need to get a job that allows me to work from home so I don't have to leave her. I really hate being away from her for more than an hour or two!
 
Hi there!

Just a thought I had when reading your post... another poster mentioned that when your cat goes too low the liver dumps glycogen which results in that high BG number that seems to come out of nowhere...but in addition to the dump the body releases counter regulatory hormones. Their job is to try and 'fend off' the insulin that is trying to lower the BG levels because the body isn't used to being that low. That is why you may see a flat cycle right after a dump. It is not because the insulin isn't working or that you didn't dose high enough...it is simply because you now have something else working to keep the levels higher.

I have seen this is in my cat. I have seen this in others. I believe this to be true. Your job is now to figure out the pattern for Josie. How long does this 'rebound' stay in place for? 1 cycle? 2? 3? When you start to understand that it may lessen the frustration and confusion.

Good luck!
 
Lisa,
That is a great observation. Thanks for posting it. I just steered "lauramarie" and Junior to read it too. She had an interesting cycle today.

Carl
 
Hey Holly and Josie.....Laura and Junior here! Here's what i'm kinda thinking, the whole "go low, go slow" thing. Are we changing things up too quickly, even at miniscule amounts? I'm now thinking I have not given Junior's body ample time to adjust to one dose even if he goes a little high. I'm going to keep Junior at his 1.5 for a full 7 days and see what happens. I'm only going to change it if he goes too low.

What does everyone think???????
 
Lisa and Jax - Yeah, I was wondering if maybe what you are talking about is what was happening. Is that the same thing as rebound? Or is that something different? Either way, I think it's definitely a possibility. Thanks for your thoughts!

lauramarie - I think it's possible that I am changing things around too much. Are you doing the same thing with your kitty? It's SO hard NOT to want to change things when you feel like what you are currently doing isn't working! Especially when you see scary high (and low) numbers! Also, with Josie, I have never been able to give the same amount of insulin for her AMPS and PMPS. She generally goes MUCH lower during the day than she does at night. I'm not sure the reasoning behind that. I think your plan of giving your guy the same dose for 7 straight days is a good one. Maybe I should try giving Josie the same AMPS dose and PMPS dose for 7 days. That way, in total, she'd be getting the same amount each day. Maybe that would help.

For now, my plan is to delay her antibiotic by a few hours tonight so I can at least see if that's what is pushing her numbers so high at night. I don't think it is, but I'd like to at least rule out the possibility.

Thanks everyone, for your comments!
 
Oh, wow, lisamarie, I just looked at Junior's spreadsheet and his cycles seem really similar to Josie's! Lots of blues and greens in the middle, with red PS. Thanks carlinsc, for sending her over here. I am definitely going to keep a close eye on your updates. Maybe we can help each other get this figured out!
 
oh man, I missed something with the antibiotics. I have absolutely no experience with that mixing in. My other cat, Johnny was just diagnosed with herpes and on saturday i noticed very mild symptoms in Junior. Johnny is on Lysine. He saw "his" vet today and I was advised to put Junior on it. I asked her if it would affect his insulin and, of course she seemed just as insecure about the diabetes issue as Junior's vet and said " uh, it should be o.k." I'm waiting a few days to gather data on that myself. Junior's vet ultimately wants him on 2 u. Most of the time I feel bad i'm not giving him what he needs but would rather him ride a little high than throw me into a mental meltdown with low numbers!

I so wish our kitties could talk and tell us what the hell they're thinking!!!!!
 
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