Linus 5/14-5/15, ups and downs

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Dragonfly229

Dragonfly229

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Linus has been all over the board these last few days. Yesterday's PMPS was a lowish (for Linus, anyway) 310, I think because we didn't get home and feed him in the afternoon. At +almost 4 he was 184. That was encouraging. I didn't get my usual +10 because I needed to feed the horses early because the vet is coming to do their teeth at 845 and they needed to be done eating. AMPS is up to 418. Darn. I'm holding the shot because I know we'll be late getting home tonight, so I'm splitting the difference between last night's 8pm and tonight's 9pm. If I have time, I'll test again at 830, I fed him at 745, so it will be interesting to see what that food is doing.

Has anyone here ever been tempted to stop insulin entirely for a while and see exactly where their cat is? I think we've all started with one test at the vet. I know I was giving insulin before I started testing. Maybe it was a fluke? One high stress related reading and your cat is diabetic. I'm just afraid he will shoot up to the dreaded "HI" readings, or have ketone issues before I get him back under control. Still . . .
 
Actually, we did that with Cass early on; he was getting .5u. We kept reducing his dose and reducing his dose. Finally I tried OTJ for a long weekend. His numbers were okay (200's); actually about what he was getting with insulin, but still diabetic. So, we upped the dose--turned out he was never getting enough to start with. We went up to 1.4 and he's working his way back down (1.0 currently)
 
He does throw you a few blues but they seem to be more related to eating less, not necessarily the dose. How are you feeding him? If he is not getting 2 meals a day with just a snack at nadir, that might be worth a try?

Yes, you could stop the insulin, testing for ketones and monitoring constantly. But I don't see that his numbers are consistently better at the low doses you have tried.

I would suggest raising a little - keep thinking we will hit a threshold - and/or playing with the food or trying a new insulin.
 
Sue -

When I did the re-boot, I was shocked to see the NO SHOT cycle numbers were about the same as the 6.0u he'd been getting. Then at 3.0u he did about the same, and when I dropped to 2.0, he did better - almost all the reds went away.

In his case, it's the insulin resistance that's having it's way w/ the numbers, so I doubt that you'd get the same effect - but it was interesting to see. I'm about 2 weeks behind on my SS, but you're welcome to see the effect of skipping the one dose and reducing thereafter - would've been around Easter weekend.

Good luck w/ Linus - and tell him NO MORE GRAVY!!! :lol:
 
318 at +4. I hit the vein and got lots of blood. Every time I do that, I remember Alec saying "Yeah, Dad went all Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Linus' ear." Makes me laugh every time.

As far as food - here is how we do it now . . .

Early am - 5:00 if I'm working at 6:00, 6:40 if I'm not - 1/2 can food and test (usually +9 or +10 depending on PM shot time)
AMPS - 7:30 to 8:30 depending, feed 1/2 can food (if he has none left), test and shoot (feeding now because we are usually leaving for the day, otherwise I feed a little later)
Afternoon - 5:00 ish, feed 1/2 can, test if I'm home
PMPS - again 8:00-9:00pm usually, feed 1/2 can if he has none left or isn't interested in last flavor, test and shoot
Bedtime - 11:00 ish, feed 1 small can Sophisticat Flaked Trout (he would jump through flaming hoops for this stuff) and test (usually +2, sometimes +3)

So essentially, he is probably eating 1 to 2 large cans plus 1 small can per day. He doesn't always clean all of this up, in fact, I'm thinking about reducing to 1/3 can at a time because he does leave a lot and after a while I don't think it's safe to leave out anymore.

So I guess I don't understand why you would feed just a couple of times a day to get lower BG numbers. My thinking is that many small meals will give a more level and realistic BG throughout the day, but possibly higher, and the insulin needs to be adjusted to that and not to the lows you get when he hasn't eaten in hours.
 
We do generally suggest smaller, more frequent meals. But there are some cats on the forum whose owners swear they get the best numbers when they feed 2 meals a day. It's that ECID thing. Just wondering if it might be worth a try....
 
I know Grayson can't make it 12 hours w/o food. After free-feeding for 7 years, he need to eat more regularly. He usually gets 2 cans FF at shot time, and one about +6. If I get up in the middle of the night, I'll give him some then too. You'd think he'd gain weight, but he continues to hold between 11-12 pounds. They are testing him for the malabsorption, just in case he's not getting the nutritional value from the food.

Libby always fed consistently every 6 hours (not sure how she's changed w/ TID, but Hershey seemed to do well on it like that.

With HUMAN diabetics, they recommend multiple small meals. I would expect that would be best for kitties too, although some seem to do fine w/ just 2. Like Sue said, ECID!
 
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