Making a plan for going away

EttaD

EttaD

Member Since 2025
Two weeks ago, we reduced Buddy’s dose because his numbers went low enough to earn a .25 reduction, but since then, his numbers have been pretty unimpressive.

I was considering going back up by .25 but on the 25th, we are going on vacation for a week and I feel like there is a chance he could go low on a higher dose while we are away and I don’t have anyone who can monitor him during the day.

Should we just stay at the 1.5 dose until after we return and then consider going back up? His numbers are mostly in the yellows during the day. Occasionally blue. I don’t want to put him up and then back down again in a week.
 
Ordinarily, you should have gone back up to the 1.75 unit dose after 7 days on the 1.5 unit dose (because he needs more insulin to get closer to normal cat BG.) It looks like the day he went down to 65 was a one-time thing and I am not sure he ate his +2 and +4 snacks on that day.

It would be okay to take his dose back to 1.75 now and to drop it back down for when you are away. It will not hurt him in any way. We usually calculate what we call a “vacation dose” for when caregivers are going to be away and no testing will be done (keeping the cat in somewhat higher numbers.) In Buddy’s case it looks like he’s already high enough on the 1.5 units that it can be the vacation dose.

Will you have a pet sitter coming to give the insulin shots twice a day? What about food. How will you make sure he eats enough food and when will he be eating? Will the pet sitter test his BG at least before every shot?
 
I bet you are looking forward to getting away for a week! I like going away, but I hate all the hassle I have to go through to get ready to go.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Ordinarily, you should have gone back up to the 1.75 unit dose after 7 days on the 1.5 unit dose (because he needs more insulin to get closer to normal cat BG.) It looks like the day he went down to 65 was a one-time thing and I am not sure he ate his +2 and +4 snacks on that day.

It would be okay to take his dose back to 1.75 now and to drop it back down for when you are away. It will not hurt him in any way. We usually calculate what we call a “vacation dose” for when caregivers are going to be away and no testing will be done (keeping the cat in somewhat higher numbers.) In Buddy’s case it looks like he’s already high enough on the 1.5 units that it can be the vacation dose.

Will you have a pet sitter coming to give the insulin shots twice a day? What about food. How will you make sure he eats enough food and when will he be eating? Will the pet sitter test his BG at least before every shot?
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Ok great. He did get his snacks every day - including the 65 day.

I will put him back up. He will have a kitty sitter come twice a day to test and shoot. Someone else will be coming in for snack time. We also have an automatic feeder for giving smaller snacks at set time. He just won’t get mid day testing.
 
EttaD said:
Ok great. He did get his snacks every day - including the 65 day.

I will put him back up. He will have a kitty sitter come twice a day to test and shoot. Someone else will be coming in for snack time. We also have an automatic feeder for giving smaller snacks at set time. He just won’t get mid day testing.
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Sounds like a good setup for the week away. You have obviously thought through everything and made all the arrangements. Now you will have peace of mind while you’re away and should be able to enjoy yourself!
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Okay. No worries. I would have recommended a very small dose like .25 or .50 and to get a couple tests. He would have been fine.
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Well, since he keeps doing this, I’ll do that next time. I am so confused by this boy. I wasn’t able to get a test this afternoon.
 
Did you not get any tests today? We don’t have any tests from the last three nights and none from today. It’s really hard to interpret what has been happening.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Did you not get any tests today? We don’t have any tests from the last three nights and none from today. It’s really hard to interpret what has been happening.
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I was away and my husband was on his own. This afternoon, I tried 3 times and could not get his ear to bleed.

What I have been seeing is that he can have his lowest number is just before his pm test. In the AM he seems higher.

I’ll make sure we have some evening tests this week.
 
EttaD said:
What I have been seeing is that he can have his lowest number is just before his pm test. In the AM he seems higher.
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So if this is true, then we need to find out what he does after the PMPS time. If you can stall without feeding him and test again in an hour then we can see if his numbers are going up. At some point we should shoot the full dose at PMPS — on an evening when you can test him and feed him and intervene with higher carb food if necessary.

But, what I see is that he only does this when he’s breaking a bounce. That’s typical. There are quite a few gaps in the spreadsheet so I am having to guess a bit. It would be a little easier if there was at least one mid-cycle test for each cycle. But a common pattern when we see the lowest point in the cycle as being at PMPS (happens at AMPS too) is that the cat goes high after a low number and then gradually trends downward from that.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
So if this is true, then we need to find out what he does after the PMPS time. If you can stall without feeding him and test again in an hour then we can see if his numbers are going up. At some point we should shoot the full dose at PMPS — on an evening when you can test him and feed him and intervene with higher carb food if necessary.

But, what I see is that he only does this when he’s breaking a bounce. That’s typical. There are quite a few gaps in the spreadsheet so I am having to guess a bit. It would be a little easier if there was at least one mid-cycle test for each cycle. But a common pattern when we see the lowest point in the cycle as being at PMPS (happens at AMPS too) is that the cat goes high after a low number and then gradually trends downward from that.
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Are you still thinking 1.75 tomorrow or stick with 1.5?
 
Well, since there are such big gaps in the spreadsheet, I think we had better go ahead and stay with 1.5, but if we want to truly know if he’s better off with 1.5 or 1.75, then there needs to be some mid-cycle tests (at least one per a.m. cycle and at least one for the p.m. cycle.)
 
See he was on his way up as the old shot wore off.

A lot of times you can catch that with retesting 30 minutes to an hour later. But now y’all are off schedule by two hours. Isn’t that going to mess you up for tomorrow?
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
See he was on his way up as the old shot wore off.

A lot of times you can catch that with retesting 30 minutes to an hour later. But now y’all are off schedule by two hours. Isn’t that going to mess you up for tomorrow?
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We have some flexibility tomorrow. We can shoot him later than usual and with ProZinc, I know we also have a bit of flexibility as well.
 
You and your husband are doing so well at trying to get up to speed on all this. I appreciate what a life changing experience it all is — been there done that. Hug!
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
You and your husband are doing so well at trying to get up to speed on all this. I appreciate what a life changing experience it all is — been there done that. Hug!
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That is so kind of you to say. Thank you. I feel a bit like this is a puzzle to solve. I so appreciate your guidance. I am not impressed with how vets treat diabetic cats.

I have a friend with a diabetic cat and she just brings him to the vet every 2 weeks for a curve and shoot the dose recommendation. No other testing. I could not imagine that.
 
EttaD said:
have a friend with a diabetic cat and she just brings him to the vet every 2 weeks for a curve and shoot the dose recommendation. No other testing. I could not imagine that.
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Honestly, you are so very welcome!

You are on such a better path for your Buddy than that which your friend is on. But when you are really stressed or needing a break — let me know. We can work it out. I am always going to recommend what is “optimal,” but real life has lots of bumps in the road! And since I don’t know every detail of your life, I can’t tell when you just need a break or have a situation where you have to be away, or Buddy is giving you a hard time about testing, etc.

I hope you will really really enjoy your week away!
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Honestly, you are so very welcome!

You are on such a better path for your Buddy than that which your friend is on. But when you are really stressed or needing a break — let me know. We can work it out. I am always going to recommend what is “optimal,” but real life has lots of bumps in the road! And since I don’t know every detail of your life, I can’t tell when you just need a break or have a situation where you have to be away, or Buddy is giving you a hard time about testing, etc.

I hope you will really really enjoy your week away!
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There will be a moderate number of margaritas in my future.

I have a lot of flexibility for day time tests as I work from home about 75% of the time. Night tests are harder but we can definitely do a +2 and an occasional +4. +6 overnight would be really hard.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Well, since there are such big gaps in the spreadsheet, I think we had better go ahead and stay with 1.5, but if we want to truly know if he’s better off with 1.5 or 1.75, then there needs to be some mid-cycle tests (at least one per a.m. cycle and at least one for the p.m. cycle.)
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Just a quick update that I shot him with a “fat” 1.5 and his +6 was 8.2. So I am not going all the way back up to 1.75 just yet.
 
Please put 1.5 F (to indicate that you shot a fat 1.5) in the cell for units.

148 is a good nadir (better than he has been getting recently) although it’s still higher than the desired target for him.

Are you ready for greens yet? We have time for that (maybe after your trip.)
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Please put 1.5 F (to indicate that you shot a fat 1.5) in the cell for units.

148 is a good nadir (better than he has been getting recently) although it’s still higher than the desired target for him.

Are you ready for greens yet? We have time for that (maybe after your trip.)
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That’s what I’m thinking. Let’s be a bit more aggressive after the trip.
 
Sorry to ask this again, but today, can you please tell me what he ate and at what hour in the cycle he ate it there is a huge drop in the beginning of the cycle and then a large rise back up. I am trying to figure out what in the world was going on
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
No worries. I am more concerned about what he ate today and when he ate it? Anything else happening today?
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He had a snack (fancy feast) at +2 and then I tested him at +3.5 (I couldn’t figure out how to enter that in the sheet) he had another snack (chicken hearts) probably 45 minutes before that +6 test and another snack at +8 and we tested him at +12 before his dinner and shot.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
No worries. I am more concerned about what he ate today and when he ate it? Anything else happening today?
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Other than trying to eat my tortilla chips and being a bit demanding between his last snack and dinner, nothing strange. He did go for a wellness visit to the vet last night.
 
EttaD said:
He had a snack (fancy feast) at +2 and then I tested him at +3.5 (I couldn’t figure out how to enter that in the sheet) he had another snack (chicken hearts) probably 45 minutes before that +6 test and another snack at +8 and we tested him at +12 before his dinner and shot.
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Overnight, he gets a snack at +2, +4 (1/2 tablespoon dry) and +8 (1 tablespoon dry).
 
Example from my spreadsheet of odd times being entered or even more than one test being entered into the spreadsheet.
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