? Marmy’s erratic numbers

tonimarmalade

tonimarmalade

Member Since 2015
So I have not posted on the feline diabetic message board in a couple of years. However my cat marmalade is riding a roller coaster lately and I would appreciate someone to look at her chart which I have kept up and give me some feedback. As you can see yesterday she almost gave me a heart attack with a 20 around 2:30 in the afternoon. I am mediately gave her her some FF high carb -about a tablespoon. And true to form she bounced up to 390 something this morning. She is on Levimer and I am sure I am doing several things incorrectly. I will review the tight regulation protocol and how often to feed her. Her primary diet is the freeze dried nuggets. I gave her pork, duck, beef and salmon, and venison. Sometime she needs A little persuasion to get started. So I use a bit of Forta Flora. She is 13 yrs old, she has kept a constant weight of 10 lbs and I love her beyond words.
 
Hi There and welcome back. Marmalade is a beauty! I have a soft spot for orange/red kitties for sure!

Yikes... that 20 is a low one for sure. Was she showing any signs of hypo?

I'm not overly familiar with reductions, so hopefully an experienced member will chime in, but your .5 reduction yesterday may be too much. Is there a reason why you didn't reduce by .25 u instead?

My second question would be her diet. Is the "freeze dried nuggets" a complete cat food? or just treats?

Third, for TR I'm thinking you need to be testing more after your PM shot. Looking at your spreadsheet you are missing half of the data. It's important to get a test in before bed time so you have an idea what the little stinker may be up to during the night.

Lastly, you might want to jot down in the notes section of your spreadsheet what you did/fed Marmalade when she did a nose dive into the limes.

If you put a "?" in your thread title, it will draw more experienced eyes to your question.
 
Hi Toni, hope you are doing well. As a long term diabetic, you should be giving Marmie reductions when she goes under 40. I see a few times you didn't take a reduction when she hit the 30's. And you even gave insulin on 3/21 when she was in the 30's. :eek: We never give insulin if under 50. Best to either wait until she comes up, or skip. And after yesterday, she was really telling you she needed that reducie. Her new dose should be 1.25 units. Going to 1.0 units for a couple cycles was probably a good wait to drain the depot some.
 
Thank you both. 1.25. Got it! Yes the Primal freeze dried nuggets are quite expensive and a complete high protein meal.i will certainly test before lights out for me. and I see that I did state in the remarks that I did give her FF gravy lovers each time she went below 40. Is there a FF soft canned food that is safe and low carb for Diabetic kitties? She has tooth resorption issues and so soft stuff is best. The nuggets are ground up in warm water so like a soup. Actually, I was amazed that she was just sleeping peacefully when my Reiki master suggested I she might be low because she could see her around my heart chakra. We were doing virtual Reiki. Amazing what spiritually gifted people can sense. Thank God I did test her. She hadn’t eaten all day which definitely had something to do with it. Regarding treats I do give her Pure Bites but again only the softer ones that I can pulverize before she gets them. I had forgotten the ? In the thread. Thank you for the reminder. Wendy, so good to reconnect with you and nice to meet you Judy and Freckles. Marmy has cute little freckles on the tip of her nose. Thank you both again.
 
tonimarmalade said:
Is there a FF soft canned food that is safe and low carb for Diabetic kitties?
Click to expand...
Yes, there's lots to remember for our little sugar cats, but thankfully, this forum is chalk full of information and reminders and wonderful experienced volunteers who help all of us. Specifically, you may want to look at the following 'stickies' if you haven't already done so:

food links: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/links-to-food-charts.174182/
dosing methods: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/...-low-go-slow-slgs-tight-regulation-tr.210110/
tight regulation: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/...y-to-shoot-handle-lower-pre-shot-numbers.147/
handling low numbers: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/dont-panic-or-how-to-handle-low-numbers.210109/

Lots of forum members will post daily. This helps the experienced members get to know your kitty better and often puts them in a better position to answer your questions.

tonimarmalade said:
Marmy has cute little freckles on the tip of her nose
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One can't help but love freckles!! :cat:
 
If you enlarge her picture you may be able to see them. I would send a recent picture which shows them better but I don’t think I am allowed to do that on FDMB. Re: wet food which she hasn’t eaten in years (aside from the high carb FF when she drops too low ) I plan to order the FF classic chicken to start. If there are any other safe classic flavors which someone might recommend, please advise me. Thank you. She is doing well today, thank the Lord and Wendy and Judy.
 
Here is a searchable database link to catfood that may be helpful.

https://catinfo.org/chart/index.php

When I did a search on FF from the above link, this is what I found. To be considered low carb it should be under 10. Phosphorus tends to be a bit high for FF Classic if that is a concern, but many forum members feed FF.

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Hey @tonimarmalade

Great to see you all back. At the risk of being redundant from other posts, I’d like to summarize (don’t mean to sound short with the summary but I just have a few minutes and want to get some points off for you):

1. If she drops below 40, reduce the dose by 0.25u not 0.5u; never ever miss a reduction.
2. Never, ever take the dose back up to what you reduced from after just one or two cycles. Almost every time she went low on 1.5u, you reduced to 1u for one or two cycles and then took her back up to 1.5u. That’s dangerous and not how to work the insulin. She is not holding reductions because you aren’t reducing correctly and you aren’t giving her time to clear the bounce.
3. I know it’s hard for you to test at night because you are caring for Anita. But every single night, you should at least get a +2 and/or a before bed depending on when you go to bed. Don’t slack off on the nighttime tests like that. If you go to bed after +2, get a test then. If she’s dropping, leave out higher carb food.
4. You should always get a +2 in the daytime cycle and if she’s headed down, take action. Don’t let it go for several hours and find her at 20. The number of low numbers that you aren’t catching before they are really low shows me she needs to be tested more and 1.5u is just too much insulin for her.
5. Never, ever ever shoot if her BG is below 50. Give it time to rise without feeding and once it’s over 50, you can shoot. It’s best to review the info on Dealing with Low Preshots.

We hope you’ll come back and post every day so we can help more. :bighug::bighug::bighug:
 
So my Marmy’s chart is up to the minute with a couple comments as well. Thank you Marje andJudy and Wendy. Should I just post her numbers on a new post?
 
I started one earlier today but didn’t put the date and Marmy’s name in. I’ll try to do it correctly tomorrow. Is Levemir the best forum for me to post in since that is what I use and attempting to use TR protocol. I am so happy you could see her freckles on her nose. Tell me about your beautiful cat, Freckles. He is so handsome. How is he doing?
 
Yes, Lev forum would be appropriate. If you have other questions/comments not specific about Lev or Lantus they can be posted on the general forum. Freckles is a 'she'. lol. Some one dumped her as a kitten and when I found her she had a broken front leg - poor little thing. She's been with us ever since! :cat:
 
How good of you. She is beautiful! Thank you for helping me get reacquainted with the I s and outs of the FDMB. It has. Even a while since I have been on it. But staying home makes testing and,posting much more doable.
 
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