Mid cycle test?

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Rachel

Rachel

Member Since 2013
I updated my girl's SS. I haven't been able to mid cycle test her since I work crazy hours (like most of you I am sure). I wanted to do some mid cycle testing this weekend, especially since I'm off Monday, but wanted to first ask about it. Since my girl hasn't had insulin in days now, do I just test her 5-7 hours after her first test? I mean, I planned to do 5-7 hours after her shot, but she hasn't gotten one in a couple days because her numbers have been under 200 (sometimes WAY under). I assume that's what I do, but I need to ask first because I really want to make sure she's taken care of.

Another question, if you look at her numbers, they seem really erratic to me. Sometimes she's under 100 and then sometimes closer to 200. Is that normal? Are the fluctuations like this sometimes? Does it just depend on your cat?

Hope to get some mid cycle tests this weekend so we can see where to go from there. I know that once you have more data, you can start to adjust insulin and figure out a better number to avoid shots for your cat. Thanks everyone!
 
When no insulin is on board, it isn't likely you'd see a big drop.
What you may see is, after eating, a small rise in BG after an hour or so. And then, if her pancreas is working well, you'd see it go back down not long afterwards. If you're seeing flat numbers, that means she's doing her best to self-regulate.
 
Is she still getting the Friskies pates? At this point you might want to choose lower carb ones (or even try a different lower carb food) and feed mini meals through the day to help support her pancreas. We really want her 50-130 and she is a little high

Wendy
 
Spread the food out into mini-meals or freeze some to put out for nibbling as it thaws.

On a tangent, you might edit your signature to remove the dose, as it is no longer correct, plus doses can change. Just leave the insulin name, with or without an indicator of OTJ trial or status.
 
Thanks for the advice guys. I'm a bit concerned that her numbers are still high. I haven't given insulin in days now, but she seems stuck on the higher numbers. I am going to head to the store in a few minutes and try to stock up on some lower carb foods. She's still getting the friskies classic pate...all under 10%. I'm going to see if I can find some that under 6...that still leaves some options. Also, going to attempt to find some low carb treats. That's one I haven't found much data on, but hoping the pet store will have something!

Right now, I do leave food out and let her graze. None of my cats will eat what they're given all at once. They have always been grazers. I haven't been freezing it...do you think I need to so that she doesn't have the option of eating much until later in the day? As it is, sometimes they don't eat all the food I leave out. They usually eat more at night, but during the day, I often find food left behind when I go to prepare their dinner.

I really want to get her numbers down. I'll do whatever I can. I can't really feed mini meals during the day because of my work schedule. But any other suggestions you have to get her down, I will take! I hate that she's stuck in these higher numbers.
 
For some reason, I'm fighting her SS. It's all right, except I just did a +6 test and it was 186. I'm trying to get the SS to reflect that, but just wanted to let you know.
 
Yes, freezing some means it'll be eaten later, when it thaws.

Do you have any U-100 syringes? Those may be used to shoot a small dose of 0.2 units.
 
I've got u-200. Should I try to get some u-100? I can ask my vet to see if they have any...
 
I picked up friskies special diet....all 4 or 5 percent carbs. I'll feed that tonight and tomorrow...I'm off tomorrow so I can do a mid cycle test then. Also got freeze dried chicken, turkey, and fish treats. No carbs there. I'll update the SS when we've gotten more tests with low carb in her. Thank you all!!!
 
Check your syringes again? They should be U40's if you are using Prozinc.

You can however use U100s and a conversion chart to give really small doses like .2u or .1u.
 
Whoa! Jumped back up to 252 tonight. Back to insulin...I did feed her the lower carb tonight. I'll try to test her again before bed tonight.
 
She was at 186 at +6 and jumped up to 252 at PMPS? What was her BG this morning?
 
Yesterday AMPS was 142. Today AMPS is 135. Granted, she had the lower carb food last night. I gave her the lowest carb I had this AM. I'll test her at +6 to see where we are. Luckily no work today. Last night was the first insulin shot in about a week. It seems strange that she would go so high from being almost normal in the AM. The only thing she ate besides breakfast was a freeze dried chicken treat at test time. Hope this fluctuation doesn't happen again.
 
By the way, I checked my needles. You were right, u-40. For some reason, I had the number 200 in my head. Not sure where I got that from.
 
She recovered from that 252 last night ;-)

A couple of questions about your insulin. Only asking because it seems like a 2.5u dose should be doing "more" given that her numbers on "zero" insulin weren't really that bad.

I'm assuming it isn't old.
And you're keeping it refrigerated?
Are you gently rolling it prior to drawing it up into the syringe to make sure it's "mixed" well?
Does it appear cloudy, but with no "floaties" visible?
 
Well she finally went back down below 200 tonight! I did several tests on her yesterday to get a better idea of what was up. Updated the SS just now.

I got her insulin at the beginning of Sept so it's about a month old. The doc told me the vial should last about 2 months. I do make sure to roll it up and I try to check and make sure it looks well mixed. Maybe I need to roll it longer? I'll try rolling it more tomorrow if she gets insulin again. I do make sure I look at it and check for a cloudy look with no floaties. I also felt like the dose should be doing more...but I don't really know much about it. Do you think the dose needs to be higher? It seems like it doesn't really affect her a whole lot.

I was in hopes we were moving towards being diet controlled but then her numbers shot back up and nothing was different. Now the food is lower carb...but I was hoping it would have more of an effect than it has. All food is between 4 and 5 % carbs.
 
Are you keeping it in the fridge? I think PZI can keep up to 6 months in the fridge.

tell me you didnt give 25units this morning!! Thats typo right?

Her numbers are pretty good - she might just need a little insulin for a while to help her pancreas out. 2.5 might be too much though - although its hard to tell how well its working since when you have been giving the dose you havent gotten any mid cycle tests to see how low it takes her... and thats key.


Wendy
 
Wow! Apparently I'm tired...definitely a typo. Fixed now. ohmygod_smile

I do want to get mid cycle tests when she is on the insulin. It's just impossible during the week. Hopefully this weekend she will take some insulin so I can see where she is at. I'll keep you posted!!

I do keep it refrigerated. I only take it out right before I use it.
 
whew! Ok great on the fridge.

Can you get a before bed test during the week - say every few days? Thats useful data too.

Wendy
 
Yes! I can definitely do that. I guess tonight isn't useful since she didn't get any insulin? If she takes any tomorrow I can definitely check her then.
 
Thanks so much Wendy! I've been really worried about mid cycle shots. I'll definitely get one tonight and tomorrow. Hopefully she'll take some insulin so we can see where that leads. Next weekend BF starts new job and might be home earlier a few days a week. Might not be home early enough to get a mid cycle shot but maybe +8. He hasn't tested her yet so I'm going to bring it up this weekend to see if he's willing to try. I'll also make an effort to do before bed testing whenever I can.

Would it be useful to do a test every two hours once a week? So I can get a better idea of where her cycle is? I might be able to do that one weekend day. Or can that be done less frequently?

Thanks again! Everyone has been so helpful and I appreciate you answering all my questions and offering advice. Her numbers have really thrown me now that we finally got testing down. If you all weren't here to help and listen to me, I don't know what I would do!
 
Mid cycle tests.. Not mid cycle shots! You only want to shoot twice a day.

I usually recommend 3-4 tests a day as opposed to curves. They give you more information over time instead of just one day

- always before the shot - this is mandatory as you don't want to shoot when too low.
- mid cycle - 5-7 hours after morning shot depending on your schedule. This is to see how low she is going. The low point "nadir" is what you base dose changes on since you don't want her dropping too low (under 50). If this is hard during the week then set the alarm for an occasional mid night test and definately get it at weekends.
- before bed (2-3hours after Pm shot) to get an idea of what her overnight plans are. If this number is less than the pre shot test number you may want to set the alarm for a test a few hours later as this implies an active cycle.

Wendy
 
Just tested her at +4 (well really +3 and a half). she was 178. One number lower than the PMPS.

Apparently today is just a Monday...I meant mid cycle tests. My brain has officially gone down the tubes.

Thanks again! I'll try to get those before bed tests and make sure to get mid cycle tests on the weekends!
 
Flat cycle. meters var by 20% so that number is the same as her preshot. Be interesting to see what she does over the next few days

Wendy

Ps I know what you mean.. cant wait for Friday!
 
I got some mid cycle tests in this weekend. If you look at her SS you'll see they are odd. Especially today. 279 this AM. 106 at +6. 326 just now. Sooooo....any advice? About to feed and give insulin. Will test again before bed to see where that goes.
 
Glucose levels aren't static. You should expect that the levels about 4 to 6 hours after the shot would be lower, barring food spike or illness effects.

If you meal feed, roughly 2 hours after feeding, you'll see the highest food spike level which then lowers. You can control the spike effect by spreading the food into mini-meals, by freezing half and letting it be nibbled as it thaws.

Steep drops from insulin may be mediated by intentionally giving slightly higher carb levels to slow the drop rate and limit how much it drops; this is helpful for the cat who is very bouncy.
 
She might need a slight increase. I am not a PZI expert though so might be an idea to pop over to the PZI board and ask there?
 
You could try an increase of 0.25 units, if the pre-shot stays in the 275 +/- 25 mg/dL range.

Also, you may shoot as low as 150 mg/dL. If concerned about going too low, you may back off the dose. A nice feature of ProZinc (and PZI) is that you can adjust the dose based on the pre-shot and the insulin effects in that range of pre-shot to develop a sliding scale. For example, if you get a pre-shot of 180 mg/dL and are able to check around +5, you might drop the insulin dose to 2.0 units and see how that works. be prepared with a bit of higher carb food in case you need to steer the numbers from going too low.
 
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