mornin’ kids and kitties

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donnahc

donnahc

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Good morning everyone. We woke to more white stuff falling from the sky this morning. Oh joy...

Last night we gave Asher 2 units after his pmps of 249, and got up to test at +4 overnight. That number was 264. Meh.

This morning we had an amps of 240. We gave 2 units again.

So...I guess we’ll have to reassess after today and see what’s up. He just doesn’t want to go below any yellow numbers. It’s weird.
 
I can't believe you didn't get better numbers yesterday. Maybe he was just waiting for Monday. Let's go with that. Here's to blues and greens.
 
Thanks Kristen!

Same to you guys too!

What is it with these kitties love of yellow these days?

confused_cat
 
I checked last time we thought there might be an insulin prob. It expires April of next year. It’s been in the fridge since we got it from vet in Jan.

So I don’t know what to think. I am trying not to be discouraged.
 
I know. This is hard. I don't know what to suggest, Donna. He got such nice numbers at that lower dose earlier, but he just isn't reacting now. I think I would keep your BAM dose for a few more cycles.

Everything else is the same - treats, food, no chance of infection?
 
Well he does need a dental. And I was wondering earlier if maybe that might be the problem. I know he has at least one tooth that has to go. But the vet wanted to get him regulated before we scheduled that. He doesn’t seem to be in any pain, and we certainly know it doesn’t effect his eating ;)
He acts normal, does naughty stuff (like wakes me up in the middle of the night for attention even tho there is food in his bowl), plays with his brother, he seems really good since he has been on insulin. Just the numbers don’t seem to budge.

That is the only thing I can think of. There is nothing around he can get into like dry food, that all got donated. I have one sealed bag of Greenies left way up in the back of a cabinet that I saved for a hypo emergency.
 
Well, the tooth is a possibility. Especially if it has gotten worse - that could be directly correlated to his numbers gradually going up.

Wish they came with an instruction manual....
 
So you think I should ask my vet if they will do a dental before he’s regulated? (I can’t wait to hear her condescending tone with me)

How risky is this procedure if he isn’t regulated? Is there anything I have to ask my vet not to do or use with him since he’s diabetic and I’m not sure I trust their judgment, like metacam, etc?

I am looking for my bottle of Xanax now ;)
 
I know. I would post on Health, Donna, and ask specifically for dental advice on a cat who is not tightly regulated yet. See what others' experiences have been. (Sorry no direct experiences here.)

Remember it is a choice. You can continue working with the dose and see what happens. You don't need to make any decisions yet.
 
I have frequently heard people say that it is unlikely to be able to regulate a cat with bad teeth. Do yyou know what concerns your vet has about doing a dental before Getting Asher regulated?
 
I didn’t ask that, she just said she wanted to get him regulated first. She told us that the day he was dx’ed in Jan.

I guess I need to call her soon. She wanted us to be on 2 units since I spoke with her last a few weeks back, and now we are, so maybe if we let him here a few more cycles and I can show her no movement, maybe she will be cool with scheduling it.

I just want to get as much info beforehand if we are going to do this soon. I’m very nervous about it.
 
You know, I'm starting to wonder if this isn't affecting Sam too. He has some tartar on the one side that needs cleaning off but the vet wanted to wait until he was better regulated. Now I'm thinking waiting isn't such a good idea.
 
Well I do have some good news in that we finally broke the 200 barrier. Tom just
Called me with Asher's +6 and he's at 186.
There seems go be a slight downward trend since he's on 2 units so we'll hang out here for a bit and see what happens.
I am still not ruling out calling about the dental but I'll wait a couple days.
 
Hooray for blues!
Squamee had 2 teeth extracted when she was not well regulated. Of course she had other serious medical problems that were of more concern than the FD--- she had a jaw problem that we were trying to figure out. But the extractions, which were done by a dental specialist, seemed to have no bad effect on her diabetes.
 
Well, my gray boy always makes it exciting. This may be our break thru, who knows.

We just tested him because he is super pesty for food tonight. We are a little past 10.5 now.

BG is 126....

So today reads like this: amps 240, +6 186, +10.5-11 126.

Obviously we have to wait and retest.

Now I’m really confused what to do. I know Joanna said to go back to 1.8 if we went low, but 126 is pretty low for end of the day near pmps.

Any thoughts?
 
Congrats on those blues!!! This may be confusing, but it is great, as well. He may make the dose clearer when you retest---we don't know yet how much he will go up. Does he tend to eat when he needs to raise his BG? You could leave food out tonight to be safe.
 
I have been feeding, then leaving out what food the cats don’t eat until maybe two hours before the next ps test.
This way Asher can graze a little throughout the day. Makes him and us happier, we still get to monitor how much he eats, and Sue tells me it helps the pancreas. So long answer, yes, there is always food out here.

We are gonna retest now and see where we are. I’ll be back here in a few mins......
 
New BG is 137. (This reading is exactly 12 hours after our amps today)
So he’s going up but is still pretty low.
The cats are having fits that we haven’t fed them yet. I don’t know what to do in this situation.
I want to try to stay close to 1.8 units so he doesn’t start bouncing all over the place again. I am afraid that might happen with a no shoot or vastly reduced dose tonight.

I guess we’ll try to hold off the hungry herd for another half hour to hour if possible. I can’t feed one cat and not the other. I feel awful :(
 
You think more like a Lev/Lantus user.

Let's see what your next number is and then talk about it. It looks like the third cycle did the trick.
 
You mean with my guilt of not feeding, or wanting to stick to the dose I have in mind? (Is that a compliment?) :lol:

We are gonna test again in a half hour....
 
By wanting to stick with the set dose. It's not a compliment or a slam.

They are completely different insulins with completely different protocols.
 
Does ProZync have an “official" protocol? I kind of got yelled at by my vet for moving the dose around (sliding scale), not that I am going to change what we’re doing here, but I was just curious since it sounds like other insulins might be more rigid in dosing.

I think of dumb questions while I am twiddling my thumbs waiting to test.....

laptop_smiley
 
Our current bg is 138, so he really hasn’t moved up. (was 137 an hour ago) I think I have to feed the cats now since it’s after 8:30 here.

Any suggestions in insulin? I am clueless at this point. Never thought he’d be this low this late......
 
Gator used to tell me that the ideal drop from one PS to another was about 50 points (lower if you were under 300--I think? Maybe then it was more like 20. Hard to remember the specifics. ) Anyway, he was a variable dosing guy. So I think he might have been thinking 1.8 tonight---or 1.6 to be safer---tho from your SS it looks like you test at night, so that makes you safer. Deciding doses always made me crazy. But you are getting good results. What does your gut tell you? You know your cat well.
 
He is ALWAYS pulling this! He seems to do nothing on a dose, then all of a sudden he is too low at pmps. I think a shot of some amount would be good, but not sure how low....What are you thinking Donna?

There is no real protocol with PZI, other than watching both pre shot numbers and nadirs, increasing by .5 with higher numbers and .25 at lower doses. It seems to impact kitties in such different ways that it would be hard to have hard and firm rules. In some ways, a protocol would be nice, but I do think it can be a little bit of a crutch. What I see is that you and Kirsten are starting to think through your dosing, rather than relying on rules. I think it's a good thing.

As far as your vet - would she want you to just stick with a dose when numbers are too low?
 
You don't want to skip a shot and lose your momentum.

The last time you shot .6 into a similar bg it didn't really do much sooooo what are your thoughts on dose.
 
Not dumb questions, at all. When I first used PZI I was taught to go by the nadir and use the preshot only as a precautionary number (if too low, don't shoot, etc). And I think I held the dose a few cycles. (I have to go back to my spread sheet and look). THen we went OTJ and came back with FD a year later. Terri, who mostly taught me was gone. Gator and Robin helped me. Gator was very much interested in variable dosing (sliding scale) based on preshot numbers, using the nadir only as precautionary. (I don't know about Lantus, but I think perhaps they take the former approach). SO there are many ways to skin a cat --- oh no, excuse that expression :o . But trying to go by the nadir seemed impossible---Squamee did a lot of what Asher is doing---moving nadir and often a late one, so it made me crazy to try to base shots on that. I still don't know what I think about holding the dose---sometimes I thought it was helpful, other times I was not sure. I think there is no one right way, you have to try to follow your cat's lead.
 
Oh I forgot, there is no protocol per say for Prozinc but the Prozinc Check List has alot of good information in it. It was put together by combining everyones accumulated experience.

Judy is right, ECID, hold the dose don't hold the dose you have to see what works for your cat.
 
Did I say I hate dosing decisions? I HATE them. You want so much to do right by your kitty, and it is so hard to know. I usually found that the best thing for me was when in doubt, shoot less, not more. Or be prepared to do a lot of testing!!!. So once again, you have to see how fast he seems to be rising. WHich is complicated by food. ARGGGGH! :dizcat
 
My first thought is 1 unit, but then I think that might be a big chicken dose and I don’t want him to loose ground. Joanna said 1.8 the other day without seeing these numbers. He doesn’t have a history of diving real low but he does do these surprising things when you least expect it.
(see why I am nutz? this is how my brain jumps around)

Obviously we will be testing tonight. He ate a lot for supper since we fed late and he got a bit frenzied about that.

Tom says 1.6 but he is more daring than me. Does 1.4 sound ridiculously high?
 
Oh, and yes Sue, my vet told me my no shoot number was 70. EEEkkkkkkkk!
And she reprimanded me about changing his dose so frequently.
 
I vote for chicken doses. Losing some ground is better than hypos. Is he the kind of cat who will keep eating through the night to raise his numbers if necessary?
 
That sounds good. We do get really spooky about low numbers, but you know how to deal with them. And Asher seldom throws them. (anti jinx).

If your vet wants you to shoot at 80, she is scary. That would practically guarantee a hypo.
 
He doesn’t eat thru the night. When I get up to test at night I hand feed him chicken and have to coax him to eat it, very unlike during the day when he inhales everything.

So 1.4 doesn’t scare anybody too much?


And then I have to ask, if his amps is back to “normal" tomorrow, or higher, we go back to maybe 1.6 or 1.8 units to try to avoid all this tomorrow night?
 
OK, I am comfortable with that. We will test overnight.

Thank you ALL so much for helping us. We TRULY appreciate it. Always a panic here at the dutch ghetto :)

:mrgreen:
 
I can get him to eat, he just won’t get out of the warm bed and do it on his own at night.

I just packed our testing supplies and our little night food container for next to our bed.

Thanks for worrying for us Judy, but you don’t have to, I do enough worrying for 6 of us.

I promise to set the alarm and test. I have emergency supplies at hand, heaven forbid.

xoxoxoxo to you all......
 
Late to the party, but yeah, I wouldn't have shot 1.8 unless you saw a pattern more like a 50 nadir and a 150 PS suggesting the dose was pretty close to right, but no margin for error, so you pull back a little in that case and see if you can still hold the good #s w/o having to be up all night testing.

In this case though, the curve is a bit wonky and the PS fairly low, so it's less clear if the dose is a tiny bit too high or more than a tiny bit too high, so 1.4 makes a lot of sense to me. I think you may well need to go to 1.6 or 1.8 in the morning, but I would wait and make sure you get a PS more like 150 - 180 or higher to go with slightly more insulin. You don't really want to put it to the test on a 140 IMO - you don't want to be a chicken, but at that same time no need to shoot aggressively on a low PS, it's really more data gathering when you get a lower than usual PS. Just not much room there to get to a nadir, so why risk it IMO.
 
I feel for you Donna. Newbie me had a hard time with wonky numbers and low pre shots. I am more linear than I thought and was always looking for a pattern (if this, then this). Sending positive vibes for a good night and blues and greens.
 
Thanks guys. It is a bit of stress for sure, but it’s all worth it for our furry dudes whom we love so much cat_pet_icon
I don’t usually drink during the week but I may have a half glass of wine before bed tonight :)
I am relieved you thought we did ok on dose tonight Joanna. I knew you wouldn’t want us to do that 1.8, but then to come up with what would be good racked my brain a bit. You really called this break thru! I was getting discouraged and then BAM! Now I hope we can hold the good numbers

So now, about that medicinal glass of wine....

G’nite all. I got my testin slippers on......
 
You did great!!!! I'm glad you didn't shoot 1.8, and sorry if my suggesting that led you to feel like you *should* be shooting that even if it didn't feel right to you. There are so many variables it is usually best not to suggest doses until the #s are in front of you, but on the other hand I like to try to give people some idea of what to expect and what to do in what scenarios, since often people may not be on the board to advise when it is shot time.

Well anyway, I could use a drink too, LOL. It's gonna be fruit juice, but I can live vicariously through the smilies. :lol:

drinking09 :dizcat
 
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