? Need help making sense of Oscar's numbers, I'm just confused.

[Chloe007]

I'll start by admitting I know I don't get the amount of daytime tests I should be getting, so most of my results are from his PM cycles since that's when I'm awake/off work. So I've been noticing Oscar dropping low at night, and then all I'm really ever able to see during the day is that he's high by AMPS..I'm putting this down to bouncing and was planning to stick with this new 5.25 dose for a little longer to see if he will eventually level out to these numbers we've been seeing. Up until just now, and I got a +6 reading of 88. I gave him a little MC food because I need to go to sleep, but now I'm worried about this happening again when I'm not home tomorrow. If I could have stayed up tonight, I wouldn't have fed and see how it progressed organically. I think I'm going to leave out a little MC food when I leave for work tomorrow otherwise I'll be a nervous wreck, but then the next two days I have off and can monitor him more closely on this dose.

Honestly, I'm just confused right now. Can someone help me understand this? We haven't really been in any lower numbers before until just recently. I definitely shouldn't increase right? Should I leave the MC food out in the morning, even if he's back up to the high 400's, knowing he's come down quick from that number before? I will only be home for the first four hours of his AM cycle tomorrow morning. Is there any better solution here? I mean I love seeing these numbers, and I don't want to screw this up, but I'm just not comfortable with him being in the green when I'm not there to watch him...

 

[Deb & Wink]

You are looking for a 50% drop from pre-shot test to nadir.
On 1/27/20 PM cycle, Oscar went from 329 to 84.
That is a 75% drop.
Looks like the dose is causing a bounce.

On 1/25/20 PM cycle, Oscar went from 471 to 161
That is a 66% drop.
Looks like the dose is causing a bounce.

1/25/20 AM cycle, Oscar went from a 438 to 167
That is a 62% drop.
Looks like the dose is causing a bounce.

"If the cat is in the 250+ mg/dL {13.9+ mmol/L} range (or higher) at pre shot and drops below 50% at nadir, bouncing is a possibility."

So stay the course is my best recommendation. Do not increase at this point. Oscar is just a bouncy, bouncy boy right now.

 

[Deb & Wink]

Any recent BG readings on Oscar you can update on your SS?

 

[Chloe007]

Any recent BG readings on Oscar you can update on your SS?

Hey thanks for asking! I've had a very busy couple days, just got around to updating. I took your advice by the way, as I agree he's just being a very bouncy boy, and he's at the same dose...seems to be doing pretty well as far as his numbers coming down mid cycle but he's still very bouncy and I'm seeing a lot of red and black preshots. As expected after the 88 the other night, he was in the black the next morning. Suppose there's not too much I can do about this.

 

[Ann & Scatcats]

Oscar The Oringe Bouncer

Tell him that Oscar was the name too on one of our Royal Swedish Kings.
So he doesn't feel so bad for being a bit bouncy in his numbers.

 

[Bron and Sheba (GA)]

If you are worried about him dropping low while you are at work, I think it is fine to leave a little MC food out for him. You need to be comfortable with everything when you walk out the door to work.
Test before you go out and document as many BGs as you can.

Are you leaving ordinary low carb food out for Oscar when you are at work?
Do you offer several smaller meals during the cycles?
Do you have an automatic feeder? It is easy to regulate when you can give the food with an autofeeder.

 

[Chloe007]

If you are worried about him dropping low while you are at work, I think it is fine to leave a little MC food out for him. You need to be comfortable with everything when you walk out the door to work.
Test before you go out and document as many BGs as you can.

Are you leaving ordinary low carb food out for Oscar when you are at work?
Do you offer several smaller meals during the cycles?
Do you have an automatic feeder? It is easy to regulate when you can give the food with an autofeeder.

Thank you, it does make me feel a little better to leave out some MC food while I'm away, at least until I can see a pattern with him, or anything consistent.

I do leave out ordinary low carb food, he has dietary issues because of IBD so he alternates between Ziwipeak and Dr. Elsey's during the day. He gets two snacks, one about 2 hours after his shot, another around +5, I usually get home at around +6 and he will often still have some left over. I'll let him snack for another hour or so. One issue we've been having with the autofeeder is we have 3 cats, we can't be sure Oscar is getting food when he always needs it. So I leave a little MC out just for peace of mind. The MC I leave out is wet, he much prefers dry, so he usually won't even go for the MC unless his sister's ate all his food and it was all he had. So it's a safety net of sorts.

 

[Deb & Wink]

Looking at Oscar's SS again. I know it's tough, frankly can seem like a P.I.T.A. (and I don't mean Plum Island Taxpayers' & Associates with that acronym, Right down the road from where I live. Not sure they paid attention when they came up with the name).

May be hard to do keep the SS up to date with all your other work and life responsibilities pulling you in different directions. But if you don't keep your SS up to date, it's much harder for us to see what is going on and make suggestions with Oscar's dose. Kind of a catch-22 situation.

Can you only update the SS from a work or friends computer or at a local public library? Do you have a smart phone? You can install google sheets and google drive and update the SS from your phone.

I think you could use a wee bit more help. But I need to see the most recent BG tests. What happened 4 days ago doesn't help me much to help you better. And I'd like to help you a bit more.

It's up to you.

 

[Chloe007]

Looking at Oscar's SS again. I know it's tough, frankly can seem like a P.I.T.A. (and I don't mean Plum Island Taxpayers' & Associates with that acronym, Right down the road from where I live. Not sure they paid attention when they came up with the name).

May be hard to do keep the SS up to date with all your other work and life responsibilities pulling you in different directions. But if you don't keep your SS up to date, it's much harder for us to see what is going on and make suggestions with Oscar's dose. Kind of a catch-22 situation.

Can you only update the SS from a work or friends computer or at a local public library? Do you have a smart phone? You can install google sheets and google drive and update the SS from your phone.

I think you could use a wee bit more help. But I need to see the most recent BG tests. What happened 4 days ago doesn't help me much to help you better. And I'd like to help you a bit more.

It's up to you.

Haha, very funny!

I do appreciate all your help Deb. I'm a med student and have a heavy workload at the moment, and I'm also having to pick up extra shifts at the bar etc, so I do apologize if it feels like I'm here asking for help but I'm not keeping up my end, totally not my intention and I can't say enough about how wonderful you all are, giving up your time (which I'm sure we all don't have enough of) and helping everyone. Honestly, I don't think my vision for Oscar is going to be the same that most people on this board have for their cats. I'm gone quite a bit during the day (as you can see from my mostly only night time tests) and while I do my best to get his numbers down, my goal is to keep him in good enough numbers to keep him healthy, but not so low that I ever need to worry about him going into a hypo event while I'm not home. Everyday I'm gone, I'm just so concerned about him dropping. I decided to one more increase just yesterday, so he's at 5.5u now and numbers are looking good tonight, I'm going to stay up with him tonight so I can gauge what his cycles will be like when I'm not home.

I think I have a pretty good understanding on this whole FD thing after a few months of being on here nearly everyday, but from now on when I ask for help with one thing or another I'll make sure I have his SS updated

 

[Deb & Wink]

My goal was a happy healthy cat. Getting him out of the cat shelter where they really weren't doing good by him. Neglected, matted fur, huge flakes of dandruff, he was in awful shape. Getting him eating a better food was to get him healthier. Seeing his neuropathy heal was amazing. Coming to love him so much was a bonus I cherish.

People use the acronym ECID around here a lot. Lately I've been interpreting it to mean Every Cat, Caregiver, Cycle is Different.

Some people want remission for their cat, and test endlessly. And they still never achieve that diet controlled remission status. I think improving and extending the life of our diabetic cats is a worthy goal in itself. We get hung up on the numbers too much and we need to think about the whole cat and their caregiver more.

Everyone needs to decide for themselves how much and how far they will push the medical treatment for their pets. I'm more of a "maintain in good health, supportive hospice type care towards the end, then let them go" person.

No chemotherapy, no invasive exploratory surgery, no 'save the cat at all costs' treatments. That is my "medical directive" for my cats. My cat "Health care proxy".

 

[Deb & Wink]

Oscar's PM numbers mid-cycle look halfway decent. Lots of blues, a few yellows. A bit steep on the drops from pre-shot to nadir. Not dangerous low green numbers.

How is Oscar feeling? Good appetite? How are the 5 P's(purring, playing, peeing, pooping. preening)?