Need help with Nanner

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Hi, I'm Paula and Nanner is my foster cat. He is a 8yr old siamese mix, weighs about 5.5 pounds and has a floppy ear and really pretty blue eyes. He was brought to the vet the shelter I volunteer at uses, to be PTS with the family saying they could not afford to keep him. The vet convinced them to surrender him to the shelter rather than PTS, the shelter accepted them knowing that they had two volunteers (my husband and I) who are experienced with sugarcats. When Nanner was brought to the shelter he had just spent about a month at the vets being "regulated" and was on 7U Pro Zinc BID, and prescription W/D 1/3C BID. The first opportunity I had to test him at the shelter my meter (I'm diabetic too) just read HIGH. That's when we decided it would be best to foster Nan.

We got him off the W/D and on to low carb canned food, 4% or less, and reduced his insulin to 1U BID. His numbers have always been somewhat all over the place so on 6/17 we started all over, and did not give any insulin for 48 hours. When we started the insulin again we started with .5U BID, we are now at .6 BID. His numbers are still all over the place. To make things worse he's really dropping a LOT on the .6U and he got a few bites of dry both yesterday and this morning by accident and now has diarreah too. I posted earlier on the Health board and it was suggested I post over here, also someone said his spreadsheet wasn't displaying recent entries so:

07/03/11 AMPS 394 +6 174
07/02/11 AMPS 278 +5 134/PMPS 244 +3.5 268
07/01/11 AMPS 328 +5 157/PMPS 62
06/30/11 AMPS 345 +6 255/PMPS 366
06/29/11 AMPS 299 /PMPS 372
06/28/11 AMPS 250 /PMPS 351

I guess my question is where do I go from here? Today he went from 394 down to 174 on .6U, and that was AFTER he got into the kibble by accident. Add to that he's got runny poops - probably from eating the kibble which is high fibre for our IBS girl Lucy. I'm almost afraid to give him more insulin today, especially after the 62 on 7/1. I double checked that one with my meter and test strips from another box and got 59 on it so I know it wasn't a bad test or something, he really was that low. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Paula & Nan
 
You have a challenging kitty - bless you for fostering him. The good news is that you are giving tiny amounts and getting results.

I would think the .6 could be too high. On 7/1 you got a pmps too low to shoot, which usually means the dose is too high. But lately, the numbers have been shootable. Several people here are experiencing the fast drops at about +4-6. Some have had success with feeding the drop, offering food around +3. What kind of numbers did you get at .5?

Does he eat at night? Sometimes making sure food is available at night can lower that am number. Many people use automatic feeders for this.

Another thing to consider is lower carb food. Even if you are feeding 6% carbs, sometimes a change to 3% makes a difference. And for some, raw food has made a huge difference.

Another idea is to alter the amount - maybe shooting .5 at one preshot and .6 at the other.

This forum is fairly busy on weekends. During the week, it is most busy early in the morning and later in the evening. If you ever have an emergency, post on Health and identify it as such. Here you should be able to get dosing advice twice daily.
 
Hi Paula,
Welcome to PZI land,
It is such a wonderful thing you did taking Nanner in like that
and trying to get her regulated.
FIrst off the best thing you did was get her off the dry food.. great first step

Second, I was wondering if you gave Nanner insulin on the 62 preshot
We say that you should not shoot under 200 if you dont have a lot of data back up
It looks like you are testing and the numebrs dont look bad..

There are quite a few experienced people with PZI and dosage here but I am not one of them
I tend to be here more for support...I am sure everyone will be on a little later to welcome and help you with dosage
advice.
I am still trying to get my cat regulated/
BUt you are doing great so far and welcome !

Hang in there and everyone will be on shortly

Denise and Shakes
 
Welcome Paula and Nanner! Nanner sure is a handsome guy with those blue eyes.
I've been following your posts a little bit on DCIN blog.

Are you using the u100 syringes? How long has Nanner been on .6? I think you did the right thing by starting over and starting at .5.

The dry could definitely be the culprit of his recent diarrhea, but keep an eye on it. Hopefully it will clear up soon. Poor guy.

Thank you and your DH for coming to Nanner's rescue!!! cat_pet_icon
 
Hi Paula,

I'm glad you came over. I can see your ss, it just looks different than ours.

With the exception of 7/1 your +6's look perfect. PS's are still a little high but overall I think you are doing great.

The low PMPS could have been his Pancreas kicking in a little but as long as you are testing regularly you will be able to catch things like this.

Are you using U100 syringes with the conversion charts? If so I think I would go up to .7u and see if that would bring his PS's down some.
 
That preshot reading of 62 could be a random occurrence based off of the patterns that he had been giving you prior to that. The mid cycle readings are very safe numbers, and not too low. I see it as you still have a lot of room to drop for the mid cycle. Ideally you want your mid cycle readings to eventually get into non-diabetic numbers on a fairly regular basis (under 150). I have even told my previous vet this on several occasions - I can't expect my cat to go off insulin and into non-diabetic numbers if he never sees those numbers while on insulin.

Looks like right now you are giving 1.5u of insulin BID. Even if it is 1.5 or 0.5 - can you estimate a 0.25u increase? Looks to me like he needs just a little more of a helpful nudge.

FWIW - Oscar used to have these sporadic blips into low numbers (he still kinda does). With him - I have to base my dosing off of what he gives me 95% of the time and just catch any shenanigans he may throw on occasion.
 
Welcome to PZI and bless you you for saving Nanner and trying to help him with his diabetes.
No advice, I have an unregulated cat too, just wanted to say hello and thank you for saving him.
Angela
 
Thank you all for the suggestions. I'm going to try to answer all the questions. First, we did not give a shot when we got the 62, the .6 shot has been dropping him so much I didn't want to take a chance. He has been at .6 for just a little over a week. He gets a snack of 1/4 of a 5.5 oz can of cat food at between +4 and +6, depending on what we've got going on. I may have to get an autofeeder for him so we can be more specific about the time, he scarfs up every scrap of every bit of food he's given as soon as he gets it. We are using U100 syringes, and yes the 1.5 on the spreadsheet is really .6U. I had been planning on increasing to .7U before he did he 62 trick, then just for fun he accidentially got into the kibble two days in a row and has been high since. I guess I'll let things settle for a couple of days and see where we are then.

Paula & Nan
 
Letting things settle sounds like a plan. Amazing what dry food can do!

I think I would look at the carb % and maybe raw food (Feline's Pride is premade and could be tried as a one time experiment) and see if food overnight makes any kind of a difference.
 
On the spreadsheet, you want to use the actual dose, so 0.6 rather than how it looks on the U100 syringes (1.5).

On the food, I am a big fan of free-feeding - if he is hungry, I'd let him eat as much as he wants!!! It may spike the numbers a little, but they need the extra calories (unless overweight, and then I'm not sure) when they are diabetic, plus small meals spread out can help stimulate their pancreas.
 
I know from experience on the dry food sneaks that it is better to slightly up the dose temporarily to help the pancreas with the carb overload. When I posted about a similar situation a few months ago, there were several people that gave me the same advice. Just take the dose back down when things settle back.
 
Welcome Paula and Nanner! You will get wonderful help here in PZI land :mrgreen:
You are indeed and angel saving Nanner!
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