CatMomWendy
Member Since 2012
I have a 14 YO male named Nelson who we adopted last Sept. From what I was told, he was diagnosed at age 9 and was fed dry food. He came to us eating dry food. After joining here and reading various sources, I started him on all wet (FF Classics), freeze dried and raw. We have bounced up and down with dosages and we always pre test before shots and when I am home, I try to run a curve occasionally. I know someone will ask me for the spreadsheet but I don't use that. I record all in a book because I just don't use our computer as it is just much easier to record in his notebook. He is on Lantus.
We were on a vacation 2 weeks ago and had someone testing a few times during the week. We got a report that he was low mid day (54 on the meter but we know our Relion is about 30 points low so really about 84). We reduced dose from 1 unit to 1/2 unit that night and then 3/4 unit until we got back two days later. We got another report the next day his number at the PM shot was 74 (about 104). We were driving and happen to hit a dead zone at the exact wrong time and I couldn't respond to their text for about 20 minutes. They went ahead and gave him a dose (3/4 unit) while waiting for me to reply. By the time I could answer, the dose was already given. I talked with the pet sitter who was spending the night and she monitored him all night and pushed gravy foods and even a little dry because I was very concerned. He never showed any signs of hypo that night. When we returned the next day we resumed testing AM and PM. This past week has been a continued reduction in dose and now we have had several stints where his AM number was too low to dose. We went from Wed AM through Fri AM with no shots. His pre shot numbers were crawling up just a little each time and on Friday night when he reached about 155 (185 for real), I gave 1/4 unit. Now we are several more days and the pre shot numbers have been running 85-115 (really 115-145) with a slow increase each test. If the meter value goes up to about 150 again, I would do another small dose of 1/4 unit.
He hasn't been eating as much as normal and I am concerned about that but otherwise, he acts 100% normal and is happy. I caught just a little bit of urine this am on a ketone strip and it was normal although I don't know if it was really enough (he pees against the side of the box so I rubbed the strip on the drips...not sure if that is accurate). I made a vet appointment for him tomorrow night (Tuesday). Since this is all new to me (remission?) I just wanted to make sure I am not missing something else. During our vacation, Nelson was 100% separated from dry food and kept in a room by himself unless someone was there and could pick up the dry left out for the other cat population (only way we can manage long term time out of the house is to free feed the others while the diabetics (I have 2) are kept separate). He is really good at finding the pieces of dry food the others drop or leave under normal circumstances so by being isolated completely from dry for a week might have made the difference....at least that is my speculation. We try diligently to not leave any dry out when unattended but we aren't 100% successful every time and he does score a few pieces now and then. The rest (6 others) are fed a mix of dry and wet but with 8 total, there is no way I can feed all wet 100% of the time. We only feed dry when we monitor them but as I said, they drop pieces or walk away leaving some and the diabetics come by like vacuums to pick it up if we don't react immediately.
So after all of that, does it seem that Nelson could be reaching remission? If so, where can I turn to read about how to manage that (testing regimen, what to watch for, etc.?
We were on a vacation 2 weeks ago and had someone testing a few times during the week. We got a report that he was low mid day (54 on the meter but we know our Relion is about 30 points low so really about 84). We reduced dose from 1 unit to 1/2 unit that night and then 3/4 unit until we got back two days later. We got another report the next day his number at the PM shot was 74 (about 104). We were driving and happen to hit a dead zone at the exact wrong time and I couldn't respond to their text for about 20 minutes. They went ahead and gave him a dose (3/4 unit) while waiting for me to reply. By the time I could answer, the dose was already given. I talked with the pet sitter who was spending the night and she monitored him all night and pushed gravy foods and even a little dry because I was very concerned. He never showed any signs of hypo that night. When we returned the next day we resumed testing AM and PM. This past week has been a continued reduction in dose and now we have had several stints where his AM number was too low to dose. We went from Wed AM through Fri AM with no shots. His pre shot numbers were crawling up just a little each time and on Friday night when he reached about 155 (185 for real), I gave 1/4 unit. Now we are several more days and the pre shot numbers have been running 85-115 (really 115-145) with a slow increase each test. If the meter value goes up to about 150 again, I would do another small dose of 1/4 unit.
He hasn't been eating as much as normal and I am concerned about that but otherwise, he acts 100% normal and is happy. I caught just a little bit of urine this am on a ketone strip and it was normal although I don't know if it was really enough (he pees against the side of the box so I rubbed the strip on the drips...not sure if that is accurate). I made a vet appointment for him tomorrow night (Tuesday). Since this is all new to me (remission?) I just wanted to make sure I am not missing something else. During our vacation, Nelson was 100% separated from dry food and kept in a room by himself unless someone was there and could pick up the dry left out for the other cat population (only way we can manage long term time out of the house is to free feed the others while the diabetics (I have 2) are kept separate). He is really good at finding the pieces of dry food the others drop or leave under normal circumstances so by being isolated completely from dry for a week might have made the difference....at least that is my speculation. We try diligently to not leave any dry out when unattended but we aren't 100% successful every time and he does score a few pieces now and then. The rest (6 others) are fed a mix of dry and wet but with 8 total, there is no way I can feed all wet 100% of the time. We only feed dry when we monitor them but as I said, they drop pieces or walk away leaving some and the diabetics come by like vacuums to pick it up if we don't react immediately.
So after all of that, does it seem that Nelson could be reaching remission? If so, where can I turn to read about how to manage that (testing regimen, what to watch for, etc.?
