? Norm- general dosing advice (continued)

TooFar McGee

TooFar McGee

Member Since 2025
Hey all! So my bag of YoungAgain LID Zero arrived and Norm seems to love it, so that's great. Here come the questions, though: The company suggests immediately switching over completely. That's not going to happen because IBD is a cruel mistress, and I am NOT going to torture my boy's guts that way. That said, though, any advice on how to proceed with his dose? He has had great numbers the past couple cycles, which feels great, but I don't want to plunge him into a hypo event by maintaining the same dose while whittling away at his carb intake.

I hadn't really seen anything in the stickies or other posts that covered this specific quandry.

I also very much understand the strong emphasis on wet food, and intend to have wet/raw meals or snacks, but given his delicate system, I want to have one low-carb 'safe food' that we can always go back to as we introduce novel proteins and variation/raw slowly and carefully.
 
I completely understand about the IBD. I have two cats with IBD myself. One is quite easy to manage, but the other one is not at all!

You are also weaning him off of Prednisolone right now, correct?
 
It’s always a good idea to transition cat’s food slowly to avoid gastric upset. That goes double for IBD cats and for diabetic cats on insulin when you are moving from higher carbohydrate foods to lower carbohydrate foods. You will see a downward trend in BG numbers.

He earned a dose reduction yesterday due to the lime green. Was that 40 verified with a handheld meter or was that Libre data?

So his new dose going forward would normally be 2 units, but depending upon what you are feeding him and where he is in the Pred weaning process I may want you to cut the dose further.
 
yes. ugh. he went hypo tonight so I'm waiting up and testing every half hourish. of course he didn't want to eat, so it's all syringe feeding. he got down to 40 even after some honey and food so... trying to breathe through all this.
 
yeah the 47, 40 are his last couple handheld tests. he's due for another in a minute here

107 now. gonna wait up for a while to make sure that's stable and not just the honey. He had pretty marked symptoms, very wobbly and weak.

Oh boy I'm tired, though. My east coast partner just woke up for work... I haven't been to bed yet.
 
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this is what I'm looking at rn.
 
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Last HC bolus was I wanna say 445? he's not wanting to eat anything so it's all by syringe. I gave regular wet food when he was at 47, when he dropped to 40 I broke out the honey and under the weather high caloric supplement.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Sometimes you get a bad test strip and it will give you an incorrect number.
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I also considered maybe having a bunch of honey/carbohydrate residue on my fingers, so cleaned his ears and tried again. He also has diarrhea, possibly from the new food, which I'm sure is aggravating everything and making his stomach hurt so he doesn't want to eat
 
I want you to cut his dose back to 1.75 units. Or we may want to actually cut it back to 1.5. We can always go back up again after we have given things time to settle in on the new dose.
 
TooFar McGee said:
I also considered maybe having a bunch of honey/carbohydrate residue on my fingers, so cleaned his ears and tried again. He also has diarrhea, possibly from the new food, which I'm sure is aggravating everything and making his stomach hurt so he doesn't want to eat
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When we are feeding low numbers to bring up the BG, we want to keep the portions small — a teaspoon —so as not to fill up the kitty too quickly — because sometimes you may need to be strategically feeding for a few hours.
 
ugh he's back down to 56. fortunately he tends to nadir around +6

Thank you so much for hanging with me here. I'm about in tears repeatedly poking a cat who has managed to poop on his pants and tail and I'm trying to gently clean him with wipes because anything else is just a lot right now, and I've been up for 21h at this point after kind of a **** night at the hospital and it's just... a lot. So thank you so much. It's all very different when it's in your own house.
 
TooFar McGee said:
ugh he's back down to 56. fortunately he tends to nadir around +6

Thank you so much for hanging with me here. I'm about in tears repeatedly poking a cat who has managed to poop on his pants and tail and I'm trying to gently clean him with wipes because anything else is just a lot right now, and I've been up for 21h at this point after kind of a **** night at the hospital and it's just... a lot. So thank you so much. It's all very different when it's in your own house.
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That’s to be expected. Will he eat anything now?
 
TooFar McGee said:
ugh he's back down to 56. fortunately he tends to nadir around +6

Thank you so much for hanging with me here. I'm about in tears repeatedly poking a cat who has managed to poop on his pants and tail and I'm trying to gently clean him with wipes because anything else is just a lot right now, and I've been up for 21h at this point after kind of a **** night at the hospital and it's just... a lot. So thank you so much. It's all very different when it's in your own house.
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:bighug::bighug:
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
That’s to be expected. Will he eat anything now?
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not really, no. not on his own. inappetence is a huge problem for us on GOOD days. Just tried another teaspoon of a porridge I made with his dry food in the same bowl that held the honey and high cal stuff. We both ended up wearing a bit, but he spent some time washing his face so probably licked a bunch off, too.
 
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I always found that the least messy way to get honey into my cat (actually I used karo syrup) was to mix a little bit with water— about a 50/50 mixture and draw it up into an oral liquid dosing 3 cc syringe. I would usually give about 1.5 cc of this mixture into the side of his mouth between the buccal (cheek) pocket and his gums. It worked well.
 
TooFar McGee said:
will do. just gave another tsp of food with some honey in it. the food is 35-40% carb, though probably a bit less now that I've added the water.
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Dry food isn’t the preferred food to feed when managing low numbers but in this case you have mixed it with honey so that will give more of an immediate boost to the BG. Otherwise, dry takes longer to raise the BG and we want it to work faster.
 
i really, really, really am. Ironically, tonight was the night I was going to go to bed early to try to have more 'awake time' with my long distance partner in PA. I know this is no one's fault, but it's just a bummer on so many levels, and now my best little buddy is hiding from me too.

98 at 0700. Got a couple ml of honey solution in him, too, but not sure how much he swallowed vs drooled out ala passive resistance.
 
Suzanne & Darcy said:
Dry food isn’t the preferred food to feed when managing low numbers but in this case you have mixed it with honey so that will give more of an immediate boost to the BG. Otherwise, dry takes longer to raise the BG and we want it to work faster.
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I pulverized it and added water so it should be mostly broken down and fairly easy to digest in this porridge form. the only wet food I have is all low carb.
 
About 30 past +6 and he's at 206 just now. I'll just wait for +7 to be sure since I started a load of laundry and got all this cat stuff in the dish washer. then definitely time for a solid nap, because I tried to stick the test strip in my cell phone for a second. lol ugh

Thank you so, so much Suzanne. This would have been really difficult and scary, and even though I'd read over the sticky (and have the tab open!) there was a lot I still did wrong, and a lot that you said that really helped. You are saint.
 
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+7 via glucometer was 324 in one ear and 334 in the other, just to be sure. Should also be past nadir now, so I'm going to sign off and get a little shut-eye. Thanks again, so very much.
 
ok PMPS is 372. He's stayed essentially "right where I put him" but hasn't really had much interest in eating. Ate his cerenia and zobaline in pill pockets dusted in Fortiflora and gave me some courtesy licks of a churu with feline gut soothe, and that's about it. He's getting his mirtazapine this morning so hopefully that helps.
I'm honestly feeling anxious/paranoid about shooting after everything last night but also know 372 is too high to stay at. Please advise.
@Suzanne & Darcy
 
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I split the difference and gave .75U. I know I probably could have gone with a full unit, but after last night, I'd rather he be a little high for the day than low again, esp. if he doesn't want to eat for me.
 
TooFar McGee said:
ok PMPS is 372. He's stayed essentially "right where I put him" but hasn't really had much interest in eating. Ate his cerenia and zobaline in pill pockets dusted in Fortiflora and gave me some courtesy licks of a churu with feline gut soothe, and that's about it. He's getting his mirtazapine this morning so hopefully that helps.
I'm honestly feeling anxious/paranoid about shooting after everything last night but also know 372 is too high to stay at. Please advise.
@Suzanne & Darcy
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Sorry for not replying. I was on a trip. Husband also hurt his knee badly. Now he cannot bear any weight on it at all. We will be at the Ortho Urgent Care tomorrow morning ☹️. But I will be around early in the morning.
 
Oh no! I'm sorry!
I only gave .75 again for the AM cycle because he was still eating poorly, but after that he turned a corner and seems to be eating well. We had a great appointment with the new vet this morning and things are looking pretty sunny again, for which I am beyond grateful.

I hope your husband is okay!
 
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