Not a 911, but need input

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Dragonfly229

Dragonfly229

Member Since 2012
So Linus has been hanging in the 300's, I've gradually increased to 1.75u without much change. This morning, my husband gave him a shot without waking me because I worked late last night. Even though I hid the conversion chart for the ProZinc, he somehow converted 1.5u (what I told him to shoot last night, and my son did it and did 1.5 on the syringe as directed) to 2.5u and gave Linus that much. I had no idea, I just took a +8 reading and it was 59 ! Linus is acting just fine, he has been fine all day, he ate a little, and I plan to test again in a few minutes and be sure he's coming up. Shot time tonight will be at 8:30pm, I can't go much later because it needs to be at 7:30 (or earlier if I skip tonight) tomorrow.

Should I . . .
1. skip PM shot and keep testing?
2. Shoot something late when he comes up and skip AM shot?
3. shoot reduced dose and keep testing?
4. If he has some kind of normalish (175+?) pre-shot number, should I take advantage of that and shoot 1.75u or more?

I can test some tonight, nobody home tomorrow from 7:30am until at least 3:00pm.

**update at +9 - 1 hour later he is at 78 after eating some (low carb) food. Still snacking.

Thanks!
 
Sue, I'm sorry no one was around to answer your questions - and this is a new one for me.

I am guessing that the lower number will cause a rebound to a higher number - might hit mid 400s or higher. That would make me think to shoot his normal 1.75u if he was at a "normal" PS for him (or higher).

Can you get an overnight test between +6 and +8? You might want to do that.

If you are unsure about a situation like this and don't have data to say what will happen (very few do for a situation like this), then err on the side of caution and reduce or skip and then get back on track with the next normal shot time.

Two points/questions:

It is hard to know how Linus is really doing on his regular dose without more mid-cycle spot checks. Are you able to get more?

Since you are using u100 syringes with a u100 insulin, I am not sure how the "conversion" problem happened. 1.5u is 1.5u on the markings... can you put a sign on the fridge or somewhere that says "NO MORE CONVERSIONS!"

I have actually heard several times of one spouse giving the dose and then leaving for work and the second spouse ALSO giving the dose! It's a good idea to have a message board for "team" caregivers, so if you set up one of those, you could put the "conversion" sign there.

BTW, 59 is a perfectly safe number. No need to worry about it. If you had retested and he was going lower, than you would want to feed and keep testing every 30s mins or so until he was headed back up (two rising test results in a row - they can rise a little and then drop again on ODs). I have had my cats as low as the mid 30s with no symptoms or problems - of course I fed a little higher carb food (something withi gravy in it) just to be on the safe side.
 
Sheila, thanks! I'm about to test him again at evening pre-shot time. I'll see where he is and decide. I have an early day at work tomorrow, so I could shoot really early in the morning and just skip tonight and give him a few extra hours to come up.

He doesn't seem like he was getting any more than a 12 hour duration on 1.75, he usually comes back up to the 300's by shot time, so I haven't had to shoot many low numbers as of yet, so I'm not sure how low is too low with Lev, or if anyone shoots a sliding scale with number variations.

The conversion comes from shooting ProZinc (U40 insulin) with U100 syringes. DH was used to having to convert, so he forgot and thought he needed to today. I took the conversion chart down and hid it, but he went from memory, kinda.
 
Good news, I guess - 244 PMPS. I'm going to give 1.5u and see if I can catch it before it goes up. Pretty steep curve, but it's nice to see a number that low - I can't say that I ever have in the last 11 months. New territory for us.

As far as the mid cycle numbers go, I'm going to try for more. We finally found some times that generally work with everyone's schedule, but it means nobody is home in the middle, or it's the middle of the night.
 
Those "middle" test are really important. I'd say get what you can, when you can because it will all give you clues to how he is responding to the dose. You want to make sure he is not going too low and "bouncing" back to high numbers. If you just go by those high numbers you think you need to raise the dose, when, in fact, you would need to reduce the dose.

Once you have a variety of tests at different time, you will learn when he tends to be lowest - and the 59 is a little hint that he might nadir at around +8, which is common on lev. However, it could be any time during the cycle - just +6 to +9 is more common. Then you can just test when you think he will be lowest.

I know you are all busy and I don't mean "test every two hours, every day". I mean catch random tests as often as you can. All data helps to figure out the puzzle.
 
Go Linus! You gave your mama a heart attack :o , but WOW on the green! :mrgreen:

Looks like you just want a little more juice ;-) ... and voila! MOVEMENT! :lol:

If you talk to Baxter, tell him that IHOP IS CLOSED!!!

Your pal,
Grayson

Good job dancing Sue! And don't worry about it. I did the same w/ Grayson once - only I grabbed the wrong needle and gave him LOTS more insulin than dh did! Thank goodness he's resistant! ;-) Now that he's gotten a taste of the good numbers, maybe he'll decide to visit more often!
 
Thanks, Lu-Ann! It was scary but good to see that low number, surprised me for sure! He does have more movement generally on the Levemir than he did on ProZinc, but pre shot numbers are usually still in the 300's. I was hoping the whole thing would slide down. I'll continue to increase a little at a time and hopefully he will get flatter and lower overall.
 
sue -

I kinda noticed, but wasn't convinced Grayson's numbers were really moving that much. Then I copied the high and low numbers of each cycle into an Excel spreadsheet. Then I queried week by week the high and low averages, and compared from one week to another. It was AMAZING to see hard, fast numbers that REALLY told the story.

I think I dropped his dose a little too far, cuz we've lost ground from the greens & blues we'd been seeing. As you get the dose up and start seeing more pretty numbers, you'll be able to do the same (if you're inclined). It takes a little while to get there, and when it first happens that you're seeing those REALLY NICE numbers, and even shooting low numbers, it's kinda scary.... but then you start seeing patterns again. It's just that they're green & blue, not pink & red! They told me I'd "look down on" yellows one day, like I used to pinks & reds. I actually GOT THERE! Who'da thunk?

Just remember, Rome wasn't built in a day. He didn't get diabetes over night, and we can't expect to get them regulated over night either. But that you saw those kinds of numbers, tells me you're getting closer to where you want to be. Scary and exciting all at once. But mostly exciting!

Hugs from Grayson!
 
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