@Sue and Luci - I've added one of my favourite photos of Pookie as my avatar. Thanks for the warm welcome.
I've read some of the stickies. There is a lot to take in. I've updated the spreadsheet to say that we're following the SLGS method for now.
We dose him between 9 - 9:30 am and 9 - 9:30 pm which is why we haven't done evening testing (we're usually well in bed later on). Generally we try to be closer to 9 than 9:30. We've also been limiting the testing until we get better at it and it's less traumatizing for him. He was getting to the point where he was avoiding us. Now he's starting to recognize his special treat and we're better at it so we're more confident in testing. If we knew how long we were going to have him we'd probably move to the TR method sooner rather than later. We've had him just over three weeks and that's long for us to have a foster cat. Right now we're just figuring out how he's responding to 1U every 12 hours. He's been on 1U 2x/day for just over a week and his numbers are fairly stable though higher than they should be.
Now that we're not stabbing him multiple times for one test and are consistent with our dosing we're seeing a playful cat that enjoys our company. He's not drinking as much or peeing as much either. Still higher than our other cat, but lower than he was.
We're giving smaller meals of Friskies pate several times throughout the day, which suits our other cat's schedule. For his weight he's supposed to be eating about 1.5 cans and he's pretty much there. At night we're leaving out a dry sensitive digestion food (he is prone to the runs). I know the dry food is not ideal, but if we leave wet food out it's gone within the first half hour and we're dealing with a cat yo-yo of up and down off the bed the rest of the night. I know an automatic feeder would be good and we may still buy one, but we haven't yet.
We've become quite lazy in retirement which is why he's not getting dosed until 9:30 am. The bigger meal with the 9:30 dosing also seems to help him sleep. We usually get up a couple of hours earlier than that as a washroom break and to give the cats enough food that they're not pestering us. Sometimes we just kick them out and close the door without feeding them. I read somewhere that we shouldn't be giving him food a couple of hours before the AM test?
We're treating this as a marathon and after the fiasco of sending him into seizures we're trying to be both gentle with him and with ourselves. It's nice to not be in panic mode and now being able to focus on the finer details. I'm happy to start that focus and willing to listen to advice.
Thanks for your help.
