Way to go, Poopers!
I learned from my reading that insulin secretion is stimulated more strongly by incoming carbohydrates from food than it is by liver-produced glucose. (I don't understand why, though.) Poopers sounds very similar to Saoirse. She's diet-controlled now, but her basal insulin (the between-meals trickle) isn't quite enough to keep her sugars at the lower end of the healthy range for more than a few hours and her BG spikes if she fasts too long (still in healthy numbers, thank goodness). As soon as she eats the pancreas responds by secreting larger pulses of insulin (bolus insulin) and down her numbers go.
From monitoring Saoirse, I found the following things helped her to become diet-controlled, and also keep her well-regulated now she's off insulin:
1. Keep feeding mini meals - the mealtime pulses of insulin help keep the blood sugar lower for longer.
2. Keep an eye on the carbohydrate content of the food if you change his menu. It is somewhat counter-intuitive, but I have found that it is possible to feed
too few carbs. My observations have led me to reason that if a food's carb content it is very, very low (e.g. 2% or less) and if a cat's between-meal basal trickle of insulin is also low, then the pancreas may not produce enough insulin at mealtimes to tide the cat over until the next feed. It's easy to check. If Poopers is running a bit higher than normal and a meal doesn't have the lowering effect, it might not have enough carbs to suit him.
Fingers and paws crossed for a party on Day 14!
