Question about when to shoot with lower numbers

[beclt]

Hi Everyone,

Lately, Cali has been giving me low (normal) numbers. She would range from 50-160. In an instance like that, when we are not going to be home as we are leaving for work, would you give her a shot of insulin? right now we give her about 3 units, but i worry that if she is in that 100 or under range, i shouldn't be giving her more insulin out of fear that she will go too low while we are away. When we get home, she tends to shoot up to around the high 300's, low 400s.

I guess my overall question would be, what do you do when the numbers are that low? I feel like i don't know what the right dose is in that situation but giving her nothing is making her go up and down.

Any thoughts?

 

[Blue]

OK, I wanted to ask how you are basing your increases?
It looks like you are going more by your ps test numbers, but Lantus is based on the low numbers in a cycle. A normal curve when regulated will look like a smile with the lowest number around +5 or +6, and you don't have any of that data. Would it be possible for you to get a curve maybe on the weekend cycles or one day when you will be around to test, maybe every 2 or 3 hrs in a cycle to see how Cali is using the insulin?

I am asking because if you look at your ss, I am betting that the 3u dose is too high.

If you look at 3/18 and on, you skipped 3 shots and still you we green on the 19th. Then you see a pattern of you give a shot and then Cali is too low so you skip a shot, and then the shed empties and Cali goes high again so you give a shot and Cali goes low again...I would cut back to maybe 2.25u BID to be safe and until you can do a curve say on one cycle over the weekend or some day. I would say the 3u is just way too high.

Look at 3/3, and you had some decent mid cycle blue numbers, so that 2.5u dose was not too bad at all, but it kept dropping and ended up in a bounce on the morn of 3/4.
So that's my logic behind saying, why not go back to 2.25u and move up to 2.5u ONLY if you can do a curve and show that the mid cycle numbers are still high.

 

[beclt]

That's helpful. Our schedules (and our cat) make it tough to do a curve, but we will try. I'll go back down to 2.25 for a bit.

 

[Blue]

That's great you will try a bit lower dose until you have a chance to do a curve.
It's always better to dose on the safe side of a lower dose and have higher numbers than to go with a higher dose and have numbers drop too low and you end up in the ER with a kitty.

When you do a curve and you see all the numbers are fairly high with little drop in the middle of the cycle, then you could try increasing the dose.

If you find that the lowest numbers in the middle are dropping quite low, you will then know that you might even need to drop the dose even more.

Most people have pretty busy lives and work all week, so the only time any curve could be done would be on some weekend day. When working, I was out all week between amps and pmps, so all I could do would be some tests in the pm during the week, and then maybe on a Sat or Sun for a curve... An extra test here and there will always help to fill out the picture and let you know how well or poorly the insulin is doing at that point in the cycle.