questions about adjusting to life with a diabetic kitty

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JacksDads

JacksDads

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So, I introduced Jack yesterday, and am very pleased to see that after about a month of his #s being very high, they've been coming under control rather nicely. For now sticking with a very slow transition to a lower carb food, in part because his vet, whom we adore, is out of the country for the next month or so and we'd rather not tempt fate while she's gone.

One of the questions I wanted to ask, was relating to learning how to fit his new schedule into our own lives. Right now I'm a full-time law student with a pro-bono job, and my husband works pretty wacky hours. It's been hard for us to get information that will help us make sure that we are taking great care of Jack but also without throwing our own lives completely out of wack. I would love any insight or experience for how people have dealt with the following:

What kind of wiggle room is there with the timing of the shots? One question we had is that if all other things are equal and we are going to be late for a shot, is it better to skip the dose and start back on the next scheduled shot, or should we give the dose as soon as we are able and start a new schedule that is every 12 hours? That is, if our normal schedule is a shot at 8, and we find that we are not going to be able to give the shot until 12, do we just skip and start back up at the next 8, or do we give the shot at 12 and switch to giving the following shots at 12?

Related, how late is late and how early is early? 5 minutes? an hour? 2 hours? How much of a departure from the scheduled time do we need to mark in our spreadsheet?

It seems that 9/9 is the time that best fits into our schedule. How critical is it that we stay exactly on that schedule?

If we anticipate that we need to change the times for the shots, is there a best way to do that? Is it better to push each shot a little further back (if so, how much) until you get to the new time, or do you just wait to give a shot until the time for the new schedule?

It's not that I want to be flip about this or that we are taking it lightly--we both are very committed to doing whatever we can to get Jack's health under control as quickly as possible, and we realize that nobody can predict exactly how our cat will respond. Nonetheless, less than ideal situations do happen and knowing what works better in advance will help us plan better and having some sense of where there can be flexibility will also help us choose what sacrifices get made more effectively.

Thanks!
J
 
I'll let the others give more specific examples, but in general everyone finds ways to fit it into their lives.
If a person works 12hour shifts, it's impossible to be right on, so that person makes adjustments. I know that it's preferable when giving Lantus, as you are, or Levemir, you will have better results by sticking to the 12/12, but other insulins may be better for extreme differences.
Quite often, people have been late, or even forgotten altogether! Every situation usually has a unique fit reaction, so it's hard to say. If you are an hour late, you could go ahead with the shot, but will have to work back slowly to the regular time. Say you don't give the shot till 9 or 10, the working backwards would be at most in 30min intervals - giving a dose in under the 12hrs is like a dose increase, and over the 12hrs is like a dose decrease.
Keeping the shed in mind with Lantus, you will likely see some wonky numbers because of the disrupted schedule.

When time change occurs, most people will start their adjusting a day early by adjusting shot time by 15min, so 4 shots are adjusted and you are back at you 8am/8pm again.

Hopefully, the people who have to make modification to the 12/12 can tell you about their setup and what they do.
 
I try to stick to a 8 AM/PM schedule for Tucker, he uses Levemir, but try doing that every day for years. It's just not realistic, things come up. Often I end up shooting Tucker up to 45 minutes early or late, but there have been times when I knew I would be out for a long time.

I have lots of data since I've been doing this for a long time, so one eve that I had to leave at 6, I gave Tucker half his dose and then at 10PM the other half. I was going to just give a half dose at 10PM but in anticipation of things I checked his BGs during the day and saw they were rising.

When getting ready for daylight savings time changes I usually change Tucker's shot time by about 15 minutes forward or back, depending on the time of year, I do that for about a week.

Treating your cat simply starts to fit in and become a part of your daily routine. As you gather data you will know Jack's ins and outs pretty well over time and be able to decide for yourself if skipping the shot would be okay.

We still may see great changes in Jack just by changing his diet, who knows, maybe you wont need insulin in the future.
 
i'll tell ya what i do, because i've probably got one of the stupider schedules around :)

i try, keyword being try, to come as close to 12/12 as i can but self employment sucks and it doesn't always happen that way. summer is our busier season so 12/12 over the summer for us has more often been the rare experience, also why my spreadsheet hasn't been updated all summer. we've been more like 13/11 or evern 14/10 several times. to be completely honest, if it weren't for idexx discontinuing their pzi insulin i'd still be using it as it was soooooo much more flexible but i also have a type 1 diabetic so remission is not my big goal so

now, if i run into a 14/10 type of day, i tend to reduce the shot in the evening a hair simply because my morning schedule is not flexible and i need her to be high enough to shoot something in the morning.

if i run into something more like a 16/8 type of thing, which has happened several times in the last month or so to be honest, i skip the evening shot altogether because it's just not safe with my Mousie to shoot lantus that close together

so that's how we work it. now that summer is ending and business should slow down some, we should be able to do a better 12/12 type of schedule **anti-jinx**
 
I used to have a weekend job that required me to shoot on a 16/8 hour schedule. My cats did alright but it is not optimal at all. Now I have a regular schedule and the kitties seem to be doing better. It was a jump time for the PM shot since I did not have the opportunity to gradually change the time.
 
I used to take Smokey with me sometimes.

For example, I had a regular afternoon social event from 1-3pm once per week.

I'd pack Smokey into the car with his litter box, water dish, etc. Free roam
of the car while I was in my meeting.

At 2:30om, I'd dash out and give him his snack. ( He was on a feeding schedule due to
IBD).

Same procedure if we went to a friend's house for dinner. Smokey in the car so I could
give him his evening insulin shot.

Now Smokey was an exceptional cat, in that he enjoyed going places. So taking him in
the car was no problem. My car was permanently set up with his things.
Can't do it in hot weather, of course. But how much of that do
we get here in Seattle ?!?
 
Dose

Hi,

great to see that your taking this in your stride.

Before I throw my pennys worth in on time, wanted to mention your dose.
4U is a high dose. However saying that your in blues already. What it looks like to me is your going to have a low very soon as the shed will be full (have you read all the stikies in Lantus isg?)

I don't know what time you guys have for posting daily, but as you have a spreadsheet up and running it would be a good idea to post in the Lantus isg -daily if poss, if not, when you can and go there for advice/support.

Are yu in a position to get between +4-6 tests? This is when he's likely to go low and would need higher carb food to get his numbers up.Because of this need to have your hypo toolkit ready (it's in a sticky here at the top of this forum)

Normally start at 1u and increase in .25u increments so you don'tmiss the ideal dose. We got to just over 4u before we started the downward path of reductions.Every time a newly diagnosed cat goes under 50 s/he gets a reduction. This can mean you have to get the numbers up to, but your aim in the first instance is getting them off insulin. After that it's regulation.

Lantus works way better on as close a 12/12 schedule as possible.
If you know your going to be late/have a party etc in advance you can pan for it by moving shots 15-20 mins forwrd or backwards over a number of days before hand.
If your home 2 hrs late, shoot then but really should only shoot 1.40mins on the next shot.What happens is the shed empties, so next shot time bg's tend to be higher as shed refills again.
If you can just shoot 2 hours later and it's not a problem, can do that too.
On a very rare occasion Lucky could miss a shot. However, this was because I had to travel and couldn't always take her with me.Better for her to miss one shot than subject her to major stress at cattery for 6 shots!But, I knew my cat and for some Lucky :lol: reason she could hold her numbers even missing a shot. Most cats can't.Only after collevcting data will you know what works and doesn't workfor your cat.
Likewise you might at times get away with shooting an hour later/earlier and it not being detrimental but again only with data knowledge.

Good Luck :mrgreen:
 
Hey, Jose (& Family), you sound like super-motivated guys; I have good feelings about your situation and I'll cross my fingers (and paws!) for your GREAT success in Jack's treatment.

As for your most pressing concern - I really can't be a good example for you there. I'm disabled, and my life was completely unstructured before August of this year. I wasn't used to looking at a clock, and I definitely didn't have one with an alarm in my bedroom. That was a huge change for me - I still struggle with it. However, I have every faith that you will find your solution. I hope somebody or bodies here can offer you some good ideas, but even if nothing matches up with your scheduling issues - you will find a way; you love Jack that much, clearly.

I'm new myself, so I can't give you all the great insight you're looking for... but, I've been taught (and have been able to witness on my own) that fifteen minutes is really the "ideal" wiggle room you can have with Lantus while still staying on track. Sometimes you have emergencies (Diabetes related or just a glitch in your schedule) - it's been "OK" for Rufus to skip shots or delay them even, but there are always consequences, and you can see them in his spreadsheet. You have to be ready and willing to work with that. Some of these lovely people are confident with their adjustments because they have the data to back up their decision - so, seriously, I cannot stress the importance of that spreadsheet. It's a visual progress report for all your hard work. You can see - in color - the responses Jack has to your adjustments in both treatment and in your life together. I don't know about you, but I know it would take me a lot longer to get a grasp of Rufus' patterns if they were simply charted on a piece of paper, rather than the fabulous tool that is The Spreadsheet. (Rufus' vet also has the link - she loves it and checks in on him regularly. It makes her job a lot easier, as I'm sure you can imagine.)

Asking questions and practically living in the Lantus ISG might be your sanity-savers in the near future. Don't be afraid to do either. These people (including myself) love their cats every bit as much as you love yours, and are ready to set you straight, or point you in the direction of somebody/something that can.

... I don't really know why I'm posting this, you seem to be doing great so far. Eh, consider it a thumbs-up from another newbie, then. You guys look good from where I'm sitting! Give yourself a little time to adjust, and a little room to breathe, and you'll find you'll find your rhythm in the Sugar Dance. Keep it goin'.:-D
 
Hi guys!

I can tell you both like others have said here, you will adjust and find your groove. we were on a 6am and 6pm schedule and we would allow an hour either side if needed.
If we needed to be up and out somewhere morning or night we would try to keep it within the hour, either one hour early or one hour late.
On a few rare occasions we were as late as 3 hours, maybe once or twice in 4 years, but we never shot if it had been less than 10 hours.
My husband and I would also let each other know an hour or two in advance if we could not get home in time for the shot and one of us would just adjust our work schedules as best we could to make it work. We were lucky that we work opposite hours... me 7am until 4pm and he 9am until 7pm.

After 2 years we found an awesome pet sitter who was willing to learn how to shoot and did a fab job and would come when we were out of town or if we had a situation where we couldnt get home.
Needless to say we didnt take too many trips after Tesla was diabetic and we did make some sacrifices but he was worth it every step of the way. Our friends and family loved Tesla too and would understand our schedules needed to be planned around the magic 12 hours!
We knew he was not going to live forever although we wished that he had :-) and it was a small adjustment in the grand scheme of things, we knew not treating was not an option as he was our cat kid! and now that hes gone we would not have changed a thing, the experience was so rewarding and he was a happy healthy diabetic for 4 wonderful years.
We found our sitter on petsitter.com and the service let us know who was experienced in giving meds and when we met Karen our sitter, another sitter came with her and assisted in the training ( a retired Vet tech) we were like over protective parents! we learnt to trust though and Tesla behaved when we did need to leave town :-)
You sound like you are doing great! Good luck and enjoy the ride, its one you will cherish forever.
 
Hi Jose, all I want to add is "it's the age old question we all ask"
somehow it all becomes part of the routine of life. It just works it's way out.
I still at time feel handcuffed to my cat, but that's of my own making. I figure NO ONE can take care of him the way I do, so I don't let anyone. Not that any one's banging down the door to do it :lol:
Lori
 
Hi there,

This has been a tough adjustment for me, too - we've had Melek on the juice for 3 weeks now, and have been home testing for 4 weeks. I work a crazy job with long hours and have events and/or athletic training in the evenings. so, I've started a wiggle between 7:30/7:30 or 8/8, depending on the day - I sometimes have to leave work to come home and give Melek his dose, change clothes, work remotely, then dash to my evening thing. On the weekends, we've been toning down the social lives in order to spend more time with the cats and get accurate BG curves.

My friends have been great about coming over to our house more often than we go to theirs. Most of my friends have kids, so we have stocked up on kid movies and crayons, and have taught a number of little ones about diabetes and how to take care of Melek. They get to feed him a dried chicken treat when they get to meet him (if they are well-behaved).

My vet said that once Melek is regulated (we're on PZI), that there is a 10-14 hour wiggle room, but I am wary of that for now. The one time we had a mixup and weren't able to give the evening dose on time, we skipped it all together.

We have met a wonderful pet sitter who has cared for our friends' sick dog for many years when they go out of town, and we are welcoming her to take care of Melek and the 2 civvies when we go out of town for Thanksgiving, she is already getting to know the cats. I won't lie, this has been a big change in our lives. However, when I see Melek's numbers become consistently normal, and the shine back in his fur, it is all worth it. Good luck!
-Jody and Melek
 
Pet Sitting

Thanks for the input everyone! The next big to-do: Finding a pet sitter. Our vet has a tech that will drop by the house to give Jack his shot - but I think they want $25 a visit. For now, I guess that's fine for an emergency - (actually, we've probably got to have him over at least once while we're here, to show him where we keep everything - and to just see that he knows what he's doing). The PetSitter.com suggestion was a great lead - but it doesn't look like there's any real content there - There were ads linking to sitterycity.com (which has a monthly fee) and care.com

Allycat: Which one did you use?

I think I'll give the sittercity.com 7 day trail a go...
Also, when I have some time, I'll try to connect with those other Boston folk that are on this board...
 
well, with any luck, you may be able to find someone on FDMB that may be close to you to help with the pet sitting. I am lucky, indeed, in the fact that I met a pretty wonderful lady on this board who lives in the Pittsburgh area, about 20 miles away from me, who offered to pet sit Spot when I went away. Spot does so well at "Camp Dian" and he really loves his Auntie Dian. Something like that just may turn up for you.
Good Luck!
 
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