Quintus's OTJ BG: chart and musings

Discussion in 'Honeymooners / OTJ' started by Steph & Quintus & L & O, Feb 17, 2018.

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  1. Steph & Quintus & L & O

    Steph & Quintus & L & O Well-Known Member

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    Dec 9, 2017
    I've made a chart of Quintus's OTJ BG (you can find all the details and test times in the SS). I normally test a couple of times a day, random times. If you go to the World tab of the SS and look at the notes you'll see I'm trying to figure out how his BG varies with relation to meals and other stuff (clinical signs).

    Overall I'd say he's doing really good. Better than he was last autumn before he became diabetic.

    I am measuring his BG with an AT2, so for those of you used to human meters, you'll find the values high. As a baseline, what is largely considered "normal" here is between 4-8mmol/l. I've tried to find a final, authoritative answer to that question but it seems to vary a lot.

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...Eh/pubchart?oid=1422622312&format=interactive

    If you follow down Quintus's condo you'll see I decided to take him OTJ as soon as his numbers seemed to be in the range of regulation I was aiming for. I did not continue to micro-dose him. He became diabetic in the wake of a bad pancreatitis, and as that got better, he stopped needing insuline quite fast. We've had discussions in other threads (I can't remember where, but @Stacy & Asia was involved) about the importance of taking into account how a cat became diabetic, and I think Quintus's story illustrates it well.

    I've indicated in the chart sub-title some milestones to help with interpretation. I switched meters 13.01 and strips on 23.01. I did some comparison testing and the switch from the old AT to the new AT2 would make the numbers jump between 1 and 2 mmol/l (caveat: I tested old AT first and new AT2 second, and I think the order in which measures are done might have an impact -- due to how the glucometer works). 1mmol/l = 18mg/dl, so that's 18 to 36 points. When I switched to the Freestyle lite strips numbers also varied.

    Over time I've relaxed about the fact Quintus's numbers are in the 6-8 range rather than 4-6, and I'll be getting some AT strips soon to compare. I'm also tempted to borrow my vet's glucometer (the old AT I used during this whole story) once to see what it reads now.

    See http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/...e-vs-alpha-trak-2-strips.172666/#post-2116601 and the "meter comparison hell" tab in the SS

    This has made me think that we get sometimes get stressed out a lot about our values when in fact they might be 40 up or down depending on what glucometer we're using. Quintus's OTJ numbers would look a lot prettier (and greener!) if I were using a human meter -- but his BG would still be the same!

    Other than that he got a shot of convenia on 01.02, because he seemed a little off and I had noticed that the convenia shots he got during the two months of treatment really perked him up. He immediately became much more purry, and his numbers dropped a bit (not quite long enough to be sure it wasn't just a fluke). He's remained "better", so I'm going to wait some more before taking this to my vet, but it does seem to indicate there was (is?) some lingering infectious thingy going on.

    A few days ago (12.02) I took him off his wet food. I know the prevailing belief on the board (and in many circles) is that dry food is Bad, but I can't say I'm on board with that (yes, I've read all the Dr. Lisa et al. documents). Quintus went OTJ eating a mix of Pro Plan DM cans and Pro Plan NF (kidney) kibble. Shortly after he went OTJ I replaced the NF kibble with Hill's m/d kibble. In the process of troubleshooting his "spasms", I finally decided to try and cut out the wet food the other day, after seeing him have a major spasmy moment after eating a healthy helping of wet DM. And though I haven't been able to observe him closely because of work, I have seen way less spasms, and weaker, and sometimes none at all, and he also seems generally "better". I got a bunch of "haven't seen that low for a while" values for his BG after taking him off the wet food. What gives...?

    So, just putting this out there to give you news and in the spirit of documenting things.
     
    Last edited: Feb 17, 2018
    Sharon14 and Kris & Teasel like this.
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