@Ruby&Baco ,
@Sue and Oliver (GA),
@BJM
Dear girls!
You can't imagine how much I appreciate your opinions as I'm really struggling with making decisions! Not that you would make decisions for me but your input and our joint effort to do the right thing for Rocky is most important here.
Now, let me explain my thinking:
Ruby, you are right to point out to me that I set BG of 6.6 of top number for not shooting if below. Frankly, I forgot that (ha ha ha! terrible memory) in my quest to push Rocky a bit harder.
Another thing is the meters comparison: I have read everything I could here about differences of meters, done my own comparison od various meters, got a slap on the wrist by an important person here for trying to come to some sort of comparison figures of the pet versus human meter and basically done a lot of thinking and my conclusion is as follows:
pet meters read differently to human meters and human meter read differently against each other. In very general terms human meters read lower then AT2 but it seems meaningless. One can observe a bigger difference on high numbers but on low numbers the difference is barely noticeable, I usually had almost no difference or human meter was reading higher than AT2! So, in my situation with Rocky one can clearly observe that he is mostly staying in blue numbers, which might be slightly lower when tested on human meter but we still don't see him getting more green numbers which are more important for regulation. At this stage, and after all my reading and thinking about meters I conclude that the point about human meter potentially reading lower is not valid. This is not an advice for anybody, this is just purely my observation. I think for remission in Rocky's situation I would like his numbers to be in the range of 3.8 - 6.6 (68 - 120).
The reason I decided to try OTJ was that I saw other cat's SS (Baco was one of them) and caregivers stopped giving insulin on blue numbers (on numbers which were sometimes as high as 9 (160) and the cats were doing so well on OTJ trial that the longer they were off insulin the lower their BG was getting! I did NOT get the same result with Rocky.
When you look at his SS you will notice that he goes too high after shot and food but not always. One might think that the dose was too high and he's bouncing but the same thing happened when he was off insulin and on different doses! I remember sometime ago somebody replied in my post saying that if he goes that high a few hours after food it probably means he still needs insulin. On other occasions he goes too high on a reduced dose and goes lower on increased dose but he is inconsistent so the picture is not clear.
Yesterday he went into green numbers with nadir late in the cycle so I reduced the dose and he was too high this morning.
I have doubts about him bouncing now when he is well regulated, does anybody know about bouncing at this stage? I suppose nobody will know for sure. If he was bouncing now why did he not bounce from the hypo BG on the 20th of June?
Sue, your suggestion of feeding regime is a very good one but I think I might struggle with that.
I feed Rocky exclusively raw meat (with bones, egg shell powder, organs) diet without carbohydrate only adding a tiny bit of green beans or broccoli when his numbers are low. Usually he gets 4 equal meals in 24 hour: a meal with his shot (for distraction otherwise he wriggles) and then meal between shots at equal intervals. He has an automatic feeder and seems obsessed by it! I know that more frequent feeding would be better but it is difficult to do as it would mean I have to be at home most of the time which is not possible. The best I could possibly try is feeding every 3 hours. Using automatic feeder during the day is difficult as I don't know where Rocky is going to be (indoors or in the garden) on a particular day and I have a dog as well.
Now I have a question regarding feeding so frequently and testing his BG. At present I try to test away from food so often test 3 hours after his food and injection to see how he's responding and then 3 hours later before his meal. So how do I judge his BGs levels with frequent feeding? May I please have your opinion on this.
This is how I interpret Rocky's sugar dance but more brain power and experience of you guys could only help me with decisions making so don't worry about telling me what you think even if it is different to what I conclude.
Oh, and there is another thing with Rocky : when his BG is a bit high he would meow and pester me for food constantly so it is a sign for me that his BG is not so good as oppose to those few weeks leading to and being in OTJ trial when he was so settled and quiet! Unfortunately he can be very meowy when his BG is normal so go figure it out!
I apologise for a long post but I hope you have enough patience to read it through and let me know what you think.
Most grateful for all your help, consider myself lucky to have such wonderful people in my life.
With love to you,
Marlena
), or he hunted or even ate something other than his prescribed diet (a yummy caterpillar!) could potentially put his BG temporarily above the upper limit of 9.7 but he is within normal range well over 90% (probably more like 98%) of the time and I don't think reacting to one off numbers that exceed the range is necessary. I think you need to look for numbers that stay up before giving insulin.
it was long yes but that doesn't matter, everything is clear now! 
she loves a party!