? Single destabilizing meal?

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boopsoup

boopsoup

Member Since 2020
Hi everyone,

I've been lurking on the forum for a while and have gotten some very helpful advice for my cat that was diagnosed 10/3/2020 and prescribed Lantus. I closely monitored his BG and reduced the insulin until now where have managed to get him regulated through diet. He's been off insulin for 5 days with morning and evening numbers around 150 (with Alphatrak, but thanks to your suggestions I just got a relion meter and am excited to stop paying 1$ per strip)

This isn't the first time I got him off insulin for a few days. But last time he managed to get into my roommate's cat's dry food which spiked his insulin over 400, at that point I went back to 0.5U BID until his numbers were good again and then kept him on 0.5U SID for about 2 weeks before now again testing for remission.

The destabilizing effect of that one meal concerns me. For those of you with cats in remission, is it that delicate? Can a cat in remission be knocked out of it from one instance of getting into some carbs, or is it possible that his numbers would have come back down even if I didn't restart insulin?
 
boopsoup said:
Can a cat in remission be knocked out of it from one instance of getting into some carbs, or is it possible that his numbers would have come back down even if I didn't restart insulin?
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If your cat was truly in remission, one meal wouldn't knock him out. It may take a couple of days (at most) but he should come back down.

If his last dose before you took him off was .5, you probably took him off too soon. We like to keep them on insulin as long as safely possible which means going down to .25, then .1, then sometimes 2 drops then 1 drop before trying an OTJ trial. We want a strong remission, not necessarily a fast one.

Just FYI....the GA prefix stands for "Gone Ahead" or "Guardian Angel"....it's what we use when one of our kitties has passed away. A lot of people think it means "General Advice" or that someone lives in Georgia (When I first joined, I saw all these GA's and thought "boy there's a lot of people from Georgia here" and I've heard a lot of others that thought that too!)
 
Chris & China (GA) said:
If your cat was truly in remission, one meal wouldn't knock him out. It may take a couple of days (at most) but he should come back down.

If his last dose before you took him off was .5, you probably took him off too soon. We like to keep them on insulin as long as safely possible which means going down to .25, then .1, then sometimes 2 drops then 1 drop before trying an OTJ trial. We want a strong remission, not necessarily a fast one.

Just FYI....the GA prefix stands for "Gone Ahead" or "Guardian Angel"....it's what we use when one of our kitties has passed away. A lot of people think it means "General Advice" or that someone lives in Georgia (When I first joined, I saw all these GA's and thought "boy there's a lot of people from Georgia here" and I've heard a lot of others that thought that too!)
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Sorry I did indeed think GA stood for General Advice. I don't see a way to edit the tag though.

I have no clue how I would go about dosing under 0.5, I have 0.3ml U100 syringes with single unit markings, eyeballing 0.5 is already extremely imprecise. I was following the dose adjustment protocol for lantus from this paper which recommends going from 0.5 SID to no insulin. I guess the real question I'm asking is, at what number do you decide to restart insulin? If there is one big spike from the wrong food (like what occurred last time) was I right to immediately begin insulin again? Or in the future should I give it a couple days to see if it normalizes?

re: the spreadsheet. I made my own spreadsheet before I found this forum, it's formatted somewhat oddly to workaround some weirdness related to plotting his glucose curves. It would be some effort for me to transfer all that into this forums template. Do people here ever share their own spreadsheets or does everyone stick to the template format?
 
boopsoup said:
I don't see a way to edit the tag though.
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Go to your original post and you should see "Thread tools"...click there and "Edit title"...choose "No Prefix" or use the ? if you have a question. The 911 is for medical emergencies like hypo's
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boopsoup said:
I have no clue how I would go about dosing under 0.5, I have 0.3ml U100 syringes with single unit markings, eyeballing 0.5 is already extremely imprecise.
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Where do you live? There are syringes with half unit marks that make it easier or you can use calipers and ignore the lines completely. There are also pictures of fine dosing towards the bottom of this thread

boopsoup said:
I guess the real question I'm asking is, at what number do you decide to restart insulin? If there is one big spike from the wrong food (like what occurred last time) was I right to immediately begin insulin again? Or in the future should I give it a couple days to see if it normalizes?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't restart insulin based on 1 number or even 1 day of higher than normal numbers. Usually, if they're falling out of remission, you'll catch a high number and then start testing at least daily to see if it continues. If it does continue to go higher, then you want to investigate why. Dental issues and UTI's are the most common reasons for cats coming out of remission. If no signs of illness, and his number just keep creeping higher, you'd want to restart insulin when you started to see a pattern of them increasing above 150 or so

boopsoup said:
Do people here ever share their own spreadsheets or does everyone stick to the template format?
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We really depend on our own formatted spreadsheet since it's what we're used to reading. You wouldn't necessarily have to transfer every number. What we're usually the most interested in is the past 2 weeks. Beyond that is ancient history when it comes to diabetes treatment
 
Hi boopsoup! WELCOME TO OUR FAMILY.

For your convenience..
FDMB SPREADSHEET INSTRUCTIONS

While we applaud members that come here with their own system of charting bg numbers, to be of ultimate service, everyone has to be on the same page here. We want be able to give proper help. TRUST ME this spread sheet WILL serve you further into your cats journey.
Please take Chris' advice and just fill in the last 2 weeks. W e all look forward to getting to know you both.
jeanne
 
jt and trouble (GA) said:
Hi boopsoup! WELCOME TO OUR FAMILY.

For your convenience..
FDMB SPREADSHEET INSTRUCTIONS

While we applaud members that come here with their own system of charting bg numbers, to be of ultimate service, everyone has to be on the same page here. We want be able to give proper help. TRUST ME this spread sheet WILL serve you further into your cats journey.
Please take Chris' advice and just fill in the last 2 weeks. We all look forward to getting to know you both.
jeanne
Click to expand...

It's kind of further complicated by the fact that I've been transitioning from the AlphaTrak to a ReliOn human meter, In my spreadsheet I have a separate column for each meter. In the forum spreadsheet I guess I could tag each value with a label corresponding to each meter. Seems like that would be confusing for people. Maybe I'll hold off on the new spreadsheet until I've fully switched over.
 
Started a spreadsheet for the last 8 days, didn't do 2 weeks because there is a 7 day gap in my data from 11/9 to 11/16 caused by running out of test strips and my online order getting delayed. I put him on 0.5U BID during that time.

during this period, I gave him one 0.5U shot in the evening of the 5th day since his numbers were higher than I wanted. This was before I came here for advice.

spreadsheet
 
Would you please add these details to your signature? This way you wont have to keep answering the same questions over and over like..."What insulin are you using?"

  • This is where you will put information that helps us give you feedback.
    • There is a limit of two lines which may include two links; you may separate pieces with commas, dashes, | etc. This is where you paste the link for your spreadsheet, once it is set up.
    • Add any other text, such as
    • Caregiver & kitty's name (optional)
    • DX: Date
    • Name of Insulin
    • Name of your meter
    • Diet: "LC wet" or "dry food" or "combo"
    • Dosing: TR or SLGS or Custom (if applicable)
    • DKA or other recent health issue (if applicable)
    • Acro, IAA, or Cushings (if applicable)
    • Spreadsheet link. Please put the signature link on the bottom line of your signature information, on its own, so it is easy to find.
    • Please do not put any information about your location in the signature for security reasons. If you wish to add your country location, please add it to your profile.
Be sure to click the 'Save Changes' button at the bottom. If you need help urgently it is important we know these things at a glance. We don’t want to waste valuable time finding out information.
 
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