to shoot or not to shoot?

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codyraja

codyraja

Member Since 2014
Good Morning Friends -
I just started home monitoring, and I don't have a lot of data yet. But here's what I have since last night:

7p: 145
8p: 271, food, 1u prozinc
4a: 140
7:30a: 115
8a: 126

Unfortunately, I couldn't get any data between 8p & 4a, so I don't know how low he went. but yesterday at this time, he was at 330. He's really hungry and I need to leave for work soon. I'll retest in a bit, but if he's not over 200 yet - am I good to feed and leave him for the day without insulin? Do you ever feed, skip the shot, monitor and give the insulin later if his numbers are climbing? or do I just wait until his evening shot time and test again?
 
codyraja said:
... Do you ever feed, skip the shot, monitor and give the insulin later if his numbers are climbing? or do I just wait until his evening shot time and test again?
Click to expand...

I actually do sometimes give the shot a bit later in the day. But there are a couple of things to consider with this. Firstly, you won't know how much of that preshot number has been influenced by food; and secondly, it will mess up your schedule if you're shooting 12 hourly. (I have a lot of data about how my cat responds to food and insulin, and I don't shoot on a 12/12 schedule anyway). In most cases it would be better to skip the shot.

Is it possible to just give the next shot a bit earlier...?

Eliz
 
just retested after 25 min and he's still at 127. I'm going to feed him and skip the shot and try to come home at lunch to monitor him.

My biggest concern is that I'm going out of town this weekend. I had arranged for my niece to catsit for him and I was teaching her how to give the injections, assuming we'd keep to the 1U 12/12 schedule. now that I've started monitoring, I'm not so confident that I should keep up that routine while I'm away. I can't expect her to learn how to monitor him and make the judgement calls on the data she's getting. For now, I'll collect some more data and try to come up with a plan for the weekend. Any input on this issue would be appreciated!
 
I like Elizabeth's idea of shooting a little early tonight. Would that mess up your schedule? It is most likely that the number will be high as he will have been 24 hours since the last shot. But I wouldn't raise the dose. Maybe one unit if he is in the 300-400 range.

I also think it's time to reduce the dose. You want 2 shootable numbers - .5 might give you that. So, the next normal number (after this one tonight that will likely be high because of the time factor) try the lower dose?

Let's see what the rest of the week brings, as far as your being away goes.
 
The nice thing about ProZinc is that you can easily adjust the dose on the fly.

Giving 1 unit brought him down at least 100 mg/dL, so as a very conservative approach, you could give 0.25 units IF he gets above 150 mg/dL - basically a token dose if you have to leave and want to do something.

Maybe try shooting 0.5 to 0.75 units tonight since 1 unit got him too low to shoot.

For tiny doses, it is possible to use U-100 syringes with a U-40 insulin. The difference between the insulins is the concentration. U-100 has 100 units of insulin per 1 mL. U-40 has only 40 units of insulin per 1 mL, so it is only 40% as concentrated. Thus, marks on a U-100 syringe would get multiplied by 0.4 to get the amount of a U-40 insulin.
Ex
0.4 * 0.5 = 0.2 units ... each half unit mark is 0.2 units
 
Can I help you set up a spreadsheet? It looks like he may be a cat who reacts pretty quickly to insulin and it is so much better if we can see his history at a glance if you are asking about dosing. Check your pms - at the top of the page: '1 new message"
 
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