? TUCKER 20 Jan PMPS 4.2 (75)

Tucker

Tucker

Member Since 2018
Hi There,

If anyone is available to look at Tucker's ss, I would appreciate it. We have no idea what was going on with him, but he went from earning deductions and testing single digits to many tests above 18 (325). As you will see we had to do a couple of .25 increases when he did not respond. After 4 doses at 3.5 he has responded in a bigger way than planned and at +4 he crashed down to 2.3 (43). I have given medium carb food and retested and he raised to 3.2 (56). Now What should I do? Many thanks!
 
There's information in this Shooting and Handling Low Numbers sticky that describes the process of steering low numbers. You need to re-test in 15 - 20 min and give more carbs if numbers aren't coming up. You repeat this process until numbers are safe for several tests.

I would definitely reduce the dose based on the 43. If Tucker bounces above 300, you can hold the current, 3.5u dose for one more cycle and reduce the following cycle. That may help to deal with a bounce.

A couple of thoughts...
The lack of PM tests makes it impossible to know if Tucker was seeing lower numbers during the PM cycle and then bouncing into higher numbers.

Would your schedule permit getting AM cycle tests before +7? Nadirs are not a fixed point; they can and do change. You may be missing some lower numbers. Getting some random tests may help you to know a bit more about Tucker's cycles.
 
Sienne and Gabby (GA) said:
There's information in this Shooting and Handling Low Numbers sticky that describes the process of steering low numbers. You need to re-test in 15 - 20 min and give more carbs if numbers aren't coming up. You repeat this process until numbers are safe for several tests.

I would definitely reduce the dose based on the 43. If Tucker bounces above 300, you can hold the current, 3.5u dose for one more cycle and reduce the following cycle. That may help to deal with a bounce.

A couple of thoughts...
The lack of PM tests makes it impossible to know if Tucker was seeing lower numbers during the PM cycle and then bouncing into higher numbers.

Would your schedule permit getting AM cycle tests before +7? Nadirs are not a fixed point; they can and do change. You may be missing some lower numbers. Getting some random tests may help you to know a bit more about Tucker's cycles.
Click to expand...
Thank you for getting in touch and for this information. I tested him until 4am, when his dad took over for me. He had stayed down in the double digit range through the night. When I got up at 6 I would say someone had overdone the gravy food and threw in a bit of honey for good measure, because Tucker's AMPS was 384! He was clearly nauseated but being a good boy. I gave him his normal no carb breakfast and shot 3.50.

I did the best I could with the testing over the last couple of weeks. I've been in a bit of a pickle with my own health but am doing my best to get as many tests as possible. The strangest thing has been that 2 weeks ago we started him on a raw meat diet and that is when he went from surfing blues and greens to hot pink. How can that even be??
 
What kind of raw diet are you feeding Tucker? Do you make it yourself and if so, do you by all of the supplements or do you use a premix? Or, do you buy a commercial raw food diet? If you use a premix for all of the nutritional supplements, make sure you know the carb count. Likewise, not all of the commercial raw diets may be low in carbs. Just because it's raw doesn't mean it's low in carbs. I make my own and use FoodFurLife premix.

I wouldn't necessarily conclude that the higher numbers are due only to lots of high carbs to steer the cycle. What you're also likely seeing is a bounce. Due to the lower than usual numbers, Tucker's pancreas and liver released a stored form of glucose and counterregulatory hormones which spiked the numbers up. In other words, Tucker's pancreas panicked at the low numbers.
 
Could you put in the spreadsheet Remarks column when you started the raw?

I see on December 12th he earned a reduction, but it wasn’t taken. Unfortunately after that you were not able to test him as much at night due to your health. If that should happen again, it’s probably safer just to give him a 0.25 unit reduction during the time he won’t be tested as much. Any increases should also be slowed down if you can’t get mid cycle tests.

Congrats on tonight’s reduction, glad you caught that.

The link to your last post here: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/29-december-amps-9-7-175-pmps-11-1-200.208655/
 
Ok, I am doing a prey based raw diet with Tucker and have been making my own using suggestions from the wonderful @Bron and Sheba. Tucker's vet gave me a tube of cat vitamins to put on his food. I tried to get the Food Fur Life premix but they won't ship it to Australia. There was a similar product on Amazon but they tell you the Aussie customs will likely stop it from coming in. I'm looking at "Vet's All Natural Complete Mix" because it is available locally and says you just need to add raw meat. Each cat serve is 6.2 carbs though. How does that compare with the Food Fur Life premix??

It is approaching 100 degrees here today, so all of the kitties are a bit flat. I'm doing the best I can re. the testing. Yes, I've been pretty unwell but the good news is all of the biopsies from all of the tests have come out clear. I'll be losing part of my esophagus once they get my body a bit stronger...and I really need Tucker to be in a good, stable place when that all hits the fan. I appreciate your guidance and suggestions. I'm trying!
 
@Sienne and Gabby (GA)
The raw diet that I use is a frankenprey diet. With Sheba I gave her a partially cooked and some raw diet and because we had no supplement mix out here in Australia I used to make up my own using Lisa Pierson's recipe.
With Harry and Clover I am feeding the frankenprey diet which follows the80% muscle meat, 10% bone and 10% organ (5%liver and 5% secreting organ ...I use kidney mostly). I use a variety of muscle meats including hearts (great for taurine) every week and feed a bone meal 3 times a week for calcium. I feed sardines once a week for omega 3 and when we have salmon they get a bit; a raw egg yoke every week for vitamins and minerals and I try and use free range meats such as kangaroo and beef where possible as they are higher in omega 3. The only supplement I use is taurine, although I'm sure the diet is high in taurine with all the raw meat, but I like to make sure.. .....

Patty has found a complete Australian supplement mix which must be fairly new on the market. I think she is going to use that combined with meat bought from the human section of the supermarket.
 
@Bron and Sheba and @Tucker --

I doubt that the fluctuation in numbers is due to diet unless you've been changing things up. Some cats are very responsive to any change in food. Likewise, some cats are incredibly carb sensitive. For example, Jill could feed her kitty, Alex, a bit of freeze dried chicken and Alex's numbers would rise by 30 points.

Bron - I switched to a raw diet when Gabby was diagnosed with IBD. Since he's not FD, I'm not overly concerned with the carbs. This link is the nutritional info -- it's pretty low in carbs. Alnutrin is another pre-mix that @Marje and Gracie used. I suspect it's not available in Australia, as well.

Remember to take the reduction after seeing that 41.
 
I took the reduction and he is safe. I am trying to follow @Bron and Sheba but some of it is in the 'too hard' basket for my circumstances at the moment. Our vet wants us to stick to human raw meat as their practice has done a few quality control studies with the animal raw diets here in SA. It is an unregulated industry down here and one raw meat distributor had pets die last year by a bad batch of food.... Soooo, Tucker is eating people food. Many thanks for sharing all of your knowledge and your support.
 
Sienne and Gabby (GA) said:
@Bron and Sheba and @Tucker --

I doubt that the fluctuation in numbers is due to diet unless you've been changing things up. Some cats are very responsive to any change in food. Likewise, some cats are incredibly carb sensitive. For example, Jill could feed her kitty, Alex, a bit of freeze dried chicken and Alex's numbers would rise by 30 points.

Bron - I switched to a raw diet when Gabby was diagnosed with IBD. Since he's not FD, I'm not overly concerned with the carbs. This link is the nutritional info -- it's pretty low in carbs. Alnutrin is another pre-mix that @Marje and Gracie used. I suspect it's not available in Australia, as well.

Remember to take the reduction after seeing that 41.
Click to expand...
I don’t know if they ship Alnutrin to Australia. You can google the website and see but I quit using it because you had to add the liver and also because it wasn’t a balanced diet for kittens. I believe Food Fur Life ships EZ Complete overseas.
 
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