upsidedown curve and worried

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carrieao

Member Since 2014
Hello. I'm Carrie and relatively new here. My cat Snowy is on Lantus and still unregulated after a couple months and I feel his numbers are pretty erratic. My last two curves have been upside down (gotten higher numbers rather than lower). Is this unusual? I typed in his whole story a couple weeks ago under the topic "Overswing possible at 1 unit?" originally dated Aug 26th. Is there a way to reference/link that topic here? Or I could copy/paste it in if desired (but it's a lot of story!).

I would love if anyone could look at my spreadsheet and may have any insight. My vet is currently out of town and apparently his replacements are out until Sunday. I have been fearing rebounding, perhaps even persistent rebounding, even though I don't think my data necessarily shows it (I'm a little psycho that way!). So we started over at 1 IU BID (should it have been zero?) and have been at each dose for seven days before a curve and then bumping him up by 0.5 IU. Today was the curve after being at 2 IU for a week. I assume I should go ahead an up him to 2.5 IU, but why is my curve upside down? Why have what should be nadirs been almost level or higher than my AMPS lately? Shouldn't each higher dose show generally lower numbers or does that happen once I get closer to the right dose? Is seven days at each dose sufficient at this point?

Could my insulin be going bad? It's only been 7 weeks since the Lantus pen was started (and it's almost gone) and it looks fine and has been refrigerated.

Have others seen wild spreadsheet numbers like mine? Am I on the right track and just not there yet?

Snowy is not free-fed, but does eat some throughout the day--he just has to give me that look. :smile: He typically eats for his first hour off and on and then naps for several hours and then comes back every few hours after that. He eats mostly Fancy Feast canned, but does get Evo and Instinct dry food some too (probably 70% FF/30% dry). I've ditched the M/D and actually finally gotten all of my cats to eat either Evo or Instinct (two won't even look at canned food), so there should be no more "Oops, I left the Iams down." There is no food left out overnight so his AMPS bg should be fasting for at least six hours.

Because of our family schedule, we test his BG first thing in the morning before eating, then he eats, and sometimes it's up to an hour before he gets his insulin shot. This is because we can't always move our evening shots up since we aren't home, so I try to keep them within 30 minutes of 12 hours apart. Would it be better (or so bad) if the morning shot was at 11 hours if his BG is really high like it has been thus far? More like a 13/11 schedule?

Snowy's health seems generally good. He does have a heart murmur though (not diagnosed why). He's a big guy but overweight (19-20 lbs) and at least 13 or more years old (guestimate). Sometimes we fear maybe there might be something else going on. It's hard "going slow" as I want my baby to feel better and I want him to get regulated before it takes a toll on him. I also fear missing the overswing if it happens and erroneously giving him more and more unneeded insulin.

Thank you for any support.
 
Hi Carrie,

Good job getting in those tests during the day! Would it be possible for you to get in some evening tests, too? A lot of kitties go lower at night, so it's possible that Snowy is going lower at night and then "bouncing" from those lower numbers. Without any tests in the evening, it's hard to know if that's the case. Could you perhaps set an alarm to get a +6 test? Even if you can only get a test at +2.......or get one at +10, that might help a lot.

These are just my immediate thoughts. I haven't had a chance to read your original post yet; I'll try to do that to see if I can come up with any other suggestions for you.

Oh......in case no one mentioned bouncing to you in your first post, here's some information on it: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=46012. The discussion of bouncing is towards the end of the second post in the thread.

Hopefully some others will be along soon to help you with the dosing question!

Shelly
 
Thanks, everybody. Re: fur shot, that's what I was thinking, particularly on the curve before (500s), but I don't think I biffed it. I always pet across the shot area and did not feel any wet.
I will try to get some night time bgs too.
 
He's more than a glucose number. Take a look at my signature link Secondary Monitoring Tools for some other assessments you can make, such as the 5 Ps.
I believe you've noted he has gained weight; that is a sign he is using the insulin he is getting.
 
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