12/11 Pimp AMPS 276; +3.5 266; +6.5 269; PMPS 286; +2 296

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Andy & Pimp

Andy & Pimp

Member Since 2015
Good morning hope everyone had a decent sleep. Pimp's numbers have been a mystery all this week and I have been driving myself bonkers trying to get a handle on this.

continuing from yesterday's condo

Vyktors Mum said:
I look back at where you reduced from 1.25 to .15 within the space of ten days and think that was too much too fast
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I agree the reductions came too close together. I think that was made obvious by his numbers. I was still trying to follow SLGS at that point. I dropped .25u for every time he went under 90. 11/7 he hit 50's. -.25=2.0. 11/8- 50's again. -.5 because I wanted to make sure he stopped going that low. After a bounce we had decent preshots, but I was still scared of shooting low numbers. He hit 80's on the reduced dose 11/12. After a skip and another one-time reduction, under 80 again. So -.25. Nadir @ 80 on 11/15. SLGS would call for another -.25 but I was starting to understand how a larger depot can affect for a few days so I only dropped .15. That dose (1.1) got him to 50 so we took the rest of 11/15's reduction and the one he had just earned. Then on 11/21 he hit 50's again and was harder to bring back up, so I took .5 reduction.
It was explained shortly after this to me, that those reductions came too fast.
As far as I have read, both SLGS and TR call for immediate reductions when a certain number is met. There are no provisions for "if there was a reduction w/in last 48 hrs" that I have seen.
Vyktors Mum said:
I do have to wonder if his latest losing it is something to do with that food you've been giving him. Even if it is LC is there a possibility that there's something in there he's allergic to? Is whatever meat is in it something he's had in other food types regularly before or is there something novel in there?
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I'm going to pick up some more wellness grain free today and see if it makes a difference. I just liked the wilderness because it's so high in protein. He had been eating both brands alternating days before his numbers got out of control this week.
Vyktors Mum said:
When was Pimp's last dental and did it include X-rays?
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:oops: He's never had one. Vet said his mouth was in pristine shape last time he was in. I guess that's the ONE advantage of dry food.
Vyktors Mum said:
you're not going to kill him by going up in smaller amounts it's probably just going to cost you some time so no real harm in experimenting a little there.
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I was thinking going up in smaller increments may help him not to bounce so much and possibly hold a dose better.
Vyktors Mum said:
However, I definitely would not recommend both dropping Pimp's reduction level and reducing by a smaller amount that would be adding two extra aggressive factors at once which could be quite dangerous.
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No worries. If he sees 60's he will get a full .25 reduction.
 
I hope Pimp gets back on track soon. It's hard to figure out reductions sometimes, especially when you get those reduce by numbers so close together.
 
We went through 6 reductions in about 10 days back in October and had to climb back up to where we started too. For the last month DH and I were baffled too and were upset that we had to keep increasing afterwards. Now that we're able to do TR as the dry has been eliminated I'm hoping for better success. Pimp will get there soon!
 
Doodles & Sour Pea said:
We went through 6 reductions in about 10 days back in October and had to climb back up to where we started too. For the last month DH and I were baffled too and were upset that we had to keep increasing afterwards. Now that we're able to do TR as the dry has been eliminated I'm hoping for better success. Pimp will get there soon!
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It looks like Doodles is back on track now, I hope Pimp can follow suit. What kind of dry was he eating, and when did you cut it out completely?
 
Andy & Pimp said:
It looks like Doodles is back on track now, I hope Pimp can follow suit. What kind of dry was he eating, and when did you cut it out completely?
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Long story but in July the Internal Med vet put him on DM dry. We started switching to EVO and eventually YAZC for the past month! That also contributed to the downward reductions a month ago. He's a kibble addict and it's even more challenging with his IBD but honestly think after 6 months we're finally there. He still gets YAZC as a "treat"....just a few pieces.
 
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Ok, yellow surf? I am reading this as more insulin needed.

For the sake of trying to figure out the food thing:
He had Wilderness (1/5 can) for brefs, which he took until +3 to finish. Hairball right before amps so probably didn't feel the best. He also snacked on YA after brefs was gone.
Wellness @ 6.5 when I got home from the store. (1/5 can) Scarfed it.
 
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When you're trying to work out if there's a food issue noting the food in the comments on your spreadsheet is invaluable for helping you determine if there's a pattern.

Don't forget when you increase it takes about 6 cycles for the depot to fill so you can see the full effect of what a particular dose can do. Also changing dose frequently usually results in wonky numbers. That being said I would've increased to .5 in the first place so if you do go ahead and increase to there now strap on your patience pants afterwards and wait out the full 6 cycles before reevaluating regardless of the numbers.

Often newer people think that getting the kitty used to lower numbers in stages e.g time to adjust to the yellows and then the blues before aiming for greens may be the way to reduce bouncing, it sounds logical enough. However, experience has shown that this isn't the case. The best way to get rid of the bouncing is usually to get the kitty into normal numbers ASAP then as the kitty spends more time there the bounces tend to get lower and shorter.

Yellow is certainly a lot nicer than red but methinks you can do better Pimp...
 
Vyktors Mum said:
When you're trying to work out if there's a food issue noting the food in the comments on your spreadsheet is invaluable for helping you determine if there's a pattern.
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Done for this past week and every day in the future. I put in some notes about dry food transition too...funny how it was 3 days after the YA transition was complete that he started earning reductions. He was still eating mostly dry food at that point.
 
Vyktors Mum said:
Often newer people think that getting the kitty used to lower numbers in stages e.g time to adjust to the yellows and then the blues before aiming for greens may be the way to reduce bouncing, it sounds logical enough. However, experience has shown that this isn't the case. The best way to get rid of the bouncing is usually to get the kitty into normal numbers ASAP then as the kitty spends more time there the bounces tend to get lower and shorter.
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I see people thinking this all the time, and I agree with Serryn - I've never seen "easing into" normal numbers work. Seems like just getting green as often as you can is the solution to reducing the bouncing.

And I remind myself regularly that while many people are focused on reducing the bouncing, it really isn't so much of a problem. It certainly isn't the goal - the goal is to get the cat's blood sugar controlled as quickly as possible, sparing their body from the damages of high blood sugar.

One more thought about the small dose increase - as Serryn said, no harm done, other than possibly having some time spent. And perhaps it will be just right - that does happen! It's possible it will be a good dose - ECID isn't just a slogan. However, there are plenty of times that a dose just sort of stops working. It used to work and now it doesn't. That's not uncommon, and often it seems like you need a decent size increase to jumpstart the action again and bump the cat down into better numbers. This is especially obvious in high dose cats, which obviously, doesn't apply to Pimp. Anyway, something to watch for if the 0.4u doesn't accomplish what you are hoping.

Appreciating the discussions you've got going - good thoughts!
 
@Vyktors Mum
@julie & punkin (ga)

I did shoot .5 tonight.
I understand that trying to bring them down gradually isn't effective. That was not my goal. My goal was to prevent the possibility of Pimp crashing out.

Here's my logic behind the last 2 shots:
We increase and decrease (mostly) by .25 here. For the majority of cats, that's absolutely no more than a 50% increase. Ex: going from .5 to .75u. would be 50%. Most cats on the board are getting a larger dose. For every dose larger, it's an exponentially smaller percentage.

I increased from .15 to .25u last week (66% increase), and the first shot on that dose he dropped to 70's...

[OT rant]..If I'm following SLGS I would have stopped insulin. :arghh:
So....reductions @ ? ideas?
Who actually wants to help me to come up with a new reduction number, now that I've proved I need it?[/OT rant]

Anyhow the bottom line tonight, going from .25 directly to .5 would have been a 100% increase. That just doesn't seem safe to do all at once.

What I dosed the last 2 shots was probably closer to .25 than it was to .4 anyhow. I didn't reset the caliper for a new dose, I just tried to leave a tiny bit extra in the syinge. I didn't think we'd be staying there for long. Caliper is locked in at .5 now and we will stay here for 6 cycles, unless he goes too low.
But what is too low? I'm perfectly comfortable with him being in the high 70's, but I admit I get worried before he is into the 60's.

BTW is someone wants to quote me in Libby's info thread I think there are points there that need to be discussed, and I'm afraid that bit may have gotten lost in all the "Oh boy this is great thankyou" and "I don't understand" posts.

ETA: It's inevitable that I'm going to get kicked out of this group eventually so some people may as well learn from it.
 
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You are absolutely not going to get kicked out of this group, so don't worry.

Just because some of us think you could go to 0.5u doesn't mean that you should go to 0.5u. Your logic makes sense, and if you feel more comfy with 0.4u, as we both said there is nothing lost by doing that. You know Pimp best and it's always your call.

You're a very good CG (caregiver) for Pimp and I know you'll be watching like a hawk to keep him safe.

As far as a reduction point, I don't know what to suggest except the party line.
 
I am glad you went to 0.5U tonight. Sometimes it's just like the pancreas gets tired and needs a little more juice to get jump started. Or it could have been the higher carb food. Either way, Pimp will tell you soon enough whether that was the right decision.

Back when Neko was on on small doses I would change her dose by .125 if she was already getting high green nadirs and I wanted to nudge it down a bit. (for her, she bounces less if nadirs are in the 70's), but if nadirs were above green, then the full .25U increases. However, it's one of those ECID things that you have to find out about your cat. We encourage experiments, but we'll also tell you the party line because that's what works in the case of most cats.

Not sure why you think you'd be kicked out. We love discussions here. The Think Tank forum is full of them.
 
Wendy&Neko said:
Not sure why you think you'd be kicked out.
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Questioning protocol and pushing the envelope about things. Possibly giving bad advice to newbs...though I try to do nothing but cite the protocol in that case, or tag one of you if it's something I'm not sure about.

What do you mean by "party line"? Didn't see that one in the slang dictionary.
 
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Wendy&Neko said:
Back when Neko was on on small doses I would change her dose by .125 if she was already getting high green nadirs and I wanted to nudge it down a bit. (for her, she bounces less if nadirs are in the 70's), but if nadirs were above green, then the full .25U increases.
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I see the fat and skinny doses around the 1-2 range, sure. At 1.5, a .125 increase would be 10%. That sounds perfect for tweaking.
I haven't seen an increase from .25 to .5 on anyone's spreadsheet. Usually at that low dose it's all reductions because kitty goes OTJ. Not saying it hasn't ever happened, but I guess I haven't looked at the right SS yet.
 
I don't feel comfortable recommending a specific reduction level for Pimp either. What you want to do is outside my experience (dry food and SLGS are not things that I've dealt with much) and I don't want to feel like I bear any of the responsibility if it goes pear shaped. That being said I don't feel adverse to your experiment with lowering his reduction level, I think you test enough to be able to get away with it. If you're not comfortable with him in the 60s you may not want to make it as low as 60 though.

LOL on thinking you'll be booted out, you're not the first one to question how to do things and you won't be the last. As long as everyone stays respectful I think it's a good thing, it gives others the opportunity to learn.
 
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