3/30 Max amps 112--need input (dose and food)

Yesterday: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10618

Yeah, last night wasn't the greatest night we've had...but maybe my expectations for a "quiet" evening were too high. PMPS was 97, so I fed and gave his shot, the .5U the vet said to continue with for the rest of the week. Out of curiosity, I tested at +1.5, and I'm so glad I did because he was at 55! I wasn't expecting that! Granted, he didn't eat dinner well...actually neither of the boys did. Most of the food I bought this time around was the pate style, which it appears my boys aren't fond of. I know the Friskies pouches are fine carb-wise, but they're expensive. Other than fish flavors in the cans, are there any that are chunks & sauce style that are low carb? Anyway, I put out some HC and tested 20 minutes later, and he was at 52. Gave more HC, and after that he continued eating some of the dinner that was still out. Half hour later he was finally coming up.

This morning, just as a fail-safe, I did a skinny .5U (may actually have been closer to .25 than .5--I need some practice at measuring these small doses) and gave some MC food. At +1 he was up to 145, so I'm not too worried about him dropping low. Had his amps been under 100 this morning I wouldn't have given a shot at all. Tonight I plan to give a regular .5U and LC food and see what happens...but man, at this point I'd really like a day where we don't show any 50s!

DH tested him for the first time last night. Max was a good boy and sat for it, but it took DH forever to poke as he was afraid he'd poke into his own finger or something. He actually looked at me at one point and said "Why can't you just do it? It's YOUR cat." :evil: Ugh. As if it works that way! If it were the dog (which is "his"), I'd still be the one doing it. DH will have to get some more practice tonight. At this point I don't want him shooting w/o a ps number, and in the next two weeks there are going to be times when I can't be home.

 

Wow, Mindy, Max is doing great! He's really responding well to the insulin. I can't offer dose advice, but I'm sure someone will come along soon. I'm glad DH was able to test him. It'll get easier for him. And tell him it doesn't hurt if he gets his own finger in the process! :mrgreen: I actually practiced on myself before poking Logan. I wanted to know how bad it felt and I figured it was only fair for me to suffer along with him! :lol:

 

I poke my own finger a lot. I've been stabbed with the syringe needle as well as the lancet a few times because the damn dog flaps his big ol' ears juuuuuust as I try to poke, cat flies, and the needle is hanging off my finger.

I'm a biiiig baby when it comes to getting shots of my own, needles coming at me freak me out in a sort of mild way. I'm pretty darned proud of myself that I can handle giving shots so well. Then to factor in getting stabbed, I think I should be fine the next time a hospital vampire wants at my blood or a nurse wants to stick me with a needle. I'm pretty sure I'm over it at this point :lol:

Tell hubby it just takes practice. Tug twitches a bit when I poke his ear, that's sort of how I know when I've done it hard enough to pierce the skin and get blood. If he doesn't twitch just a bit, I find I have to try again. I really don't think his ears are tender or sore though, because he lets me massage them and touch them and pinch (gently, promise!) them without complaining. So even if it stings for a second, pinching the site immediately after the blood goes into the meter seems to help. My PS was nervous about hurting Tugger the other day when I taught her how to test, I was too at first. You get over it pretty quickly though =)

 

LOL, really, I can't tell you the number of times I've accidentally poked myself, or poked right through Max's ear. And I told DH that too--Max could have had earrings a few times! What's even funnier, tho, is that DH wanted to use the lancing device, which I don't use because that "click" sound would make Max jump (he's very skittish about noises, especially right by his ear)...and my instinct tells me he'd be more likely to poke too far in or through with the device than by just using the lancet himself.

I know he'll get better with more practice--I certainly have! And I didn't even have anyone in person to show me how to do it--I just watched the YouTube videos and went from there. I was even more shocked that Max didn't resist it much, and generally now when I call him he'll come running and jump up onto the testing spot without being coaxed. He only seems to mind if I poke him in a spot that hasn't fully healed yet--I think that hurts him, but otherwise he only twitches a bit, if at all, when I do the poke.

 

My vet "taught me" how to test... with a giant frickin' needle and he went right into the vein. Tug bled like a stuck pig and it seemed so WRONG that I came home and looked it up myself. Same as you, learned it from videos. Heh, if Tug had an earring for every time I've gone all the way through, there'd be nowhere to test I use the device for the lancet... but I took the cover thingy off so I can see the needle and I don't use the clicker, I just poke. I like having the pen type device to hold on to but I feel the same way about the click and not being able to see where the needle is going kind of makes it impossible to tell if you're going to hit the right spot or poke in the center of his ear or something. I just use the cap thingy so I don't stab myself reaching for the device.

 

HI Mindy
Can't help with any dose advice but I can give you some poking advice
I use a cotton ball when I poke Max, and yes I use the Lancet.
I rest his ear on the cotton ball so I know if I do go through it is
not to my fingers but into the cotton. :lol: :lol:
When I started I used a needle and it was so hard that I would find myself sobbing
on the floor not being able to get blood. (okay that was a while ago)
The Lancet is much easier, I use it on the lowest setting. You can also
practice clicking it when you "don't" test Max so he might just learn to ignore
the sound. I also let my Max eat his treats while I am poking him. He is so busy with
his face in the bowl that he could care less about the "click"
I just wanted to say that I love the story you wrote in My Max's condo today.
I could hear the smile and love in your voice.
It is a big change from when you started here and I am just so happy for you.
You are doing an amazing job, the biggest is loving your boy, and getting DH involved!!!
Hugs to you!

 

I can't mess with Tugger's ears while he eats, his head moves to darn much lol. I can give his shot while he's eating but even then he'll try to sidestep away lol. I just let him eat, then poke. Or poke and then let him eat. I do use the cotton ball trick though, when I remember. Half the time, Echo is gnawing on the basket and I can't get back into it to grab a cotton ball so I just poke and risk my own finger

 

Almost any food with a gravy to it will get higher up in the carbs. Some of the Fancy Feast have a slight chunks w/sauce appearance, look for the Flaked varieties. They are usually in the 5-8% range. When I use those I will do 1can Flaked, mixed with 1can really low carb pate to balance it out. The pates are going to be your low carb. I have one that really likes to lick her food so I add water to it and mix it up so it has a gravy with lumps consistancy. Purina Pro-plan has one of the better consistancies of the pates that I have seen, my girls all love that.

Mid 50s are nervous numbers, but not usually dangerous numbers so typically you would want to push the LC or MC, if he doesn't want to eat it, then try a bit of HC gravy on the LC.

One of the things you've missed with travelling down the dosing scale so fast is getting a feel for what preshot numbers mean. At 1U I knew I couldn't dose anything under 90 or she'd head for the 40s, at .5U I could comfortable dose in the low 80s and upper 70s and be pretty certain she wouldn't get below 60. Whenever you can get a good string a testing between shots try to because that will be very valuable information on where he goes after the shot and that will allow you to use that preshot number better. In order to keep him in the healing greens you've got to get comfortable shooting greens and to do that you need to know what he's doing with that insulin between shots. ECID and Max seems to want to run lower on 0.5 yet so maybe a skinny 0.5 or 0.25 with be your level to really get comfortable and spend some time letting him heal.

Hubby's are funny. Mine was leary to do it at first (you can see that a lot of the earlier PM shots were without a PS test). He still doesn't do it when I am around to watch :lol: but he and Smokey figured it out when they needed to.

 

Randi--Thanks! It's nice to see him looking good and looking like he actually feels good. He's even attacked his brother a few times lately, when normally he just rolls over and yowls. The last few weeks have been hard, but the light is appearing at the end of the tunnel--now we just have to hope we don't rush into it too fast!

Oh, and I do use a cotton pad behind/inside the ear when I poke--partly as protection for me, but also to help stop the bleed. I've tried paper towel and tissues, and the pad seems to bother him least--probably because it doesn't make any rustling noise. When he's eating he is usually chowing down, so I have to test before, but that works out well--he knows when I call him, if he sits nicely for his poke, he gets to eat!

I should also clarify that the HC is about 18% carbs, and the MC I have is only 12%. A few times lately the MC wouldn't get him to rise fast enough for him dropping that low that early in his cycle. If I get a low number anytime between +5 and +9, I'll give the MC (his nadir is around +8 give or take). Lately his drop has just been so darn early I don't want to take any chances with getting a rise that doesn't stay high enough. Twice now he's still dropped after the first feeding of HC.

Thanks for the food info Melanie. I think I will have to look for the Fancy Feast foods. I've been trying to keep the cost down--the budget is not unlimited. The canned food is really trying to make it burst at the seams because the dog now also thinks he shouldn't have to eat just dry food either (and I know health-wise he probably shouldn't, but he's a BIG dog). The boys will eat the pate, but they do better with it if there is an addition of something with chunks and sauce--like the Friskies pouches. I could probably put down a can of dirt with one of those pouches on top and they'd eat it. I was just hoping not to have to keep paying for them since they cost twice as much as the cans do, and we were using 2 of them a day (2 cans + 2 pouches).

And what is this "HC gravy" I keep seeing on various ss? Is it something I can buy or something that I make? Max isn't one for the sweets, so I've not tried putting honey, syrup, or karo on top of his food because I'm afraid he won't eat it at all.

One other thing I've noticed with the food lately is that Max doesn't seem as hungry now that his numbers are down. I know they're getting more calories than they need, but I'm afraid to restrict the food too tightly until he's OTJ because of the low numbers. Two weeks ago any food I put out would be gone in 30 minutes. Now there's usually food left for an hour or longer...which might be contributing to the earlier drop in numbers. When I can do a curve this weekend we'll really be able to see what's going on. At this point I'm just trying not to kill him in the meantime.

 

Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong, because I didn't ask like you just did But for HC gravy I use the juice from a can or pouch of HC food poured on his usual LC can stuff, then I give the food part to the other cats once Tugger is past the low and I know I won't need to give him any of it.

I thought Tugger was riding pretty quickly down the dosing ladder but it sure looks like Max is in it to win it :mrgreen: I'm going to keep an eye on things here, lots to learn!


Also, just so you don't feel all alone... I am having the SAME DARN PROBLEM with Boomer and food. Silly thing thinks he gets canned food all the time too now. I can't afford to feed his can food as his entire diet either... not if *I* want to eat. And I do. :mrgreen:

 

I can't say what we actually used for gravy because I thankfully never had a point where I was trying to pull Smokey out of a hypo situation. Our lowest numbers were a couple 48s, I think. But I also kept the pouched food with gravy on hand and had a couple cans of gravied FF. I do think there are a few members who make a homemade gravy, but I figured the pouches would be the best for us because those have always been a treat for my kitties so I knew she'd eat it if we needed her to eat.

All of my kitties are not as hungry lately. I just attributed it to the change in weather.