3/4 Webster - Dosing advice

Hi everyone. It's been a while so I thought that I would stop by and check in.

Webster has been at 1U of Lantus for 1 month now and I'm trying to decide where to take it from here.

Over the past month, he has dropped into the 50's a couple of times, however, I'm 100% certain that was due to him not eating his meals those days because of our guest had screaming children terrorizing him for a couple days.

From what I have been seeing, the pattern has been bounce, come down real slow until he gets into the blues and greens and then another bounce. Repeat. A week ago I switched his food from the 5% to the 8% in an attempt to level off these bounces with no luck.

After seeing all of the pinks recently, I'm inclined to believe that he needs a dose increase. Now that I'm thinking about it, perhaps he needs a decrease instead? Maybe his dose is still too high, the liver is responding, causing these high numbers and bounces?

What are your thoughts? Where should I go from here?

Thanks!

 

He has gone under 50 three times on 1.0U. What are you using for your reduction criteria now?

 

Under 50 3 times I suppose.

Most of the times that he has gone under 50 was due to him not eating because of children in his presence. Does this count as a time under 50?

 

Hi mike! i would lean towards not counting it if it was because he wasn't eating. But it does look like the last time he went under 50 there's no note about kids on that day.

I'm not really sure what to say about his dose. I would suggest that as a newly diagnosed kitty, I'd think you'd want to take the reductions when he goes below 50. But . . . it does look like he's had a lot more black and red in his ss since you decreased his dose from 1.25u to 1.0u. I also see he got in the 20's on the 1.25u. And then you've got some under 50's since that reduction.

One option if you think he won't hold a reduction, you can reduce less than 0.25u. You don't want to combine the 2 methods though - the 3 times under 50 and the option to shave. We typically encourage people to do one or the other - it becomes dangerous to combine those two and a cat can become overdosed doing that.

I'm not sure that's much help, but those are a few observations. Hopefully some others will weigh in with some thoughts for you as well.

 

Thank you Julie for taking a close look at Webster's SS.

I too was leaning towards not counting the drop when the kids were around and he wasn't eating. You are however correct, that 45 on 2/21 was probably not due to kid stress.

He started tonight at 115 and he might drop down below 50. If this happens, I think that this will sway my decision towards dropping him since stress/no food is not a factor this time and he's going below the threshold at least 2 times with no stress/food relation. I believe that I'll end up going with a full .25U reduction if this happens and see what happens.

 

I can't remember if he had a dental done - has he?

 

No dental yet. I was on the fence about getting it done and then he was doing well between 1-28 and 2-7 so I questioned myself.