5/22 Asia MDPS 168, +3 59, +5 35, +6 56

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/5-21-asia-amps-213-4-146-mdps-83.195914/

TID seems to be working very well so far for Asia. I'm starting to see much flatter cycles. I think things are more predictable when the time before preshot and preshot are relatively flat, I think it spills over and builds upon itself. Even on Asia's best days, I haven't been able to do this. There have been cycles where duration was better than other times, but she consistently lost steam before the 12 hours were up after a cycle or two, even with Lantus, which had a slightly better duration for her.

Bouncing has decreased as well, the bounces are getting shorter and staying lower. Last night she bounced to high blue and I was stunned and amazed to wake up to a 90 for AMPS!

Her abdomen is nice and relaxed today, she may have been constipated yesterday as she started yelling at me after a trip to the LB in which there was only pee. I coaxed her into eating some coconut oil mixed with some smelly gravy yesterday, I think it did the trick.

She seems pretty happy with herself at the moment, alert, purring and active. She's spending more time sitting up in sphinx pose instead of stretching herself out long on her side, so that tells me she is more comfortable too. It's been a great few days for her and I hope it continues.

 

Wonderful news!!

 

❤️

 

I guess we are lucky with the bupe, it doesn't zone her out or constipate her, the only side effect is extra cuteness giant saucer eyes. She infrequently has constipation (touch wood), like yesterday, and it's usually one and done. She has enough other issues that I don't feel one bit guilty that she gets a pass with poo stuff!

We went to IKEA once and my daughter begged for this little battery powered milk frother, who knows why she wanted it but it was the best $3 investment! I've even used it as a tiny hand mixer for making small amounts of icing or gravy. Just put some milk in a glass and froth it up with this device. Make tea as usual and pour the milk foam on top. They make much fancier and more expensive frothing devices, but I don't see why they are needed over this, it's cheap, takes batteries and works fast.

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30301167/

 

Very happy to hear that Asia is doing well with the current dosing schedule! Nice numbers today!

 

That is awesome and what a price!!!!! I will order one and thanks for the link.

 

Before TID I was shooting at 0800 and 2000.

When I started TID I don't know that I would have picked these times with advanced thinking, I had thought about it before and wanted to shoot 0800, 1600 and 0000. As it worked out, I just got immensely frustrated and impatient and decided to do it on the fly which gave me the schedule of 1000, 1800, 0200. It works out even better, a happy accident. I have a stretch of time in the evening to go out if I want to, it's easier to scheduled early morning appointments and be back by shot time, easier to schedule afternoon appointments too. I take a little nap before PMPS and wake up to shoot, set my alarm to catch what's happening later in that cycle and often times once is enough that I can sleep longer. I shoot at 1000 and catch another nap for a couple hours if possible that day and I'm good to go.

I would say TID is something to try if duration is a known and chronic problem. I tried to rule out every other thing before trying it, I don't know that it would be my advice going forward. If duration is a known issue, it's very much worth a shot because either it works out well or it doesn't and you can go right back to BID if it doesn't.

For @Marie Dagobah&Nikita it's really hard to say if duration is a problem or not. What I see is lack of time spent in blues and greens and all the chaos that brings when your cat isn't used to those numbers combined with a lot of bouncing. Usually we would suggest feeding the curve for that. When Marie shoots low, for Dagobah at least, Dagobah likes to go even lower as Asia did, which makes one not inclined to want to shoot low, which also perpetuates the bounce cycle with skipping shots. I think it gets better with less bouncing. How to sort that out is very tricky indeed!

I know how hard it is to get Lantus prescribed there, so one suggestion would be to try Levemir, but that may be next to impossible for her. She could certainly try TID and see if it helps. The schedule probably works well with a baby in the mix because you are often up in the middle of the night anyway, and babies nap. The few people I found that did TID were doing so mainly because of ketones, so it might be useful for that bit. One thing to be aware of is she couldn't take her BID dose and shoot that 3 times a day, Nikita, for example, would get 1.25 x 3 going off the current dose of 1.75 BID. I initially started Asia out with a tiny bit more than I knew she needed because I wanted to jump start the process, but I know that works for Asia, so I can use that to my advantage to get a lower preshot sooner because I'm able to catch her from bottoming out. A lot of it really comes down to knowing your cat and how they react to things.

 

Hi @Marie Dagobah&Nikita , answering on today's post. I answered @Stephanie & Quintus about you and TID above this reply. If it doesn't translate well or make sense, hopefully Stephanie can make sense of it for you.

 

Thank you!! I Think I understand, I'll talk about it with Stephanie to be sure ;-)

 

Lookin' good here! Keep up the good work, Asia!

 

Asia is a wonder!

 

She’s taken the 9 lives thing quite literally! It has happened often enough that my daughter calls it “pulling an Asia” when something looks dire and does a 180. I’m just thankful she is feeling better, this was a nasty spell owing to the pain I could tell she was in.

 

So, so happy to read this

I wonder if you will be able to go back to 12 hr dosing once you get her numbers to settle. Will be interesting to watch.

I have often thought that, given no ketones or other issues and the ability to monitor, a dose should be held a bit longer (especially early on in dx) to see if the bouncing will settle a bit before increasing/decreasing. Sometimes I think the bouncing becomes an issue rather than a result (if that makes sense).

 

I probably could try, but she's always had a bit of a duration issue, so if this does the trick for her and improves on the cycles she's ever had previously, it's staying put.

I'm torn on that bouncing issue, in theory, it would be nice if we could gently bring them to good numbers and not trigger a bounce pattern, but at the same time, a lot of people hold doses for a very long time and the end result is the cat sits in high numbers for a damaging length of time or gets glucose toxicity as a result. Also, some cats are bouncy no matter how you go about it and it's hard to sort them from the bounces will settle with time in good numbers cats. So far I'm in the "get the cat to a working dose as soon as safely possible and figure out the rest from there" camp.

 

I know this type well.

 

I think there are other factors too in the bouncing. Like I changed Gizmo's food (protein too), I expected his numbers to come down but they went up so I think those changes (and environment, routine) also plays into it also.

 

It's great to hear Asia is doing so well.

 

Asia is so strong, and you are so on top of her illnesses that I stand amazed.

TiTI's been "pulling an Asia" 's lately, thank goodness during my period of seasonal employment. But I leave for training June 25th and won't be back until the 30th. that 4 full days, and 2 half days I'll be gone. My cat sitter is a vet tech, so she can at least give TiTi her insulin shots, and hopefully a few sub-q's, at least one daily. But TiTI needs to gain a little weight before then. Right now it's awful hard to find enough space to give a shot or a sub-q. If I had a reliable car, I'd take her with me. But my 1999 Subaru is not in reliable shape. And I can't rent a car, because it would clean out my money. I do so wish those hideous airport security low lifes were not so, well, what they are. But I can't risk it.

I'm hoping I come up with some genius "eurekas" before athe census buys my plane ticket.....

 

It's really awesome you have a vet tech cat sitter that should be some peace of mind. I'm glad TiTi is being resilient!!! Sending lightbulb and eureka vines your way, I'm sure you'll figure out something that works. Sending Oprah you win a car vines to you as well!

 

ahahah
OPRAH!
CAR!

 

I find it no coincidence that she decided to take a dive from a higher preshot. If that was a mini bounce from AMPS +5 until MDPS, it was very, very short lived. Hope that 35 doesn't set off anything too crazy. I do think steeper drops set off bigger bounces for her than lower numbers. I gave some Karo too, so steep drop, low number and sugar = the trifecta of bounce. Ugh. More flat cat please, I was so enjoying it!

 

So good to hear a great update

 

So your dosing Lantus 3x a day?

 

This is my experience with my rubber cat too.

 

Yes, it’s working pretty well for her.

 

Interesting, I never heard of it for Lantus.

 

Glad she’s doing well

 

She’s on Levemir, but you could do it with either of the L’s, just less of a dose more frequently, it’s not unlike dosing an L twice a day instead of once. It’s more work, more needles, more shots. But it works in some instances where twice a day isn’t cutting it. Some cats have duration issues and I’ve also heard of it for cats that are very ketone prone. It’s not done very often because the majority of cats do very well with twice a day on the L’s. Just like there is a very small number of cats that could get away with and do well on once a day dosing (so rare it’s almost unheard of, that).

 

Maybe a new nickname would help!

 

How bout Flatgreenie or Greenieflat and well,, you next...

 

Nooo. Please no. Reminds me of things lurking up some people's noses.