advice for sammie

I just updated Sammie's spreadsheet and need some advice. I had dropped his dose down as suggested by you, but his numbers are still high most of the time. Once in a while, he'll drop down, but then he spikes right back up. He hates getting his blood checked so much I don't do it as often as I probably should, but I do my best. It seems the more I check, the harder it is to get his ear to bleed and the more stressed he gets, which could potentially affect his numbers. I'm beginning to think I may just never be able to get him straight. I'm tempted to drop him down to a beginning dose and start over to see if I missed his ideal dose. He still eats mostly pate type canned food. I did get him some Young Again dry food but he has decided he doesn't like it anymore. Like a typical cat, he loved it when I got him a sample , but when I bought him a bag, he wouldn't eat it much. I can't just leave it out because it doesn't agree with my irritable bowel disease cat. I'll keep trying, though. He hasn't been eating great for about a week, so that may be part of the problem with the new dry food. He doesn't have ketones in his urine - I checked when he first started acting weird. Any suggestions?

 

Just in case he’s dropping low at night like many do and bouncing can you at least grab a test at night at least a few times between +4-7? Max was notorious for dropping low at night and many others do too.

Lots of people have reported tummy upset with Young Again. I gave a friend some Dr. elsey’s because one of mine has food sensitivities to lots of proteins and chicken is one. Their salmon has chicken as the second ingredient. Her cat was ok with it but her sitter must have given too much and he had diarrhea for a day.

 

technical note: Does he get a proper reward at each test, successful or not? (Treat, cuddles, scritches... whatever floats his boat)

 

It sure sounds like you're frustrated!

Like Elise ("tiffmaxee"), I hate to suggest you're not testing enough. At least one test every cycle, in addition to your pre-shot tests, is the minimum amount of testing you should be getting in order to keep Sammie safe. With high pre-test numbers, without a few more tests, it's hard to know whether there are any lower numbers in there that may be causing numbers to spring back up at shot times. (We refer to this as bouncing. Low numbers -- or lower numbers than what your cat is used to, can cause the liver and pancreas to overreact which then causes a spike into higher numbers.) With missing pre-shot data and very limited testing during the cycle, it's hard to know what may be going on with Sammie's numbers.

I wouldn't encourage dropping the dose back. There's no way to know for sure at this point if you went past a good dose or you haven't gotten there yet. Ordinarily, I'd suggest that you follow TR which is a more aggressive approach to dosing. However, you would need to be testing more in order to offset the more aggressive nature of that particular protocol.

Like Stephanie was suggesting, it can help enormously if Sammie starts to associate treats with testing. Even if you are giving your kitty a treat when you test, one additional helpful "hint" is to have a specific place where you test (at least for now). Bring Sammie to that spot and give him a treat without testing. Getting him to associate the spot with a treat whether or not you test may also help. The bottom line is that you want testing to be associated with something he likes. I used to test Gabby where ever she happened to be lounging. She didn't mind as long as there was a treat involved.

 

Like Stephanie was suggesting, it can help enormously if Sammie starts to associate treats with testing. Even if you are giving your kitty a treat when you test, one additional helpful "hint" is to have a specific place where you test (at least for now). Bring Sammie to that spot and give him a treat without testing. Getting him to associate the spot with a treat whether or not you test may also help. The bottom line is that you want testing to be associated with something he likes. I used to test Gabby where ever she happened to be lounging. She didn't mind as long as there was a treat involved.

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I had so much trouble getting enough blood from TiTI that I started massaging/stroking her ear for quite a long time, and that led to smoothing back both ears from nose to neck with my right palm, and that led to TiTi purring. Then I did the test and got enough blood, but what was best about all this is it led to TiTi absolutely adoring being tested. I also fed her right after the test, and that further enhanced her desire to be tested. My method was created accidentally, but now that it exists, I follow it to the letter.