Alice 7/22 AMPS 255, FS maybe?, +4.5 253

yesterday

Yesterday she just started climbing higher.... this morning she is much higher than I would like or expect. I wonder if I jumped a little early on the reduction?

Part of her was damp after shot, but I couldn’t tell with shooting so little if I actually missed. It wasn’t a spot where I shot, maybe when I was adjusting the contents on the syringe (shooting out bubbles and excess) some insulin got on her?

She’s so high right now I decided I could give her ears a break a little and skip a +2 and do a +3-5 ish.....

Hope all are well. <3

 

sniff the damp spot -- for me, Lantus has a faint odor -- when I adjust the contents, I have a tissue right under the syringe, so insulin doesn't get on anything else, and I can discard the tissue safely .. as a human with tendency towards hypoglycemia, I sure don't need MORE insulin

 

I hope some insulin got in and Alice comes down for you soon.

 

Oy, I think Lantus has a strong odor! We give him a good rub at the injection site and smell both him and our hands. It's frustrating that there's no way to know until much later. Hope all goes well for Alice today.

 

Dang I have those MAYBE

 

Well I could smell insulin.... but again, I squirted out maybe up to a unit adjusting dose and removing bubbles, the spot I smelled the insulin was not where I shot.... I think. 1.5u is so tiny I hardly feel like I am giving her anything! I am so used to doses twice as much or greater. It was just an evil maybe and @Perry & Jenn is right, not really a way to know until later. But she will survive the day either way!

 

Hopefully it wasn't a furshot! It could be that Alice is just waiting for this dose to take hold

When I adjust the dose for Mowgli, I usually push the excess into a small piece of paper towel, that way the drip doesnt go to the syringe and trick me into thinking I gave a fur shot

 

thank you, that makes more sense to me, paper towel is more likely to be sterile than the tissue -- I try to be vigilant about the needle sterility

 

+4.5 is 253, so on the very bright side she is maintaining, which could mean: pancreatic action helping her maintain, depot helping her maintain, or she got her insulin and it’s not effective enough, and except for the last bit, those things are all good anyway.

 

or it could be the Flat Yellow Cycle that often precedes an Active Cycle you'll know by tonight

From your yesterday's post:
I think I have a general question today, as I have been wondering for quite some time:

FD puts cats at increased risk for kidney disease, is that correct?
If so, are there things I can do besides of course regulating her diabetes, that would descrease her chances of having kidney involvement later?

Being thinking the same myself. Ducia hasn't had the BW done for a while so I have no idea what is up with her kidney's but it is always a risk with diabetic, especially so with the aging ones. Her urine mostly Diluted (various degree) and it could be a sign that kidney do not concentrate urine. The longer she holds the darker the urine becomes thou.

What I do to slow down kidney damage is I try to reduce the P content overall by mixing home cooked pure poultry meat with canned food already low in P - like Weruva. EZC added. Add plenty of orally taken water (mixed into food) - used to be up to 100ml a day post DKA, currently - 50-80 ml. The commercial base food is already 78% - 82% moisture per their label.

I would not give SQF liberally for many reasons, it does help a lot but must be vet supervised - heart issues, blood pressure, etc. A certain stage of CKD must be reached before a cat Rxed SQF on a regular basis.

Some people give vitamin B - not sure which one exactly.

Since there is no consensus on the protein levels for CKD cats I decided in favor of high protein v. higher in fat & moderate in protein. It is my personal choice - I may well be mistaken.

I have tried Foul Ball canned by Weruva which had close protein to fat ratio and low in P, only 6% carbs. It's turkey; Ducia took well to it in the beginning and then quit. We got back to high protein meals.

Weruva is deadly expensive.
So is Tiki Cat - their Puka Puka -/ and Koolina Luaus are the lowest P in the entire Dr. Pierson's chart from 2017.
You may end up paying $3-$4/ day. What I cook at home is very close to Tiki Cat meals without preservatives and $$$ price tag. (I understand how appalling handling raw meat sounds for a vegetarian, sorry, but I trust no commercial manufacturer)

I feed Friskie weekly and hate myself for it - too high in P. FF is even worse.
Organ meats and bones in general - the meat "byproduct" - are high in P but that is what used in cheap foods v. muscle meat.

Ducia did not have BW done for a while so I am not sure how effective my measures are but all were easy to try.
At least I feel better about doing something preventive and don't kick myself too hard about being broke/ not able to $$ the BW.

 

Yes, sometimes those flat yellows are a 'yellow' light of caution - watch out for a dive on the next cycle! Many times Luci has pulled that one on me...

I hope she'll come down..

 

Thank you both for the heads up on possible action next cycle! I expected action sooner, like by last night really, following her recent patterns. She is super purry and sociable today though so she clearly feels quite well.

@Tanya and Ducia thank you, that was thorough! One of the issues I need to look at at some point is trying to figure out what bothers her tummy. I would like to try some novel proteins (no rabbit).... out here in Oklahoma I figure I ought to be able to find some game hunters and someone who could grind and process stuff for me..... but I don’t know if I would have enough money all at once nor do I have a lot of freezer space. Is venison an option for cats? If I went to home prepared foods then I would be trying to put all 4 cats on it.

Since friskies is “complete” can I feed friskies and then supplement that with actual cuts of meat? In just eating the protein and fat from cuts of meat, what nutrients does a cat not get enough of without additional supplements?? Did that make sense?

 

awesome .
I would not mind have a little for myself, lol. It's very $$$$ here.
Is there an ostrich farm near OC? I spotted ostrich Eggs farm not far from us and going to inquire for Ducia soon - for protein rotation.

Gamy foods are very good but could potentially be parasite infested and thus present a danger in its raw (the best) form.

any kind of food lacking on essential minerals = imbalanced.
If you add an imbalanced food to industrially balanced Friskies you still get an imbalanced food in the end.
Per Dr. Pierson foods without proper supplements shall not exceed total 10-15% food eaten and that includes all kind of snacking, etc, everything.

it is the best for all cats.
and it is preventive of so many common diseases!

Another thing is water. Do you use tap water?
It is over chlorinated in most States (varying degrees) and if combined with Fluoride (spelling?..) which is already there it can cause Iodine depletion in humans. Lack of or decreased Iodine leads to thyroid problems, and thrytoid gland is already vulnerable in aging diabetics. Most likely it applies to cats too.

Have you tried human grade pro biotics?
Ducia gets Renew Life every dose 12 strains/ 15B.
At least it counter plays the AB which are aplenty in all our foods.

 

cats do not produce several vitally essential things - some amino acids for instance, and they rely on obtaining them via eating. Taurine(spelling?..) is another things vital because without it cats go blind.

It is very tricky balancing act... Take another look at what Dr. Pierson wrote - the Making Foods section has great explanation in lay people language about all necessary additives.

 

I read it months ago all through, I think. I love her materials but they can be long, hard reads on my sad ADHD brain.

Saying that alone just took me 20 minutes or so. Haha.

 

@Tanya and Ducia , that just reminded me of something my friend said when I was explaining her loss of bile tone in her stool over some of the months of Alice’s diabetes.... my friend mentioned C. diff....... I don’t know if that would be a factor with Alice but it did make me think it might be helpful after the several rounds of Veraflox in the past year.......
But in the low income version, what are my choices for her? That or something I can stick on carecredit, but I try to save what balance I have for everyone else’s needs too so. :\ I think Jakey cat could use probiotic things too, and once I purchased these little powdered packets from my vet.... it was probably a rip off, of course. I’m too tired to re-check links and go back to this stuff today, hopefully I can have the focus and time to revisit it all tomorrow before it disappears into the back of my head!




In other news, PMPS was 222, I believe, and +3.5 was 264, another flat yellow cycle it looks like. I caught a beautiful video of her playing and chasing her tail on the bed just like a baby again. She’s healthier than before FD, in some ways, and that makes me so, so, so happy. It justifies everything I put her and myself and finances and so on through (I caught some judgment from others for not euthanizing) because she is so happy. Anyway. Enough emotional ramble. I’ll upload the video tomorrow.