First time in the green!!

Hey everyone! My guy Spot was diagnosed in November, 3 weeks ago we started on .5u of Prozinc, and worked our way up slowly to now 2u. This is only day 2 at the new dose and he had a fur shot yesterday, so I'm not sure how much he actually got. AMPS today was 247. He was eating when I gave him his shot and then stopped shortly after. His bowl was still mostly full when I got home around +7.
Today for the first time he had a reading in the green.. so YAY! but my concern is that it was at +7, so immediately on the heels of the yay, was an oh no what did I miss?? Up until now his nadir has been around the 3-5 hour mark from what I can tell, so I definitely feel like I missed it today. Is it possible that I missed a hypo, or am I just driving myself crazy thinking about it. Should we just sit back and celebrate the low today? I had no idea the first real green number would be so terrifying haha :O

Erin

 

Oh we could have told you that first green would terrify you! I think I had a legit panic attack the first time I saw green...and it was a preshot number so I knew insulin was out of the system and all would be well. But I got dizzy and terrified and had to sit down and beg someone on here to help lol. You're not alone in that!

It's possible you missed nadir...no way to know really. The nadir can change too (I know, it's annoying!) so it's possible it's moved later. Either way, if he DID hit a lower number, he seems fine from it. As long as he acts fine, I really wouldn't worry. There's just no way to know what happened and it didn't seem to hurt him, so I'd just celebrate that green and aim to get tests in the +5-+7 range soon to get an idea of if his nadir has moved back some.

 

Thank you. It helps to know I’m not alone in this! I’ll definitely be checking in that time frame tonight.

 

Hi Erin! While it's possible that Spot went a little too low today, as Rachel said, if he seems fine, I wouldn't worry about it too much. It's just as likely that he landed on a nice safe green and then just surfed for a long time today. Or that he went down slower than usual today and you caught the nadir.

And yes, the first green makes most of us a little nervous. But then when we get a few more, it flips and we start to get greedy for them.

Looks like he likes that 2u dose for now!

 

Congratulations! Dark green is exciting... never gets old.

 

He does seem to like 2u for now which is great! He had another green last night at +5 Now if I could just learn to give him shots without missing that would be awesome. Another fur shot this morning

 

Yeah, that's great! (about the green, not about the fur shot!). When you do a fur shot, put FS in the dosing column so when we look at it we can see that there wasn't any insulin that cycle. It just helps since when we are looking quickly it's easy to miss the notes way over there.

One trick that I've found really helpful, is to part his fur, and pull up gently on a bunch of fur (it doesn't hurt him at all). That makes the little gap that you need to inject subcutaneous, and since you can see the skin that way, it's easier to be certain that I'm injecting into him, and not just into his fur. Sam is a short-hair, but he has ridiculously thick under-fur and I swear it feels just like I'm through his skin. Shooting so I can see the skin has helped reduce the fur shots (at least a little).

Also, pointing the needle down a little more. I used to be so scared about hitting muscle that I would put the needle in at too much of an angle. Pointing into down into him more (but still in the sub-q gap) has helped too. If you get u100 syringes (and use the conversion chart) when you're ready for new syringes, it helps too because the needles are shorter than the u40's, so you can inject with less fear of going too far.

And my most recent trick is giving him crumbled up freeze-dried chicken while I'm shooting. He will not let me shoot while he's eating, but he'll let me shoot while he has treats (cats are so weird), and that helps get him to hold still better to give me a second to get it right before he darts off across the house.

 

He’s so skinny that there isn’t much to shoot into. Usually when I miss its because I pushed right through... he amazingly has no problem with any of the poking and sticking so timing is not so much an issue. I will try aiming more downward next time, and see how that goes. Sounds like maybe shorter needles would be the way to go at least until he can put on some more weight. Thanks for the advice!

 

You might want to consider switching syringes sooner. You have to use a conversion chart, and it can be a little tricky to figure out at first, but once you have it, it's super easy and let's you buy syringes at WalMart for $13, be more precise in the amount of the dose, and have a smaller, shorter needle.

Here is the chart: http://www.felinediabetes.com/insulin-conversions.htm if you want to take a look.