? How do you deal with testing and Free Feeding

I have a question.. How do you get mid-cycle numbers when you free feed? Frodo will nibble all day on the canned food I leave out for them. And even if I pull it up 2 hours prior to testing, his numbers still seem high or flat lined. So I was wondering how others deal with this issue. I need to update my spreadsheet, so hard to see what I got over the weekend. But thought I would throw this out to see if others have this issue or have ideas.

 

Most of us feed mini-meals since small meals are easier on the pancreas than big ones are. Depending on the cat, it can help to divide their entire "morning" portion into thirds or fourths and feed it all before nadir (like at PS, +1,+2,+3) Feeding after nadir can act like putting the brakes on the insulin (since it's already starting to wear off and you're adding carbs again) but some cats can eat all the way up to +10 without problems...it's one of those ECID things

 

The general idea is to keep to a fairly regular feeding plan then grabbing 'spot check' tests at different times of the day in order to build up a picture of:

1. how a particular dose is doing, and whether it is safe.

2. how your kitty's BG may vary on a 'typical' cycle (inasmuch as any cycle can be typical).

Obviously food will affect BG during the cycle. One tries to catch the nadir for the cycle as best one can, but with free feeding that 'nadir' always has the potential to be food-influenced as can any reading for the curve (hence the recommendation to lift food 2 hours before measuring preshot BG).

When running a curve and completely free feeding, recording the amount of food and carb kcal value paints a fuller picture.

If you do want to get some idea of how food might be influencing BG levels, you could try running a food trial:

1. Give kitty a meal then leave him for about 2 hours without food (obviously only if kitty is in safe numbers!).

2. Test BG then feed a measured portion of food. Lift any food that kitty leaves behind.

3. Test at +1, +2, and +3 to see how kitty's insulin (and pancreas) handle the carb load.

4. Over a period of time, you could run a series of food trials at different times of day to give you a better picture of BG fluctuations and how the dose is likely to be working at different times of day and night. (You would need to make sure you use exactly the same food for each food trial.)

My two penn'orth.



Mogs
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@Chris & China - I wish I could, unfortunately I have no way of breaking meals down since I leave the house at no later than 7:30 and I have 5 other cats that eat from the same food, so the time feeder only gives them additional food for later in the day. I am lucky I guess that they don't scarf everything down in the morning, they eat a bit then take off to play or nap, then come back for more. I have come home in the evening and still have food left. And granted that happens especially when there is food down the are not that fond of eating.

@Critter Mom - I will give have to try that the next time I am working from home, or over a weekend to see how he does, I have pulled food 2 hours prior to testing and it didn't seem to make a difference in his numbers. Not sure I have tried it since starting Lantus though, so will see what happens.

Thank you both for your ideas.

 

Maybe try freezing half the food and putting out both the fresh and frozen. All of them will be able to eat the frozen when it thaws.

 

A few days ago Radar and I made little hockey pucks of cat food in a silicone mini muffin pan with Radar taking care of quality control by tasting each one. LOL They froze very nicely in a couple of hours and I've been very pleased with them. Radar was confused at first but last night I could hear him in the night furiously licking and wrestling with the partlly frozen puck. I think he's also pleased with the results of our efforts.

 

Kitteh Haagen-Dazs.