Leo says "Happy Caturday!" - Bean says cusswords

Ok where to start.

Hell of a week around here. First I would like to make an admission of my recent and rather unparalleled stupidity. Especially on my part, since most people that know me are aware that I like to pretend I am never ever wrong. So.... ::deep breath::

Flank shots may in fact work better than scruff shots.

See what had happened was.. we were kinda trolling along finding our dose after a recent hiccup where I had to reduce a couple units. What happens is we get a low preshot like 150 and then I start reducing immediately. I know the Lev shed is monstrous with Leo so I know what's coming. A skipped dose, a couple BCS doses and then I restart him about 5u lower than I was and work my way up to where he needs to be. So we were at 29.5u I think last weekend. Then Caryl innocently mentions flank shots, I scoff and say shoot scruff/shoulder. I tried the flank. Tried it on Spot, who bit me, Oscar who glared at me and produced higher numbers, and then Leo who laughed and also produced higher numbers. So I decide to test the theory again. I get a 267, shoot 29.5u split into two doses into two locations in his flank region. Leo glares at me, I go about my business and wind up with a PS of 93. :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: *much cussing*

What to do! Can't shoot that! Sooo long story short, over the past 4 days, Leo has had multiple double digit preshots, 3 in the low 100s, missed 3 doses, had 5 doses reduced by 5u or more or just completely BCS'd and just got caught dropping at PS again.. He's somewhere around 15u right now. I have no idea where we're gonna end up, because the Lev shed can take many days to drain for him. Every single dose has been administered to the flanks.

Since Leo is an acro, I don't know if this is a coincidence and the GH output was still fluctuating after our recent decrease, or if his shoulder area is too populated by granulomas or whatever they are, or if he just absorbs insulin better in the flank area. Regardless, I may have been wrong. There, I said it. :mrgreen:

Now, onto fabulous Leo pics. Leo got a haircut on Tuesday which may also have had something to do with these numbers. He's been plagued by hairballs and it was time. I didn't do the most beautiful job because Leo wasn't really interested in hanging around for the trimming and edging, but he is LOVING his tummy rubs and the skin on skin contact. Check him out

Here we don't think we need a shot or test and we prove it by showing how happy we feel:


Here we are getting our belly rub:


Playing on Mama's feet:


And sleeping next to me while I'm typing this (I sit on the floor a lot now cuz he likes it):


Happy Caturday everyone!

 

So glad you mentioned that Leo has acromegaly. I saw that 29u and thought, huuuuuuhhhhhh? :lol:

You get to rub that cute tummy??????? Nice. :mrgreen:

 

Wow, Carolyn, that was a treatise!! We hope you get that boy straightened out! Happy Caturday indeed!
Ella & Stu
P.S Great photos!

 

LOL!! Very couragous to admit defeat Carolyn.. :lol: I love the belly shot... So cute...But I would fire my hair stylist... lmao... JK... :shock:

 

Love the nekkid Leo pics :lol:

Go Leo!

 

Leo is a special cat. Does he have to be touching you every moment of every day? :smile:

Interesting about the flank shot. I never successfully pulled one off, so the only opinion I have to share is that the best shooting spot is one that allows you to put the insulin inside the kitty (so I stuck with the scruff because I got to keep all my fingers that way).

 

OK those pictures remind me of a neighbor who used to have the cat completely shaved for the summer, except for the head. It was the weirdest thing I ever saw, and that cat did NOT look too happy about it either :lol:
I am glad Leo likes his new do, and hope it cuts down on the hairballs.

So are you going to continue with the flank shots? I wonder how it would affect a non-acro cat's numbers? It would be interesting to see the graphs of the the numbers, comparing scruff and flank shots, just to see the drops and lasting power of each. This stuff fascinates me, to be sure.

 

Thank you and Happy Caturday to you too!!!

Glad I could help :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Question is....Why don't cats seem to like flank shots and how did you get Leo to sit still for them? That's where my vet told me to give them also. He said that the insulin is absorbed better there than in the scruff because there isn't much of a blood supply in the scruff. He did it easily. Alex sat for me when I did it in front of him..yeah sure! And I do give him his fluids in the flank area because I hate when I give them in the scruff..he ends up with a bag of fluid haning under his arm until it's absorbed and I freak out so we fight until he lets me do it. Now I wanna give his shots there again..if I can I mean. :roll:

I love these pictures!!! Leo has a modified "Lion Cut" ..These pics make me want to blow on his belly like with a baby

Hiya Leo!!!!

I hope he enjoys his chicken tonight. I'll tell ya'..these kitties got it made ♥♥♥

 

@caryl, he doesn't like them very much but Leo lets me do anything to him because he knows I saved his life and he's a very laid back boy. He does flinch though. I do not do fluids there, I do them over the shoulders. I'm actually a very squeamish person

@gayle good luck with the charts and graphs :mrgreen: Yeah I'm gonna keep up with them until I see a reason to discontinue them. Since Leo is at 50% the dose he was at this time last week, I'll take that as I should not change anything, including my shot location

@jen lemme see you shave Milo and then we'll compare stylin's :lol:

Edited to add: Yes, Libby he does have to be near me every minute of the day, it's the cutest thing EVER

 

You are a very brave women.....I tried a flank shot with Miss Zoe, once....and I am lucky to still have an arm....her "tortie tude" showed. I didn't know she could twist and turn into a position that fast and never let go of my arm the whole time.

Love the cut....just want to smoosh that belly!

Sherry & Zoe

 

What a sweet and adorable boy he is! You should have a cuteness warning in your subject line. I can just imagine how soft that pink tummy is.

 

Interesting all this talk about to flank or not to flank. When the vet taught me how to give shots, she told to give in the flank area. And that's what we did. Honestly, I don't think Maui really noticed or cared. And well, we know the result of all those shots.

Leo! My man! What happened to you! You're naked! Carolyn - you have a naked kittty! All you female cats, hide your eyes! Leo is naked and likes it! :lol: :lol:

Love the pics - next time tell him to put some fur back on - this is a pg board not an X-rated one! ;-)

 

Oooooh. And you did that all by yourself? No nicks or cuts? Wish you were closer, I'd pay you to do Meowzi (but you'll have to sign a liability waiver first!). Nice job!

Hey we started flank shots yesterday morning, for different reasons - (PJ and Cagney's theory). We did make some other changes around this same time too, but your findings are interesting. Check out our ss :smile:

 

Oh, Leo is one gorgeous boy with his new 'do! Give him some extra belly rubs from me!

 

love hearing a leo update... and his nekkid belly pics, too!

i posted this link from a 2004 discussion in someone's condo not too long ago:

Shot Placement & Overlap

it's rather interesting...

 

Yes! Thanks Jill, that's what I read awhile back but did not know where it was.

I tried the flank once, only once, but Shadoe's reaction convinced me that we would be sticking with the scruff or we would not be sticking any needles anywhere!

I figured nice n slow, so no bounce, right?

 

gayle -- i also tried a flank shot once. only once. i value my hand too much to ever try it again!

 

lol, i tried shooting in scruff once without holding my cat in a scruff hold and spent the next hour cleaning my blood off bathroom walls. :mrgreen: if he was under anesthesia i would love to do flank shots and run some experiments.
dunno, hard to say with acro if flank shots make any diff cause they can indeed rev down so hard and fast. (ask the carolynn that spells her name wrong). have to try switching shot placement from scruff to flank when he is on a rev up and see if it does anything to draw any conclusions before you can say you were wrong. (see how i totally got you out of that? you can keep your record in your mind of never being wrong. :mrgreen: i iz your very bestest BFF ever! and i am a brat of mega proportions too, i know!)
wonder if leo is planning on going into a "not needing any insulin from you" (won't even say it) at all era? is possible, he would not be the first. i hope so, would be nice , you deserve a break on insulin costs, kwim?

hey what # blade are you using? lol, it almost looks like a 40! if that is a 10, what about going into grooming? it is not a bad job, hard on back lifting all the dogs in and out of tub, and hard on ears with all the barking and the dryers, but you do get to hang out with animals all day long (which so beats hanging out with humans) and the $ ain't bad once you get a following.

he is just too cute. what a cool cat.

 

This is just specific to us - sorry to hijack, Carolyn - but I don't think ours is a speed- of-onset issue, but that her scruff just wasn't in working condition anymore, probably from all the scar tissue from SQuid harpoons. All this time, from beginning of dx to our second round of insulin, we have always shot in the scruff and she had always been a flat-BG-curve kitty. With early onset and nadir, but those didn't matter because she stayed flat anyway (ever try to find nadir in a flat kitty? is fun! :razz. Things changed only after her surgeries and chemo treatments. So our experience this weekend probably shouldn't be considered in the scruff vs flank decision.

I guess what I'm trying to say, in not very direct way, is that maybe ECID w.r.t. scruff vs flank, onset, duration? Know thy kitty?

 

Great to have a Leo update, Carolyn
Terrific pics of Leo although very different form that yummy furry tummy of last week.
Such a good boy for allowing you to do that to him.
He does not seem to mind one bit.

 

I'm just guessing at why he's doing what he's doing.. and thanks for the bailout Jojo It could be anything, and with acro, the first thing you learn is, don't bother wasting any braincells guessing: just go with it cuz you're probably wrong :lol:

I don't know what number blade it is. All I know is it's an Oster and I can't use the guards because the clippers can't cut his hair with a guard on it, so he gets clipped to naked. It's the size Oster we trimmed cows ears with when I was growing up, we had bigger ones for the rest of the clipping. And yeah I thought about grooming cuz animals and I get along well, but I tend to hate their owners :mrgreen: Also, Leo let's me do anything I want and I get plenty of fair warning when he's done with whatever I'm doing, hence the hideous trimwork. I was warned he was done. It took me about 45 mins to do this, but I did used to clip cows for show so I'm slightly experienced with clippers large and small LOL

 

Nice to see a Leo update. He IS one cool cat.

We shoot behind/under the arm pit. Our vet had recommended that, theorizing the motion of the cat will help it get absorbed. He's more tolerant of that than the flank.