This is why I get stressed

And why I wonder how I can keep a job or even have a social life sometimes with Jester.

I'm low on test strips and the new ones won't arrive until next week so I've been skipping pre-bed testing. But last night Jester seemed to be actually *asking* for a BG when I was getting ready for bed. Plus he'd been unusually hungry all evening.

His +7 was 56 at about 1AM. I fed him carby shreds and by about 1:45AM he was up to 82.

But I have to get up at 6:15 just to give him his dosage and be sure he eats enough afterward and before I go to work. With the kids' usual nighttime shenanigans, I didn't get to sleep until after 2:am.

Now I'm feeling like a zombie.

I reduced his dosage just in case to .75u and am having to beg him to eat because he's not very hungry. Why would he be? He ate half a can of food about five hours ago.

Tonight I was supposed to go with some friends to a movie. But I won't get home from work until about 4:45 and everyone is meeting at 7:00 in an area that's notorious for its lack of parking places.

No time to nap between taking care of Jester and leaving for the night out. And most likely I'll nod off during the movie.

:::sigh:::

 

Your am pm doses are off balance. Lowering to evening dose will even him out a bit. Have fun at the movie! Stop for a coffee before. Lol

 

Actually the slightly higher pm dosages have been working pretty well. This was done to even things out. Kris and Djamilla and I worked it out over a couple of weeks.

Long story that I don't have the brain cells or time to recount right now.

This is the first time there's been a problem.

 

I just remembered I have some 5-Hour energy.

Two bottles today and I'll likely crash tomorrow. But I really want to see this movie.

It's a documentary about Hedy Lamar.

 

Here ya go!

Those sleepless nights are tough. I can't do it anymore. Remember when we were young and hardly ever needed to sleep?....

I'd lower the PM dose as well to 1.0u and see how he does for a couple of cycles. Especially since you're low on test strips.

 

Amazon says the new strips are due tomorrow so I should be okay.

It occurs to me that one reason for the slightly higher pm dosages was that Jester usually eats more in the evening than during the day. However lately that hasn't necessarily been the case.

Mind you his after work BG has generally been high enough to justify the 1.25U he gets at night.

All things considered, and obviously this is anecdotal, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about Jester's numbers.

If he's going down and needs less insulin, that's good - yes?

 

Yes, that is good. But it does require careful monitoring like you did last night.

 

That's what the weekends are for. *g*
btw, in order to keep my low-tech vet apprised of Jester's progress, I have to give him a modified version of the spreadsheet.
The vial of insulin is down to about 1/3 so it's a good idea to keep him in the loop.

I'm attaching the latest pdf that I just put together and sent to him.
Generally his advice consists of "You should cut down on so much testing."
Today, when I emailed him, I included what happened last night / this morning and stated:

To his credit, he does compliment me on keeping Jester's BG in check and he doesn't discourage the home testing completely.
But he also thinks that 200 to 300 is a healthy BG......

 

Why are some vets so against home testing?! My cat's vet started her on a pretty big dose of insulin, told me to take away all carby foods, and said no home testing. I was so afraid of her going hypo before starting the tests. I understand they don't want to further overwhelm owners by insisting on it but to be against it is so baffling to me.

I'm still new to FD and my social life feels completely over. You are a serious champ for being up half the night and still going to the movies! Hope you get some sleep tonight

 

He actually isn't against it. Just thinks I overdo it.

Five hour energy is my friend!

*g*

 

Mmmmm coffee!

 

Don't you "crash" from those? You could use tea too.

 

I feel old. I hardly ever go to the movies. The last movie I saw at the that I did NOT fall asleep in was "Born in China". ever since I've wanted a Panda. Although, I don't believe in wild animal captivity so.... not sure how that would work.

 

Nope - I've been using 5-Hour energy for years. The only crashing comes if you overdo it.
And nope - I drink full-strength British tea that's stronger than coffee. It never keeps me awake.

 

+11 (instead of PMPS) was 193, but I still kept his dosage to 1U just in case.
Fasting +4 was 228.

I don't think there's an in between 1 and 1.25....

 

[QUOTE="
But he also thinks that 200 to 300 is a healthy BG......[/QUOTE]
My vet wants to see Gretchen below 200. Gosh, I don’t even know- what is an ideal number??

 

My vet wants to see Gretchen below 200. Gosh, I don’t even know- what is an ideal number??[/QUOTE]
The more time she spends in the 50-120 range the better. That's when the pancreas can rest and heal.

 

@Kris & Teasel and @Djamila
Jester's +3 (he just ate at 10:15ish) was 144.
Notes on his food are in the "remarks" section, but he was behaving like he was very hungry.

Thoughts?

I'm going out and hope to get home for a fasting +6 at 1:40PM Eastern.

 

I think it looks good. I'll be curious to see where he is at +6.

 

+6 at 1:55 is 124

 

PMPS was 202. Not too bad and still going slowly but surely lower.

However....

I should know better on this and I'm doing my best not to kick myself.

I gave Jester about 1 tablespoon from a sample of YA after his regular food today. He absolutely loved it and pretty much inhaled the whole amount.

I was enthused because that meant on top of his regular carby food, he now had some more calories with zero carbs. His skinniness has been of concern to me and I don't have any way to weigh him at home. He's been feeling a little heavier when I pick him up, but he doesn't look it and it worries me how much I can feel the bones in his spine.

Anyway, when he wanted something to eat after his +6, I remembered I still had a can of low carb high calorie Recovery and figured "what the hell?" He ate a small amount with no problems at all. Yay! Extra calories and nearly no carbs!
Then around 4:30 (just a bit too late for his carby foods until his PMPS) he was hungry again. Most likely because that's about when I usually get home from work and he's used to eating then. But I wanted to be stricter with him today and stick to the 12-hour time frame.
No problem! Gave him some more of the Recovery and he ate a bit more of that, although not a lot.

Come 7:00PM he hadthat good PMPS and I served up *dinner* for the crew.

And Jester licked at the food a bit, then walked away. I offered it to him again and he walked away again - all the way out to the livingroom, where he knows I don't feed them.

That's when it hit me. Too many different foods all in a row mess with Jester's tummy.

Crap. This is the same stupid "stuff" I did back in the fall (albeit over more than a week's time) that led him to stop eating almost entirely for ten days. His newer vet came to the conclusion that Jester had a really bad case of gas from all the different brands and flavors of foods I was experimenting with over a period of a couple of weeks.

Anyway I pulled out a *slightly* higher carb (1 point higher) shreds that also has cheese - which he adores - and he came back.

He ate *just* enough of that to make me comfortable giving him his insulin (maybe a quarter of a can), but not enough that I'm in any way happy.

I spent about an hour promising him never again to mess with his food. Right now he's snoozing next to me. It's been just over an hour since his dosage. Hopefully he'll feel hungry in another hour or so and I can get the rest of his evening meal into him along with a +5 or +6 before bed to make sure he's okay.

And these are other things that get me stressed.

 

Sometimes being patient and methodical is hard. Don't let it stress you too much. It sounds like Jester ate plenty, just not on the usual time schedule. Fingers crossed he was just full, and not that his tummy was too upset. Although be warned that in many cats, YAZ causes diarrhea for a while until their body adjusts to whatever weirdness they've done to make a low carb kibble. If I remember right, they explain on their website what causes the liquipoo - I just can't remember the details right now. I hope you and all your kitties have a relaxing evening!

 

Wow - I missed that completely.

Glad I only gave him about a tablespoon!

 

And just to finish out the day, Jester's +5 before bed was 147.
He'd been indicating he was hungry for about half and hour or so before the time for his test, so I indulged him afterward. He ate a fair bit more, enough to make me feel better about the day. Hopefully this is a good sign.

Just to be safe, no YA at all until possibly Friday. I'll start the process with him again very gently and this time stick with all his favorites otherwise. No more gastric adventures for my poor Jester.

At least I know he seems to like YA.

 

And it's spilling over into this morning.
So far Jester has barely eaten a third of his AM meal. Normally an hour after insulin, if he hasn't eaten the full thing, he'll let me know he's hungry again.
So far no soap. I'm about to go out and see if I can persuade him to eat more.

We *have* to be over this by tomorrow morning.

::::headdesk::::

 

So we're doing somewhat better. Although Jester spent most of the afternoon outside the kitchen hoping I'd come in to feed him.

After his +6 (96, thank you very much!), I gave him a little snack of 1 Tablespoon of YA. When he started begging me at 3:45 for more food, I decided we could go with just a smidge of low-carb pate (and Bastian and Sage demanded to be fed too, of course) as we had a little time before his fasting cutoff.

Jester ate less than half of the smidge so I told him he'd just have to wait until after his PMPS. (Only ten minutes after that, he parked outside the kitchen once again....)

Weirdly enough, his PMPS was exactly the same as his AMPS - 169. (If you want to annoy someone w/ OCD, tell them his +6 was 96 -get it? 169 / 96 / 169.)

Then, after all that waiting outside the kitchen, when I *did* give him his food, he ate about 1/3 of the serving and walked away from it.

And now he's outside the kitchen again. Mind you, I haven't had dinner yet and I need to take a shower. Feeding him the last two days has turned into the full-time job it was before I got a full-time job....

No more YA for the time being. I have no idea if that's what's causing the extreme finicky-ness, but it's the only thing different between Friday and today (besides it being the weekend). Hopefully everything calms down by tomorrow morning.

In any case, how do folks like Jester's steadily and slowly declining numbers?

Trying not to get *too* optimistic about this....

 

It is so good to see his numbers coming down a little! And sending healing vines that he'll get back to eating like a good boy so you can go to work worry-free in the morning!

 

He ate enough this evening that I'm okay right now. Getting a fasting +5 from him, then he can finish as much as he wants of the rest before I head to bed.

That 169 twice in the same day was weird though....

 

@Kris & Teasel @Djamila @Rachel
Jester's +4 tonight was 98.
Should I be concerned?
He's eating his carby shreds right now - finishing what was left from dinner. But there wasn't a lot left.

1:00 AM UPDATE:
+5.5 after carbs was 137

Now I can sleep - a whole 5 hours if I can nod off in 5 minutes. *g*

 

Sorry for replaying so long after your question. I wouldn't be concerned with that. Jester tends to be pretty predictable. He's not much for bouncing (although of course all kitties do occasionally). Since it was at +4 and there was still a ways to go before 50, I would think he'd be fine.

 

Oops. Just noticed that you already did a +6. I hope you're able to sleep soundly the rest of the night!

 

Thanks so much for checking in!
I did a quick update on my post just as you were replying. Jester was actually napping while I took his reading. *g*
Going to bed now.

 

Sorry I was fast asleep! Yeah, as Djamila says, he tends to be pretty predictable...and +4 is nice since it should be close to nadir.

 

And it looks like we're back to normal this morning .
Jester's eating his carby shreds pokily. But there's nothing out of the ordinary about that.

I am starting to wonder if he's going into green numbers during the day while I'm out, considering all the green this weekend.

 

And seeing that lovely green plus Jester's slow numerical descent (haven't seen pink in about ten days nor a yellow over 250 in about a week) is a wonderful feeling.

 

He is looking good these days. It's nice to see a kitty doing well!

 

5-Hour energy would make my heart go thump, splat.
Here's what you really need. Besides, it'll be on Netflix or PBS soon enough.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr
See! You're all set. What a good friend I am.

 

Maybe so. But the director was on hand for a q&a and a reception!

 

This is where things get weird.

Did a +10.5

BG was, once again, 169.....

 

I missed a showing of Vertigo in San Francisco where I found out later Kim Novak was doing a Q&A. Just kicked myself.