Numbers a bit stuck

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megmonger

megmonger

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Here's the link to our thread up to this point: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/heres-our-curve.179337/

We continue to make progress with Abby since joining this group. Most noticeable to me from her curve progression (image at bottom in our spreadsheet from my signature) is how much flatter her curve is now. It took a while for her to stop bouncing so much, even at the significantly decreased dosage. Based on the dates, I feel like the switch in food might have been another significant factor in finally getting her to level out. In any case, she's much more stable now and I do believe we are seeing this come through in her behavior as well. We're still having a lot of litter box issues, but her demeanor seems maybe less bipolar.

A question I have at the moment is whether anyone else thinks it seems like we're not getting much of a downward shift in our numbers the last week or so, even as I have been slowly increasing her dosage (see the yellow and green lines)? I increased her again tonight, up to 3.5, so will see what that does. But it just seems kind of... stuck? Is that normal?

Unfortunately starting this Saturday we will be away for an entire week on vacation (well, fortunate for us but less helpful for tracking Abby's numbers). We have a sitter who will give her insulin but won't be able to do the BG checks. So I was hoping to get her in a better place by the time we leave this weekend. But I guess at a minimum we are already technically in a better place than we were.

In any case, thanks so much everyone for the continuing feedback and encouragement. It really has been exceptionally helpful. <3
 
Hi Meg, it's not necessarily "normal" but it does happen. Unfortunately, you may lose a little momentum while you are on vacation since sitter can't check BG and you'll probably want them to give a safe, reduced dose. I don't think we live close to each other, you might've been closer to Squalliesmom, otherwise I could try to help. Will sitter at least do a ketone test or two the week you are gone? Are they going to also be house sitting? Would be nice to know if they were going to be around a bit with blindly dosing Abby.

Hopefully, you won't lose any momentum with Abby and she'll be nice and safe :). I am a bit of a worrier :oops:
 
Yong said:
Hi Meg, it's not necessarily "normal" but it does happen. Unfortunately, you may lose a little momentum while you are on vacation since sitter can't check BG and you'll probably want them to give a safe, reduced dose. I don't think we live close to each other, you might've been closer to Squalliesmom, otherwise I could try to help. Will sitter at least do a ketone test or two the week you are gone? Are they going to also be house sitting? Would be nice to know if they were going to be around a bit with blindly dosing Abby.

Hopefully, you won't lose any momentum with Abby and she'll be nice and safe :). I am a bit of a worrier :oops:
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Good morning, :)

Yes, she'll be housesitting as well and is great with the pets. Other than her not doing the BG testing, we'll be covered. I definitely appreciate the concern, and the offer to help is extremely kind. I'm thinking of it this way though - we were technically unmonitored (not doing home checks) for our first five months of this with the vet, even under much, much higher doses. Abby definitely suffered the effects during that timeframe, but she made it through. I have no desire to repeat that, but it makes me more comfortable that she'll be OK for a week under the watchful eye of someone who will call me if her behavior changes at all and I'm only 2 hours away. I'm planning to hold her steady at her current insulin level through that week. Her numbers are too high but she's not bouncing and they are better than they were. Then as soon as I get home we'll be back at it working to get that curve down.

What worries me more at the moment is if there is something that is preventing her curve going down, even as I do the slow incremental increases. Is this what it looks like if a vial of insulin might be bad? I haven't talked to my vet in a month but am thinking of calling today and seeing if they'll sell me a new bottle just in case.
 
I think you're going about this the right way and I''m glad you've found that the "FDMB way" is helping. It's still very early days in Abby's FD journey along the FDMB path so I'd keep doing what you've been doing. The more mid cycle tests you can get, especially leading up to your vacation, the better. It would be good to have a clear picture of where she is before you leave. :)
 
megmonger said:
What worries me more at the moment is if there is something that is preventing her curve going down, even as I do the slow incremental increases. Is this what it looks like if a vial of insulin might be bad? I haven't talked to my vet in a month but am thinking of calling today and seeing if they'll sell me a new bottle just in case.
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Oh 2 hours away, roughly OC territory? :smuggrin:
It's possible she has a little glucose toxicity from the higher doses in your earlier stages but we don't want you to break through that before you go on vacation. Try to get extra tests the next couple days to see what she's doing and we might be able to recommend a safer dose for your pet sitter to give. If the vial was going bad, I believe you tend to see no movement in BG. We're still seeing some ;)
 
Yong said:
Oh 2 hours away, roughly OC territory? :smuggrin:
It's possible she has a little glucose toxicity from the higher doses in your earlier stages but we don't want you to break through that before you go on vacation. Try to get extra tests the next couple days to see what she's doing and we might be able to recommend a safer dose for your pet sitter to give. If the vial was going bad, I believe you tend to see no movement in BG. We're still seeing some ;)
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Lol good guess but we'll be a bit further north, near Cape May/Wildwood. :)
OK, I'll stay the course. Hubby will be home tomorrow and myself the next day so I should be able to keep up the string of mid-cycle tests. One nice thing lately is that after going through a period of turning into a real handful for her BG checks, Abby seems to have settled back in to letting me do it without so much fuss. She even purrs. :cat: So we've had much more success getting readings each time we try.
 
Hello,
I'm really pleased to see you're making such a great progress with Abby and her numbers are going down.
As for the flat curve and numbers not going down enough throughout the day we are in a similar situation with Josie after eliminating all bounces. Lots of pink AMPS then stays flat in the yellows for most of the day. Been suggested here to increase the dosage slightly to see how she'll respond which I will do as soon as she stops having these 'off food' days.. and back to normal. I'd be interested to see how our girls will respond, will look in to check your SS from time to time..
We also had hard time with BG tests as Josie wasn't cooperating at all but now she lets us get on with it more less and yes strangely she purrs for us as well..?:cat:
Anyways well done for achieving so much and getting things more under control, this group been a fantastic support for me too. Enjoy your hols:)
 
Monica Lewis said:
Hello,
I'm really pleased to see you're making such a great progress with Abby and her numbers are going down.
As for the flat curve and numbers not going down enough throughout the day we are in a similar situation with Josie after eliminating all bounces. Lots of pink AMPS then stays flat in the yellows for most of the day. Been suggested here to increase the dosage slightly to see how she'll respond which I will do as soon as she stops having these 'off food' days.. and back to normal. I'd be interested to see how our girls will respond, will look in to check your SS from time to time..
We also had hard time with BG tests as Josie wasn't cooperating at all but now she lets us get on with it more less and yes strangely she purrs for us as well..?:cat:
Anyways well done for achieving so much and getting things more under control, this group been a fantastic support for me too. Enjoy your hols:)
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Thank you and good luck in your venture with Josie as well, I'll be interested to see her progress. :)
 
Well Miss Abby decided that late last night, less than 48 hours before we leave for vacation, would be a great time for her to break into our pantry and chew her way through the dry dog food package and help herself to a high carb snack. :arghh: We're seeing the effects of it this morning, red reading and her behavior is terrible. I'm so frustrated. Hubby is home with her today and will be checking her BG. I'm stressing that she'll have set off a bounce after we had just gotten comfortable with her readings at least being leveled. Argh!!!
 
megmonger said:
Well Miss Abby decided that late last night, less than 48 hours before we leave for vacation, would be a great time for her to break into our pantry and chew her way through the dry dog food package and help herself to a high carb snack. :arghh: We're seeing the effects of it this morning, red reading and her behavior is terrible. I'm so frustrated. Hubby is home with her today and will be checking her BG. I'm stressing that she'll have set off a bounce after we had just gotten comfortable with her readings at least being leveled. Argh!!!
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She's trying to get you to stay home :p. It's possible the effects will just last for this cycle and once she metabolizes the contraband she may fall back in line for tonight :smuggrin:
 
Yong said:
She's trying to get you to stay home :p. It's possible the effects will just last for this cycle and once she metabolizes the contraband she may fall back in line for tonight :smuggrin:
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lol at "the contraband", thank you that gave me a good laugh

I had really hoped that would end up being the case. But Abby's numbers are still looking cruddy today, and she's doing her darndest to keep me home from vacation (as is a really nasty case of poison ivy I've picked up, UGH)

Since I'm home with her today I'm running a curve. I also met with our pet sitter now and super thankfully she is willing to check Abby's BG while we are gone. I showed her how to do it, but will admit I'm a bit nervous as she has never done it on her own before. Hopefully Abby will cooperate for that and we'll be able to track her during the week.

Not sure what is safest to do with her dose while I am gone now. I had been confident in holding it steady, but it sure looks like she has set herself off in a bounce now. Maybe I should lower by .25? Thankfully my new syringes with the half markings arrived, so I feel better about our sitter dosing accurately instead of having to eyeball,

This furball... o_O
 
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Just seeing this now so hope you see this before you leave for your much deserved vacation.

If the pet sitter cannot test before each shot, reducing the dose is the best plan. If I were you, I'd probably back up to 3u rather than having the sitter try to eyeball 0.25u increments. It's better to have Abby running a little high for a week. I'd also make sure the sitter understands the importance of making sure Abby has eaten well and waits the 20 minutes between Abby finishing her meal and giving the insulin.

Enjoy your trip!
 
In addition to reducing the dose and sitter is staying at the house, see if she'd be OK checking for ketones. And while it's not an accurate measure of BG if you have the combined ketone and glucose test strips, sitter could use those. If Abby's BG stays over 225 - 250, it will show on the glucose strip. So if for some reason it doesn't show glucose on the test strip, she may not necessarily be hypo territory but under the spill over range and sitter could give Abby a little snack. Once again, just while you're away these were a couple things I thought about, last minute ;). Enjoy your trip! I've never heard of it or been to that place :p I'm going to look it up :bookworm:
 
all of this breaking in to eat (I see she did it again looking for Pita chips) makes me wonder if you are feeding enough of the wet cat food. how many cans does she eat? how often is she being fed?
 
Yong said:
Hi Meg and Abby!
Are you, Meg, back from vacation yet? Hope you had fun!
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Woah somehow didn't get an alert for your post, apologies! Yes we are back and I have newly posted on separate threads (unfortunately our continued quest to regulate Abby's BG is not going well at the moment). See http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/starting-to-lose-hope.181082/#post-2007513 & http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/not-adjusting-to-vetsulin-what-to-try-next.181205/
In any case, yes we did have fun. And best of all that pet sitter was able to check her BG for us while we were gone. :)
 
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JanetNJ said:
all of this breaking in to eat (I see she did it again looking for Pita chips) makes me wonder if you are feeding enough of the wet cat food. how many cans does she eat? how often is she being fed?
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Hello, we feed her one full 5.5 oz can of fancy feast each for breakfast and dinner.
 
I think Fancy Feast only comes in 3.5 oz cans (unless it's different in the US) and depending on Abby's ideal weight, she may need more food. Two cans of FF would be around 180 calories give or take which would be a bit low for an average cat. Formula to calculate calorie needs is 13.6 X ideal weight in lbs. + 70.
 
MrWorfMen's Mom said:
I think Fancy Feast only comes in 3.5 oz cans (unless it's different in the US) and depending on Abby's ideal weight, she may need more food. Two cans of FF would be around 180 calories give or take which would be a bit low for an average cat. Formula to calculate calorie needs is 13.6 X ideal weight in lbs. + 70.
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Bah, clearly it is past my bed time! :confused: I'm losing my cognitive abilities! By Fancy Feast what I meant was *Friskies*, I just double-checked the pantry and it's Friskies 5.5 oz cans. I buy in bulk of the Seafood medley.
 
LOL! I was just looking at the clock and thinking about bed too! No worries. I'm not sure of the calories in the Friskies but I would think that 2 of the larger cans would likely be sufficient. That said, until our kitties get regulated, they are not able to get the nutrition from the food they eat efficiently, so adding another little bit of food to stop the pilfering is OK as long as you watch Abby's weight and don't let her get "fluffy". :cat:
 
Just an update that we had Abby's vet appointment today and it looks like we'll be switching to Lantus. I'm starting a new thread on that board momentarily!
 
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