quick question. Switched Cherokee to Lantus on Sunday after months of bouncing on Prozinc. My AMPS was 105. DVM said don't shoot under 100. On Prozinc, if we got a low AMPS, I would feed. Test again. BG would always come back up, then I would shoot. BUT, with Lantus being a depot insulin...what should my plan be? Can I do the same? Thanks! Allison
Hi Allison, I can't answer your question, sorry, but you may get more eyes/attention on your condo if you edit your title and put a question mark in front.
Yes, same plan-- stall (don't feed), test again in 30mins to see if she's coming up. 105 on an AT is really low for Cherokee. Not sure you'll be shooting this morning unless she's really coming up! But we'll see.
It varies, depending on the experience/data-collection of the caregiver, and the dosing strategy you are using. We have two strategies that we use on this forum, Start Low Go Slow (SLGS) and Tight Regulation (TR), described in the stickies at the top of the forum, but they assume that you are using a "human" blood glucose meter, not a pet meter like the AT (most of us use the human meters due to the cost/inconvenience of getting the pet meter strips). That said, to answer your question I think a good starting no-shoot (or, rather, stall) number for Cherokee would probably be around 200 to start. You'll often be able to shoot those kinds of numbers anyway, but you want to make sure you aren't shooting a falling number. Looking at Cherokee's spreadsheet, she certainly can do some extreme diving! It might be helpful to get some numbers earlier in the cycle, around +2 or +3, to see if you can catch her at the beginning of one of those dives. Sometimes, you can slow them down with a little snack at those times (takes some experimenting). Slowing her down and keeping her from going too low can then help keep her from bouncing way back up (eventually-- it can take a while to get a kitty to stop bouncing!).
With the AT2 meter you can shoot any BG of 68 or more when dosing according to Tight regulation protocol and 90 using the SLGS method however, getting to the point of shooting that low n either case is done in steps. Have you decided which dosing method you are going to use? If so, can you please add it to your signature when you have a moment so we know when offering advice in the future? You shot a 173 on Nov 1 but I also notice Cherokee has had some very low readings (under 68) and you didn't take the earned reductions for either dosing method. I am glad to see the dose now reduced to 0.5u as 1u was dropping BG too low but it's possible that dose may still be more than Cherokee needs. As Nan pointed out, anytime you get a low pre-shot number, stalling (no food) and retesting is the best idea to see if BG is rising on its own. If you can monitor through the cycle, I think you could set your no shoot level at 170 for now until you see how the 0.5u dose is working for Cherokee and gradually lower that no shoot number from there. ETA TR info does not apply to the period when ProZinc was being used.
