1/24 Spicey update

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tajana340

tajana340

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Hi everyone, Spicey seems to be doing good, Her #s were high all day. I changed her doasge to .6 unit pizi. I don't know if the dosage has to settle and that is why the #s are higher. I am just concerned because it looked like she was doing pretty good there. She is acting ok.

David
 
Sorry for those high numbers. If you don't see a good drop today and your pmps is still high, you might want to up the dose again. I know it hasn't been 6 cycles, but sometimes you just know when it isn't high enough. Hopefully others will jump in with their input, too. I'm glad Spicey is feeling good and I hope you get better numbers soon.
 
I see a couple things that could be going on:

1) Sometimes when they get good #s (like the blues you saw a couple days ago), their body responds in protest, and they throw high #s for a while. This happened a lot with Bix, and it took a while in fairly steady blue #s before he settled down, and then after that I was able to reduce his dose. I think that is what they call "liver training".

2) Sometimes with PZI, they will respond well on the first cycle at a new dose, and then the good response disappears. I found this really confusing, but basically the bottom line is that it means the dose isn't enough. It's like their body integrates it and you don't see the effect that you first saw, when it was a shock to them at first.

I can't say for sure that either of those factors are the definitive explanation, just trying to help you understand what might be going on.

It looks like you are getting a better drop today. If it were me, I'd probably try to get in a +6 or +7 test, and then if the PMPS is a lot lower than this mornings, I'd probably stay with this dose another cycle or two and see if the improvement continues. If the +6 or so isn't much lower than the +4 and the PMPS is back up fairly high, I'd probably go ahead and raise by 0.2u.

One way to look at PZI is to calculate the % drop from PS to nadir. Something in the 50% - 65% range is ideal IMHO. Steeper than that you are risking rebound, shallower than that and the #s probably won't come down enough. Today's looks to me like a good drop, so if you are lucky the PS tonight might be a lot better than what you have seen the past day or so.
 
Just saw your post on Health that the #s might have something to do with syringes/dosing. I think your doses probably did "take", so I agree with Terri it would make sense to go to 0.4u and see how Spicey does, and then if needed you can increase back to 0.6 from there.

Do you check her fur after you shoot to see if it's wet? If it is, the shot may have missed (don't shoot again though, just in case), if not, I'd assume you got it in just fine. The syringes take a little getting used to.
 
Hi David,

Just in case you didn't see my post in your Health thread... I too think going to .4 would give you some valuable information without doing Spicey any harm.

How are you doing with all of this now? Is it becoming more routine?
 
You've been shooting .5 units as an eyeball. There's no way to know whether you've been shooting a true .5 units, .6 units, or .4 units through eyeballing. One thing you need to understand about feline diabetes is that one day of bad numbers is just that--one day of bad numbers. The next day could be perfect using the same exact dose and same syringes.
 
Terri's got a point about the eyeballing... I've seen that 185 you got this morning and I think it's worth considering that Spicey needs less insulin. If you can use the U40 and give .25 or at least less than the .5 you've been giving, or use the U100 and give .4u, you might see some better numbers.

I do think that there's a chance that the .6u did get in her and made her BG rise. The only way to know is to lower the dose for a cycle or two (I say two because you can see that the .5u right after the .6u didn't yield as good results as the second .5u).
 
david, not to be dense here but looking at your chart it seems you always did well in the beginning with 1u, when you switched to .5u you got bigger #'s. i could'nt quite see why you changed doses....wondering?
 
Lori, it's not dense at all. Spicey had a couple hypo incidents that David didn't want to repeat. Starting at a lower dose and working up was recommended, as always. He got flatter curves with some time in the blues on .5u. A few of us thought that a slightly lower dose might yield better numbers but he's not tried that yet. I'd be surprised if the 1u was better because there's a chance that the .6u was what made Spicey's numbers even higher and into the reds.

Of course, no one knows for sure. But I thought I'd let you know why he went from 1 unit to .5u.
 
oh i see vic,,,actually when i look closer that 1u was'nt all good and now i see that event on the 14th(?) are #'s like these why you don't bother posting on my measly little baby #'s that seem pretty good? i know they're not BAD #'s but we are used to 65-85 as a general rule. my #'s are the really dangerous ones cuase you just can't be sure to shoot or not to shoot.
nervous times here. trying to play it safe without losing control of #'s.
 
lori and tom said:
oh i see vic,,,actually when i look closer that 1u was'nt all good and now i see that event on the 14th(?) are #'s like these why you don't bother posting on my measly little baby #'s that seem pretty good? i know they're not BAD #'s but we are used to 65-85 as a general rule. my #'s are the really dangerous ones cuase you just can't be sure to shoot or not to shoot.
nervous times here. trying to play it safe without losing control of #'s.
Click to expand...


(((Lori))), it's not that I don't bother. I think TomTom's numbers are good numbers, sure... and I understand your stress about when to shoot and when not to shoot. I had the same stresses with Sundance. It's that I have nothing to suggest... You're doing really well. Shooting low numbers are hard. Maybe you want to try giving .2u when he's still in the low blue instead of skipping a dose. But again, that's up to you, your schedule and your comfort zone. The thing I notice is that you don't have any numbers using .5u... you might get what you want from that dose... Sticking with the 1/3 is safe... but if you want to know what will happen on a different dose, you have to try that dose and be around to spot check and feed if he goes low.

I've not used PZI so don't normally hang out here... but I have been keeping track of a few of the PZI users and like the forum in general... so I'm sorry if my lack of posting in your thread offended you. I meant nothing by it. I post in David's thread because I followed Spicey's story from Health and my posts are general support and general FD suggestion, nothing truly specific to PZI (though I do have an understanding of how it works).


David, I posted to Lori in your thread instead of via PM because my post contained comments on her spreadsheet which I can't do via PM. Hope that's ok.
 
Lori, 65-85 is pretty aggressive while on insulin. I'm not sure anyone here would feel comfortable giving you advice on how to maintain your cat at those levels [especially while tom tom has potential dental issues]. You are doing well and it will take time to bring your kitty's numbers back down. And it may not be possible to get much lower while your kitty has potential dental issues. What you are doing now is a stop-gap until your can manage to get the dental done as you have mentioned you wanted to do. I agree with you playing it safe and you are doing a good job of it.

Also you mentioned the colors the other day. The are just colors for easy reading sake. Rather than use the colors as a guide I like to use something like the chart on this web page then set my own goals:
http://petdiabetes.wikia.com/wiki/Blood_glucose_level
 
Victoria, No I don't mind about the posting. :-D

Lori, I think Victoria pretty well said it for me about the dosage change.

David
 
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