10/9 Dixie AMPS 110, +3 81, +9 95

[FarmKitty]

Hello It is my first time in the Lantus forum.

I've had Dixie on 0.5u of Lantus for 5 months now and things have been very smooth.

* She had some issues with eating all of her meals and often wanted them before AMPS/PMPS, so I slacked on this and have been letting her eat anytime, including before shots.
* I've been lazy about getting tests so her spreadsheet is sparse.

I know I will get some lecturing for the above points, but please know that I have 14 months of insulin data and she is watched literally 24hrs/day!

I've got her on some 5% carb pate that she loves now and gets great numbers on. She eats it very quickly and there isn't any left at the end of a cycle. Over the last week on this new food, she has had PS values 83 - 119. She has always had a pretty flat curve on the Lantus, but I will need to get some more mid-cycle tests to really see what is going on.

I've got some questions about this part of the TR dosing protocol:

Alternatively, attempt a reduction when the cat regularly has its lowest BGs in the normal range of a non-diabetic healthy cat (50 - 80 mg/dL) while staying under 100 mg/dl overall for at least one week.

If she is mainly in the green but then sees a value like 110 or 119, then does that mean she doesn't earn the reduction? I use the Bravo meter which runs a bit higher than the other ones I have tried, so I wonder if that could be preventing her from seeing the right numbers. If I kept using my One Drop meter ($), then I feel like she would have earned the reduction since it consistently read lower values.

Also, would there be any harm in starting to reduce her dose now? My partner is the only one that gives shots now so it is easy for him to administer the same dose each time. We could slowly start to lower her dose now.

Alternatively, I could keep her on this dose indefinitely. My partner and I WFH, and Dixie takes the insulin like a champ, so it isn't a big deal at all to keep dosing the insulin. I was just wondering if I could do more for Dixie.

I've found it very hard to source food lately due to the pandemic. She was having Weruva Good Stew Shoes which is 8.5% carbs. But now I've got her on the Weruva Chicken Checkmate Pate 5% which she truly loves and gets great numbers on. Only issue is that it is more expensive for me (Canada), but it is all I can find right now. I'm thinking that if I am paying $$ for this food, then I might as well do a genuine attempt to get her OTJ.

Thanks for reading. I will be making daily threads to hold myself accountable to test

 

[tiffmaxee]

She’s looking good. After a week on .40 if mostly green you can attempt a reduction. If she’s blue at amps or pmps try testing 3-4 hours later after eating to see if green again. If under 110 not necessary though.

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

If you've recently changed Dixie's food, it looks like the 8.5% may have been keeping her glucose numbers a bit elevated. It seems like such a tiny change in the percent of carbs but some cats are incredibly carb sensitive.

If it had been me, I would have fattened the dose a while ago. It's hard to know if that would have helped given that Dixie's numbers have generally been good. It's also hard to know if her nadirs were much lower than her pre-shots.

One thing to keep in mind, if you are feeding in the 2-hour window prior to shot time, you may be inflating your pre-shot number. It makes it harder to know if she's really in blue or green numbers at pre-shot. If she's being insistent, would it be possible to try giving her something that's zero carbs (e.g, a piece of chicken or something that's protein only)?