5/31 Pumpkin AMPS 198 +2 230 +4 191 (pet meter) +6 108 +7 89 PMPS 102 +1 142

5/28

I'm back. Pumpkin was pretty up and down while I was gone, spending most of her time in the yellows and a bit of pink too. There may have been a fur shot on the 29th, which didn't help things. I'm going to wait for that to clear (should be done with by tonight), so we'll see how her AM and PM cycles go and then do our next adjustment.

 

A whole bunch of updates.

Pumpkin went to the internist today (more about that later on her acro thread). She was very drugged up on gabapentin for the visit (100 mg last night, 200 mg before the appointment). They tested her blood sugar and got 191 on a pet-calibrated instrument. They did a blood draw and ultrasound, no sedation or anything.

When she got home, she was very wobbly on her feet. Not wanting to get up, trying to swivel around on her butt, and very unsteady when she did get up. I hadn't seen signs of that before we left for the internist or after we returned.

We tested her right away and got 108. And then hourly she was down to 89, them 93, then 95. The wobbliness steadily improved and has now worn off. We gave her small amounts of high carb food while she was wobbly.

I was pretty freaked out by the wobbling, which I believe can be a sign of hypo? But, her BG was well above 50. She didn't have any other symptoms like shivering or ravenous hunger (beyond her normal very high appetite). She was on a lot of gapapentin, but I haven't seen her wobble like this before the one other time we dosed her this high. A whole bunch of stuff happened at the same time, so it's hard to say exactly what caused it.

I'm thinking of easing her dose back to 20U for now, or even doing a half dose. Unless she jumps back up between now and 7:30, she's going to be pretty low before her next shot. And with some doubt about whether that wobbling incident was caused by all the drama around the vet visit, I'm a bit freaked out about approaching that level again right away.

 

I'm glad Pumpkin stayed safe for your wife while you were away. I hope you had a good time.

Could you add FS (fur shot) or PFS (partial FS) after the units in the cycle where it was done. That helps us at a glance see what happened. As is, I can't see what cycle it happened in. Due to the depot style nature of Lantus, it's good to know when she didn't get the full dose.

It's your call what you want to do with the dose tonight. You can see that when you've shot in the mid blues before, she was pretty flat all cycle. Today's lower numbers could have been from vet stress. Neko used to go lower at the vet. She didn't look that great on 20 units before hand and was pretty much in the 200+ range the internist wanted. You have to ask yourself where you want her nadirs to be.

I never did see wobbling with Neko, crazy hunger (more so) were what I'd see in lower numbers. Or her camped out in front of the fridge or the testing spots. Remember that it's been a long time since Pumpkin has seen normal numbers. Her body is not used to it at all. First greens Neko hid under the bed.

 

102 PMPS. I'm just not ready to do a full dose this low, so I'm going to go with a half dose today and see where we're at tomorrow.

 

I updated the spreadsheet.

 

PM+1 142. So I probably could have gone closer to the full dose and been okay, but I'm good with taking it easy for now until I get used to how Pumpkin reacts to lower numbers.

I guess I'm kind of back on the SLGS train for now.

 

Thanks on the SS edit. It is fantastic to finally see green on Pumpkins spreadsheet. That's a real milestone and really good for her body. It also helps you in that it was safe high greens too. I'll guess you'll know next time you see green whether the wobblies were related to it.

Note, that 89 earns a dose reduction under SLGS, by going under 90. If you want to stick with SLGS, you can edit your signature to show that. Also note that experienced SLGS used can and do shoot as low as 90, once they have the data to do so. You've shot 142 now (full dose), and now 102, though a half dose. I'm glad you got those +1 and +2 tonight, that'll give you some good data as to what would have happened before insulin onset if you had shot full dose.

I always found looking at acro spreadsheets to be interesting. A couple of spreadsheets of acros that were quite well regulated, for some reason both named after gems. Amethyst: I picked a year she was around the same dose as Pumpkin now. Amethyst was diagnosed acro in 2017, and went on cabergoline. She lived 5 years after that, most of it really good. Crystal: Note her dose. Her caregiver was also giving R insulin. When green preshots, she didn't usually give R. Crystal was in France and it was before cabergoline and no other treatment was available at the time there. She was diagnosed in 2014. Both cats were on Levemir at the time, but the principles of shoot low to stay low are the same. I remember one kitty that got around Pumpkin's dose on Lantus, but the only copy of the spreadsheet I found was before we combined the years on the same spreadsheet, so it doesn't show the data worth looking at.

 

Thanks. I guess SLGS doesn't feel quite right either? If Pumpkin's BG takes off again, I don't want to necessarily wait a week between doses if I'm getting the testing in to move more quickly. I'll review the spreadsheets when I have a bit more time, but from what I've read so far I think I need to be prepared for somewhat frequent dose changes.

I think what I'm looking to do is ease my way into the thresholds that will work for me and Pumpkin, getting used to how she reacts to different scenarios. So, hopefully people won't mind my spreadsheet being a little weird while Pumpkin and I figure out what's going to work for us longer term.

She was back to very alertly monitoring the feeder last night as her BG climbed and it was kind of like "oh, this is the Pumpkin I'm used to again!" Except that's just 4 months of trying to regulate her talking. She didn't used to stare at the feeder all day, so I have to relearn what a more normal cat behaves like.