I know that at a little over a week in I have a lot to learn about Gatos numbers and reactions. I wanted to get as much data as possible this weekend but it's honestly more confusing than it is not. There have been food, environmental, medication and dosage variables this past week. I know the numbers won't be consistent for a while, but I guess I was just hopeful to get numbers that made sense. I suppose it does make sense, at least he's had a gradual decrease in good ranges today. I suppose I was just expecting nadir to be closer to +5-7.
We're in the same boat... we tested A LOT yesterday... and I promised him there would be less testing today but we're about to test again as soon as he wakes up if he seems to look for food...or at his +7 (which seems to be his nadir) in half an hour. Then I'm going to want to test again at +8 to make sure he's going up. Hang in there.
Thank goodness you lowered the dose! 2u would have sent him into a hypo today! My hunch is he's going to show you a low PMPS tonight. If he's under 200, you'll want to lower the dose again since he's so newly diagnosed. 200 or over, I think you could give this dose again, but maybe shave off the "fat" part of the dose. If he's under 150, you'll need to stall (without feeding) for about 30 minutes and then test again. If he's between 150 and 200, I think I'd probably do 1u, and if he's between 120-150, but you know he's rising, I think I might just do a 0.5u dose. Under 120 (after you've tried stalling), I think I'd skip. He may be higher in the morning, but he's so new at this, and you don't want to stay up all night testing. You can stall for up to an hour and still keep your usual shot time in the morning. If you stall more than an hour, you'll need to move the morning shot time later as well. Oh, and as for the cycle -- getting a really late nadir like this often means that the dose is too high, but let's see what the PMPS is to say for sure. He might just have a late nadir.
Thanks for the feedback @Djamila. I just got an 11.5 and he's still pretty dang low (67). Barely up from +9. I'm going to stall a bit but it looks like we might have to skip. I'm thinking the dose definitely needs adjusted when he's okay to shoot again. My syringes do not have half markers. My 'fat 1.5' was with the plunger resting above the 2 mark, rather than below. It looks to the laymans eye slightly more than where a halfway mark would be. I absolutely love our vet but I'm honestly frustrated by him starting us at 2u. I didn't realize how high this was as a starting dose until we got home and I stumbled across this forum. I did try to put a call out to him Friday, to share our home test results and discuss dosage. Unfortunately he is on vacation until our next apt (4/8) for a check in and fructosamine. There is another vet in office but she has never seen our boy and honestly it seems like folks here are more abreast with current dosing than most vets are. I'm so thankful this board and linked websites for caretaker education exists. I would be so lost! I think that's been one of the hardest things in this journey so far. You come to expect that vets would be able to properly advise on this kind of management. On the bright side our vet is very open with communication, is super on board with home testing and helping us to interpret the numbers and clinical symptoms. I'm hopeful that we can work together, but feeling a little misled to start.
I'm starting to think my guys nadir might be +8 too or even +9... more likely +8... When he had his near hypo 53 he was at +7 so I fed him, now he's in a bounce/rebound so his +7 numbers aren't so scary but since that 53 came at +7 and since that's about the time they start to get hungry again anyway, I've been feeding them right after his +7 test...but the +8/+9 numbers aren't much higher...so tomorrow I think I'm going to try to hold off feeding til after the +8 if I can... if the +7 isn't too low and he's acting only the same amount of interested in food as his brother...or maybe the very small increase even after food is enough to know that +7 isn't his nadir. It's all so confusing and math is like a foreign language to me under the best circumstances.
Yep we're still up. Gato is decompressing after dinner. Planning on getting a +2 and +4 tonight just to see where he's headed BG wise. Will try to wrap my head around dosing in the morning so that we can hopefully avoid winding up where we are today cycle wise. For now I'm giving him a testing break as I prodded him an awful lot today. He's a pretty happy boy today. Playful, snuggly. He's like a kitten again!
While we all want to see good numbers and stress ourselves out when we can't see a pattern to what our kitties are doing or we aren't seeing the BG dropping as much as we'd like, we often forget that those clinical signs you've mentioned here speak volumes. Gato would not be acting like a kitten if he didn't feel better which means you are heading in the right direction. Getting a cat regulated is a marathon, not a sprint and it's still early days so try to take each reading as just a moment in time. It's the big picture over a wider span of time that speaks volumes and really matters.
Good call on the NS this morning! And since you didn't shoot, you can give him the rest of the cycle off from testing if you want. No insulin means that he'll stay in safe numbers all day, so you can both get a break. What a handsome boy!!! I love that picture. And we have the same kitty condo!
My partner is home today so he did a stalled test after I had to run out to work. 80 after a 30-40 min stall. So he's going to get a few years periodically to ensure he's not continuing to drop.
Make sure your partner realizes Gato is not going to go hypo with no insulin on board so no need to take any "extraordinary" action even if numbers drop down to the 50s. If Gato is hungry and asking for food, low carb regular food is fine but you don't need any "big guns" like high carb or syrup.
