I’ve started listening to support groups and not my vet and started feeding my starving girl mor than 2x a day. What is going on with her numbers??? I don’t even know what I’m aiming for STILL
Hello, Erin. Welcome back to the FDMB. I do remembered talking with you last year about Zoey. Please forgive me though if I start asking you some of the same questions that I asked before. I seem to recall talking about how it’s better for diabetic cats to have multiple small meals throughout the day and that it helps to stabilize their blood glucose and can also help prevent too steep of a drop in BG therefore can help prevent bouncing. So I am happy that you are feeding her more and more often. What is her feeding schedule like now? We usually recommend feeding multiple small snacks consisting of a teaspoon or two of low carb wet food during the early portion of the cycle. This means feeding most of the food before nadir (the lowest point in the cycle.) Feeding much after nadir can shorten the duration of the insulin. I would like to look more at her spreadsheet and ask you a few more questions
I see some periods of gaps on your spreadsheet. During those times, were you not testing her at preshot times? There are many evening cycles where there are no early or mid-cycle tests after the shot. Would it be possible for you to get a +2 or +3 test before you go to bed? Many cats do tend to drop lower at night so it’s important to get a more complete picture of how low a dose may be taking your cat.
I can talk to you more tomorrow about goals and target BG ranges. You have a lot of really great blues and greens on Zoey’s spreadsheet! Tell me though, how old is your vial of ProZinc? And are you using U-40 syringes?
Hello again She eats at 10:30am/pm. I used to sneak her some boiled chicken around 3:30 (I guess that was bad because it looks like her nadir is around +4 or +5). Last week I was on another group and learned for the first time that they should “eat small meals throughout the day”. I never heard only before nadir. She was always awake and asking for food all the time and was looking so skinny so I decided to go against the vet and feed more. I also started switching up her food (still FF pate but added chicken and meat instead of just seafood and tried some Friskies too) she’s already gained a pound and her put is much more shiny. She seems more comfortable and is sleeping better during the day. I just don’t understand why her numbers have gone up so much. She hasn’t had a pink in forever and hardly any yellows. I feel like I’m going in the wrong direction
No. The gaps are just me not entering them. She was pretty consistent (mid 100’s preshot down to 70 or 80 nadir and back around 160 for pm preshot. I got a +2 tonight and I’m confused on why it went up. Can you feed again after the pm shot or is that bad?
Yeah that’s why I’m confused that there are less blues and greens now. I’m almost done with this vile of ProZinc and yes, U-40 syringes
I’m wondering if your ProZinc vial has lost its potency. We recently had a situation where a members cat wasn’t getting a very good response to the insulin (ProZinc) and she started a new vial and it made a big difference. @LovingOpie is the member.
Here is Opie’s spreadsheet. Look what happened on 5/22 p.m. cycle and following— when she started a new vial of ProZinc! And her vial wasn’t even that old.
The reason I asked about the syringes is that I see a dose of 2.3 on your spreadsheet. What is that? We use increments of .25 units. How can you get a .3 increment on a U-40 syringe?
It’s really hard to figure out what’s going on with so many gaps in the spreadsheet. I’m glad to hear that you have been testing though. It’s perfectly fine to feed a meal at shot time and then to give more food throughout the early portion of the cycle— even in the evening! For feeding there doesn’t need to be a difference between morning and evening cycles. For both they will do much better if they are fed multiple small meals of LC wet food prior to nadir. As I said, we don’t usually recommend feeding after the time of the typical nadir because it can shorten the duration of the insulin. A lot of people buy automatic feeders to dispense these snacks during the night when they’re asleep- to make sure they got those little mini meals.
It was just an estimate. I saw higher numbers so I wanted to give a bit more (just above the 2 mark). My vet said to go down to 1.5 because she didn’t like how Zoey was going down to 70 at nadir (I don’t think she understands the human meter even tho I told her the parameters)
Okay, I understand now. We would probably call that a 2F (with the F meaning "fat"). When you shoot just a hair above the line we call that a fat dose and when you shoot a hair below the line, we call that a skinny dose (for example, 2S - for skinny -- would go in the units column.) Anyway, now I get the 2.3.
