some progress 12/24/11

Well we went back on levemir on 12/14/11 and ever since then we are slowly seeing better numbers right now he is staying at or I should say around 6.75 with some varying of skinny vs fat he has seen greens several times as well as blues and is staying out of pinks for the most part overall doing much much better urinating and drinking is way less now we are still using the glucoard 01 or relion confirm which are bascially the same meter and comparing to the alphatrak every other day now. I do not intend to ever go back to the FSL again it just cannot be trusted. Do Lou was cute today he was trying to take some ornaments off the tree so will post them to the blog soon

Meter nightmare begins

OMG how can meters be so far off well it has come to our attention in a big way how inaccurate the freestyle lite meter is with cats... for weeks now I have thought he was doing well until recently as noted in previous post that he was showing signs of needing more insulin even though the FSL meter said he was doing great. Well as anyone who goes to his SS can see he is doing poorly its almost back to square one I think jeez I am so annoyed and I am not the only one on the FDMB board having issues. We are slowly getting back up in dose I am upping him every 4 doses for the most part to get him out of the 300 and 400s I mean 400s of all things scary for his kidneys. Been using R pretty much 2x a day a least as well. Hope to see some changes by the end of this week maybe... using A trak for reference and relion confirm and arkray glucocard 01 meters. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AiSqUFZ4jesAdGx5cmJDVDd5TnM5U0VId1k3SDFnYVE&hl=en_US&pli=1#gid=0

11/11/11

well Do Lou has not been doing too well when I reduced him so much about 3/1/2 weeks ago for our 2 day trip I did a very drastic reduction to avoid him going low and when I returned my FSL meter gave me the impression he was still doing well BUT he was drinking and peeing way too much finally got a keytone test and had a trace he never has before so I tried jumping up to half his dose before our trip but 2 doses of 3.5 sent him to 37 so I was baffled you could tell he needed more insulin so ordered more alphatrak strips and got some for my relion and both of them told the story looks like he has been in high 200s to low 300s sigh.............. so I am now going to use relion/arkray for daily and alphatrak as always for my reference I no longer can trust my free style lite and will donate them I think to neebies on FDMB soon hope to get him feeling better soon we are up to 2.75 as of this morning figure he needs to be up to 4-5 at least still got a ways to go

first time leaving him overnight

Well we went to a cat show in Simpsonville, SC from friday night 9-2 until sunday night 9-4 and taught John my son how to test and I reduced his dose way down to 2U which was too much I know from what he had been on (6.5) but I did not want him to go low while I was out of town. John did super even testing him far more then I asked since the required tests were only amps/pmps time but I am so glad he and Do Lou now have a testing routine and this will give me more chances now to go overnight be it a cat show or just a weekend away. Do Lou is now on 6.75 I am trying to get his shedd up and him back down to lower blue numbers we are getting there he was urinating and drinking more from running mid 200s all weekend happy to see that slow down.

Do Lou doing well

Well he has been on lantus several weeks now and we have also just restarted him on a small dose of pred to help with this itching for this time of year and he has been doing well staying mostly in the mid blue range which suits me fine. He seems to be feeling better overall and has been eating well mostly cowboy cookout. He also of course always has his diabetic dry on hand if he wants it.

Return to Lantus

I decided to return him to lantus today just fill like overall he responds to it better I could be just totally wrong but switched him back anyway we shall see how he does. Its been 7 days now and he is doing well other then he has been drinking more last 2 days not sure whats up with that I will check for keytones soon just to make sure all is ok with the urine. His appetite was down 2 days ago but its better today.

Back to Lev

Well he went back on Lev tonight with 6U we shall see how he does I only gave it about a month last august and it did not seem like he did very well but I want to give it another go and see if he can respond better to it plus with his dose rising higher and higher I know its supposed to be better for the high dose cat we shall see anyway
we have kinda been stuck as of lately not seeing much green he is up to 7U on lantus and we did go low yesterday down to the 40's which is too low and bounced today. Would like to get him steady and low blue I could care less about green really

ups and downs

Well its been almost a month since my last post and really he has been up and down right now we are back up to 6.25 and still not seeing a lot of green its so frustrating I am thinking about the use of R soon its sits in the frig staring at me asking when its going to get its chance to fight FD as well we shall see ??

5/10

well he is bk up to f5.75 almost to 6U again which had dropped him to low not too long ago this seems to be our pattern reduce and go back up but I want to keep him safe so its the game we play. He is doing well  otherwise eating and plays some and acts like he feels pretty good. Would love to see him with a lower insulin dose but just does not seem to be happening with his resistance I am not willing to keep him in the low numbers that it may take to overcome this it makes me to afraid.

4/27/11

well we are down to 4.75 at the moment last time I posted we were up to 6U but he went low on 3 occasions so I have gone down the dose ladder for now. Will it hold doubt it most of his reductions do not hold but he has been at least eating well, and seems to be feeling better been playing some. He has become really hard to bring up once he drops now last 2x its taken me 2 jars of baby food mixed with karo to get him up and they he still just barely rises until the bounce hits. He is still also eating dry d/m has it out without reach almost all the time and its just not hurting his numbers I do not think.

Red Ferne Judah Ben Hur aka my Do Lou getting the camera

Red Ferne Judah Ben Hur aka my Do Lou taking a bath

4/11/11

well we are up to 6U never thought I would see the day he would be on 6U this is the highest amount I have ever used since he was dx'd. I tell myself that whats important is he is happy and seems overall to be doing pretty well considering all his health issues and now knowing he is IAA pos++ well the whole OTJ thing just kinda disappears from ones goal and now the goal is just to get his resistance under control so he is not on 6U

4/6/11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTvMNbclPz4well not a lot to report he is still on S5.75 going down to 5.5 a dose or 2 which is so close to the Skinny dose anyway only about 1 drop different. Last couple of days his appetite has been a bit off so watching that closely he was given 1/4 pred again yesterday for his allergies. But overall I think he is feeling good and doing good he has been playing each day which is always a good sign. I am still letting him have dry dm each day in small amounts and it has not made any changes I do not think with his numbers.

Red Ferne Judah Ben Hur aka my Do Lou

Do Lou meets spinball

3/25/11

played a lot this morning love it when he plays and went up to 5.5 with his pmps doseDo Lou at play

3/24/11

Well he is up to 5.25U now he has seen green some lately I am trying to manage his curve to keep him from dropping with a combination of LC,MC and I am now using a dry DM also about 1t at a time with his food depending on his number and I think its helped him not go too low or could be me just thinking its helping but anyway we shall see how he does over the next month. His allergies are really bothering him I sulfur dipped him again this week this was his second dip for allergies and it helps some I am trying to avoid putting him back on pred if I can but he may end up on pred again if his itching does not improve soon, took some pics today with the new camera cannon xs, love it already and I have a long way to go on learning how to use it but already it takes so much better pics of the kittens with it being just on auto mode I hate my cool pix camera its just garbage for animal pics

Simon's Cat in 'Sticky Tape'

sad news

well had a email from Do Lou's relative, he is diabetic now hate to hear this they are trying to home test and I pointed them to the FD board, they did join but so far have only posted a few times. I know from a email that hometesting is not working out, it appears Louie is not too in favor of it but their vet had a tech that is able to stop by to so some BG checks for them and they are taking him to their vet for curves. I was told that he is doing better and acting like he feels so much better and they are working on his diet this is the latest news I have on him

sigh......

well today I was supposed to ride to TN with Walt to pickup Bluebell who was with a fellow breeder who had been showing her since Oct and we were also taking her the little fawn kitten that is out of Voodoo and Tigress she is going to show him. But Do Lou was green all night not real low by any means but enough to make me paranoid about being gone for over 12 hours when will I ever get comfortable leaving him? sigh... good thing I do not work full time I guess I would be in big trouble. Here is a picture of Red Ferne Sundance of Ashaby hope he does well for our friend in the show ring.

Results are in

His results from the Michigan state tests came in on 2/7/11 his IGF was 44 being normal and his IAA was 64% being positive for insulin resistance anything below 20% is positive so what does this mean to me?? I wonder this myself some I am told I need to be more aggressive with the dosing and try to get him to greens and stay there to overcome the resistance but it scares me since I am more comfortable with him in blues so IDK honestly its not like I really ever truly believe this cat will go OTJ so its a lot to think about......His urine cysto was negative.

Do Lou and some of my other cats

His Labs recent and past to Nov of 2009

Bloodwork Link

Do Lou meets spinball

1/2

Well yesterday was the first time he has ever gone below 40 2x in a cycle so he was reduced to 3.5 last night of course he is bouncy today I doubt he will hold the reduction but felt it was the safest thing to go with after yesterday and all that up and down you could tell last night he was not feeling as well