Introducing Betty White

[daftcat75]

Really rooting

Really rooting for your taper. My vet tells me to keep at 5mg. I wince, thinking at what this is doing to him, but honestly he poops fine, all systems go, and it’s been like this now for a very long time. Anyway, don’t want to hijack your thread, but GO BETTY! You have taper fans keeping their fingers crossed for you, and if anyone can do this right it’s Miss Betty.

How old is Z? How long has he been on 5 mg? Is that daily or every other day?

Except that Betty does seem to have lost a step or two to pred lethargy and a thinner coat, I wouldn’t mind leaving Betty at this level. But she’s still young and she doesn’t seem sick enough to be left at a “not an insignificant dose” (my IM’s way of avoiding saying a high(er) dose.) Betty may need pred the rest of her life. But I’d rather it be the lowest dose she can get by on rather than set it and forget it at this higher level.

I’m looking forward to more zooms with less pred.

 

[daftcat75]

It’s the first time I’ve seen the positive number match the negative number (when I zero it with her on it and then shoo her off.)


Also, I think we’ve found her upper calories target. This week was an average of 203. But I also think a lot of these are carb calories. Her decoy belly may be becoming less of a decoy. But she’s not packing on the lean muscle mass on her hips and shoulders where I’d like her to gain weight. Let’s give the taper at least a week. And if all things are good next weekend, I’d like to try Fancy Feast gravy lovers with her. Even just an occasional meal. It’s more junky than the pates, but it doesn’t have fish ingredients and I think the chunks in gravy is a lot closer to what she enjoys in I/D while the protein is a lot higher. Even just as a guest meal, a little extra protein, a little less carbs would be a good experiment to try. And that it’s lower in calories than I/D is not necessarily a bad thing if those extra I/D calories are coming from extra carbs.

But let’s give the taper at least a full week before we start messing with the next thing.

 

[tarasgirl06]

It’s the first time I’ve seen the positive number match the negative number (when I zero it with her on it and then shoo her off.)
View attachment 431384
View attachment 431383
Also, I think we’ve found her upper calories target. This week was an average of 203. But I also think a lot of these are carb calories. Her decoy belly may be becoming less of a decoy. But she’s not packing on the lean muscle mass on her hips and shoulders where I’d like her to gain weight. Let’s give the taper at least a week. And if all things are good next weekend, I’d like to try Fancy Feast gravy lovers with her. Even just an occasional meal. It’s more junky than the pates, but it doesn’t have fish ingredients and I think the chunks in gravy is a lot closer to what she enjoys in I/D while the protein is a lot higher. Even just as a guest meal, a little extra protein, a little less carbs would be a good experiment to try. And that it’s lower in calories than I/D is not necessarily a bad thing if those extra I/D calories are coming from extra carbs.

But let’s give the taper at least a full week before we start messing with the next thing.

That all looks and sounds good. 9.94! Not chonky, but quite respectable, yes? Almost--dare I say it?--prosPURRous! Is Betty interested in interactive play at this time? Maybe some good hard wand-and-lure play sessions would help that "cush" turn into muscle?

 

[daftcat75]

That all looks and sounds good. 9.94! Not chonky, but quite respectable, yes? Almost--dare I say it?--prosPURRous! Is Betty interested in interactive play at this time? Maybe some good hard wand-and-lure play sessions would help that "cush" turn into muscle?

I feel bad playing her when there isn’t food or a treat following. You know? I give her treats for free when I start my own breakfast. Maybe she should play for them…

The other night I busted out my head lamp to figure out what bug she was playing with. I have a red light setting for the head lamp so it doesn’t mess with her or my night vision. Funny enough, she kept “chasing” my head lamp as if it were a laser pointer. It casts a diffuse light so she wasn’t chasing that. But I suppose from her vantage, I was wearing a crown with red dots on it. She kept sniffing and bunting and trying to catch the head lamp off my head.

 

[daftcat75]

How traumatic!

A photo tile fell off the wall and crushed my cat.

Probably not.

I haven’t been able to find her on the cameras. But she’s been spending far more time in the office. The office cameras have many blind spots that are her favorite sleeping spots.

Honestly, these tiles weigh nothing. But I still don’t like the thought that one can fall off the wall and land on her. So I’ll be looking for alternate ways to mount them (mounting putty, perhaps?) and/or alternate places to mount them.

 

[daftcat75]

How traumatic!
View attachment 431397
A photo tile fell off the wall and crushed my cat.

Probably not.

I haven’t been able to find her on the cameras. But she’s been spending far more time in the office. The office cameras have many blind spots that are her favorite sleeping spots.

Honestly, these tiles weigh nothing. But I still don’t like the thought that one can fall off the wall and land on her. So I’ll be looking for alternate ways to mount them (mounting putty, perhaps?) and/or alternate places to mount them.

Update!

She lives!

 

[tarasgirl06]

Update!

She lives!
View attachment 431398

*ABSOLUTELY PAWSitively YES!*
Yeah, I had the same conundrum with pictures. Here in the shaky part of the world, we have to think about these things. I've got a small grouping of framed Monet greeting cards above the bed. The headboard is thick, and there are pillows piled between it and us, so it's pretty well planned out. I've got some massive hangers on most of the larger pictures. And all of the tall furniture is bolted to the walls. Most of my best objets d'art are museum glued down. (Yeah, I WOULD do all this.) No glass tabletops, either.

Doesn't Betty just enjoy play for its own sake? Most cats I've known LOVE playing with "fishing pole" type interactive toys. I've never used treats as rewards or bribes.

ROFLMOTO about the head lamp. What a great way to give yourself whiplash! But Betty must love it...

 

[Margot Lane]

How old is Z? How long has he been on 5 mg? Is that daily or every other day?

Except that Betty does seem to have lost a step or two to pred lethargy and a thinner coat, I wouldn’t mind leaving Betty at this level. But she’s still young and she doesn’t seem sick enough to be left at a “not an insignificant dose” (my IM’s way of avoiding saying a high(er) dose.) Betty may need pred the rest of her life. But I’d rather it be the lowest dose she can get by on rather than set it and forget it at this higher level.

I’m looking forward to more zooms with less pred.

Z is at 5mg per day and is (we think) 16. We tried a very careful taper twice and both times it led to disaster. But Betty is young and has a fighting good chance at tapering. Sounds like you have a very kind, thoughtful vet if that is the way they are phrasing things…agree w/ set and forget, whatever the level…consistency is the key to a firm poo! Go Betty, Go Betty!

 

[daftcat75]

Z is at 5mg per day and is (we think) 16. We tried a very careful taper twice and both times it led to disaster. But Betty is young and has a fighting good chance at tapering. Sounds like you have a very kind, thoughtful vet if that is the way they are phrasing things…agree w/ set and forget, whatever the level…consistency is the key to a firm poo! Go Betty, Go Betty!

Betty’s poops have been solid since I’ve had her. Except a Greenies overdone it once. Her IBD presentation is hairballs. She doesn’t even vomit food. So it makes food trials almost pointless. And her hairball period can sometimes be longer than two weeks. So that makes tapering a risky business. I’m grateful that we didn’t rush into tapering so that we could figure out a few things while she was getting relief from those hairballs.

 

[daftcat75]

I know we’re only twelve hours into the taper. But her coat feels good and her plate is clean.

I expect it to take a few days to really see the new dose effect. But until then, I’ll celebrate clean plates and fluffy cats.

 

[tarasgirl06]

I know we’re only twelve hours into the taper. But her coat feels good and her plate is clean.
View attachment 431439
I expect it to take a few days to really see the new dose effect. But until then, I’ll celebrate clean plates and fluffy cats.

*Clean plates are a joy. Fluffy cats, exponentially MORE a joy.*

 

[daftcat75]

*Clean plates are a joy. Fluffy cats, exponentially MORE a joy.*

She made nervous just now this morning. She kept making the lip smacking that’s either nausea, hunger, or thirst. I don’t ever see her drinking water. But she does spend a lot of her time in the office with the fountain. And the office camera isn’t very good at picking her up. But anyway… She was smacking away and I thought, uh oh! We’re less than a day into the taper. Is she already nauseated? Do we already have the next hairball locked and loaded? She jumped down from my lap and has gone to sleep on her corner of the bed.

I feel a little bad for her. This stretch from breakfast to lunch is the longest stretch she goes all day without food. She goes from approximately 5:30 am to noon with nothing but a couple of treats to eat when I fix my breakfast. No wonder why she spends so much time in the office with me in the mornings.

On the other paw, since her hairballs almost always came between breakfast and lunch, this is her hunger pangs interval where she gets hungry enough to pass any ingested hair stuck in her stomach on to its next leg down.

Her voice sounds more chatty this morning.

I’m less concerned about her appetite dropping off unless her nausea returns. She is still taking ondansetron.

When she first saw the specialist in June, she was having weekly hairballs. We were mixing A/D and I/D. She was still taking Mirataz and Pepcid. We were still struggling to get her to calories every week and she was often leaving remainders on her plates. She was at 9.4 lbs. And I was still waking at midnight every night to plate her overnight meal.

In the time since, she still takes ondansetron. But she’s off the Pepcid and Mirataz/mirtazapine. She eats I/D without A/D mixed in. Her portion sizes have increased by 1/3! Instead of 30 gram meals, she now gets half a can (40 grams.) She often finishes these meals in one go. But if she doesn’t, I’m not worried. She has enough time between her meals to come back and finish. I don’t leave cans out of the fridge anymore. I don’t dump half cans every night. She takes her overnight portion from a feeder. She eats a bumper snack in the afternoon from a feeder (this could be reduced slightly.) And she’s learned to take her pills like a freakin’ PRO! We don’t ever have lick and flicks anymore. I frequently wanted liquid meds with Krista because she was a bear to pill. But with Betty, give me the pills. As long as they fit into a size 5 or size 4 capsule, she can pill herself all day long.

Her latest poop test has been received. Now we wait three to four weeks for the results.

Speaking of which, her poop test reports have all said, add fiber to her diet. I didn’t think her poops needed it. Covid did a number on mine. I started adding a daily salad to my diet. Not a large amount of added fiber. But it really has made a difference. So now I’m reconsidering fiber for Betty. Let’s get through the first week of the taper. Then I’ll see about adding a small amount (a smidgen or 1/32 tsp) of fiber to her breakfast. This should also help satiate her a little longer in that long stretch between breakfast and lunch.

It helps to take a look back and see how far we’ve come from the days when I would open a few cans, set out a few plates, and hope for the best.

 

[tarasgirl06]

She made nervous just now this morning. She kept making the lip smacking that’s either nausea, hunger, or thirst. I don’t ever see her drinking water. But she does spend a lot of her time in the office with the fountain. And the office camera isn’t very good at picking her up. But anyway… She was smacking away and I thought, uh oh! We’re less than a day into the taper. Is she already nauseated? Do we already have the next hairball locked and loaded? She jumped down from my lap and has gone to sleep on her corner of the bed.

I feel a little bad for her. This stretch from breakfast to lunch is the longest stretch she goes all day without food. She goes from approximately 5:30 am to noon with nothing but a couple of treats to eat when I fix my breakfast. No wonder why she spends so much time in the office with me in the mornings.

On the other paw, since her hairballs almost always came between breakfast and lunch, this is her hunger pangs interval where she gets hungry enough to pass any ingested hair stuck in her stomach on to its next leg down.

Her voice sounds more chatty this morning.

I’m less concerned about her appetite dropping off unless her nausea returns. She is still taking ondansetron.

When she first saw the specialist in June, she was having weekly hairballs. We were mixing A/D and I/D. She was still taking Mirataz and Pepcid. We were still struggling to get her to calories every week and she was often leaving remainders on her plates. She was at 9.4 lbs. And I was still waking at midnight every night to plate her overnight meal.

In the time since, she still takes ondansetron. But she’s off the Pepcid and Mirataz/mirtazapine. She eats I/D without A/D mixed in. Her portion sizes have increased by 1/3! Instead of 30 gram meals, she now gets half a can (40 grams.) She often finishes these meals in one go. But if she doesn’t, I’m not worried. She has enough time between her meals to come back and finish. I don’t leave cans out of the fridge anymore. I don’t dump half cans every night. She takes her overnight portion from a feeder. She eats a bumper snack in the afternoon from a feeder (this could be reduced slightly.) And she’s learned to take her pills like a freakin’ PRO! We don’t ever have lick and flicks anymore. I frequently wanted liquid meds with Krista because she was a bear to pill. But with Betty, give me the pills. As long as they fit into a size 5 or size 4 capsule, she can pill herself all day long.

Her latest poop test has been received. Now we wait three to four weeks for the results.

Speaking of which, her poop test reports have all said, add fiber to her diet. I didn’t think her poops needed it. Covid did a number on mine. I started adding a daily salad to my diet. Not a large amount of added fiber. But it really has made a difference. So now I’m reconsidering fiber for Betty. Let’s get through the first week of the taper. Then I’ll see about adding a small amount (a smidgen or 1/32 tsp) of fiber to her breakfast. This should also help satiate her a little longer in that long stretch between breakfast and lunch.

It helps to take a look back and see how far we’ve come from the days when I would open a few cans, set out a few plates, and hope for the best.

Betty is doing REALLY, REALLY well all the way around! And so are you, both as her dad and for integrating salads into your diet. I was raised on daily salads (at dinner) and the only time I don't have one is when I have Chinese food.

 

[daftcat75]

I may have finally figured out the right afternoon snack size for her. After several first dinner remainders, we came back to a one and done.

She’s also returning to her countertop furry foreman ways. I love it when she joins me up there during meal preps. So much so that I lean over to her and give her my face to bunt and brush as soon as she arrives to reinforce the behavior.

We’re basically on cruise control right now. She doesn’t actually leave remainders. Plates get cleaned eventually. And now feeders are getting cleaned without impacting the med meals. We’re closing in on the new normal daily intake for her. I’ll be watching Sunday’s weigh-ins closely I don’t know that she needs to gain any more weight.

Her biome report came back in record time. The needle is moving to Severe Imbalance. She doesn’t seem severely unbalanced. I’ll post the new report tomorrow when I’ve had a chance to see it on something other than a phone screen. Some things went in the right direction. Others did not. I’ll be chatting with AnimalBiome support after I’ve had a chance to digest the report myself, so to speak.

Im not sure how much is wishful thinking and how much is actually occurring. She seems to have a softer coat and better energy after just a few reduced pred doses.

And now we wait out the two weeks. Her hairball intervals were approaching two to three weeks before pred. So it’s entirely possible that we get to the end of the taper before we have an ejection. But for now, I don’t see nausea. And I don’t see remainders. So far so good.

 

[tarasgirl06]

I may have finally figured out the right afternoon snack size for her. After several first dinner remainders, we came back to a one and done.

She’s also returning to her countertop furry foreman ways. I love it when she joins me up there during meal preps. So much so that I lean over to her and give her my face to bunt and brush as soon as she arrives to reinforce the behavior.

We’re basically on cruise control right now. She doesn’t actually leave remainders. Plates get cleaned eventually. And now feeders are getting cleaned without impacting the med meals. We’re closing in on the new normal daily intake for her. I’ll be watching Sunday’s weigh-ins closely I don’t know that she needs to gain any more weight.

Her biome report came back in record time. The needle is moving to Severe Imbalance. She doesn’t seem severely unbalanced. I’ll post the new report tomorrow when I’ve had a chance to see it on something other than a phone screen. Some things went in the right direction. Others did not. I’ll be chatting with AnimalBiome support after I’ve had a chance to digest the report myself, so to speak.

Im not sure how much is wishful thinking and how much is actually occurring. She seems to have a softer coat and better energy after just a few reduced pred doses.

And now we wait out the two weeks. Her hairball intervals were approaching two to three weeks before pred. So it’s entirely possible that we get to the end of the taper before we have an ejection. But for now, I don’t see nausea. And I don’t see remainders. So far so good.

All of the actual Betty signs point to good health and happiness. So why is the biome report indicating something else? Will be very interested to hear what ABSupport has to say about this.

 

[daftcat75]

The Richness/Evenness/Diversity scores look like an improvement over last report which included the disastrous effects of the 'flox (antibiotics) back in July.

The ten different shades of blue stacked chart also looks better.

To me, this report looks like an improvement over the Aug 1 report.

Since there's only so much room for change while we're working the pred taper, I added half a smidgen of the recommended fiber supplement (1/64 tsp) to 40 grams of lunch. Well, she's wise to me. That was enough to resort to paw eating once more. Lunch is complete though. I'm going to leave it at this miniscule level for a few more days before trying to get her to a smidgen. I figure the one thing that has never changed in all her reports is the recommendation to add fiber. So that will be the change we pursue until the next report.

 

[tarasgirl06]

The Richness/Evenness/Diversity scores look like an improvement over last report which included the disastrous effects of the 'flox (antibiotics) back in July.

The ten different shades of blue stacked chart also looks better.

To me, this report looks like an improvement over the Aug 1 report.

Since there's only so much room for change while we're working the pred taper, I added half a smidgen of the recommended fiber supplement (1/64 tsp) to 40 grams of lunch. Well, she's wise to me. That was enough to resort to paw eating once more. Lunch is complete though. I'm going to leave it at this miniscule level for a few more days before trying to get her to a smidgen. I figure the one thing that has never changed in all her reports is the recommendation to add fiber. So that will be the change we pursue until the next report.

This is extremely mysterious to me. How do you interpret it overall? It's quite a drastic change.

 

[daftcat75]

This is extremely mysterious to me. How do you interpret it overall? It's quite a drastic change.

I've been puzzling over how to interpret the reports from one to the next ever since I got the second report and it looked nothing like the first.

The Overall Microbiome Comparison should be an inverted Christmas tree in the order listed. You can see the expected distribution in the May report. The Clostridium and Escherichia are the only two that really bother me besides the lack of the good ones on top (Prevotella, Bacteroides, Peptoclostridium, etc.) But sarcina and subdoligranulum finally came under control. It seems perhaps the few weeks that I was able to get Rx Clay into her lunches actually worked to our benefit. And it does look like a huge improvement over the Aug 1 report despite what they say.

I'm attaching all the reports in case there are some data scientists who want to take a stab at these.

 

[tarasgirl06]

I've been puzzling over how to interpret the reports from one to the next ever since I got the second report and it looked nothing like the first.

The Overall Microbiome Comparison should be an inverted Christmas tree in the order listed. You can see the expected distribution in the May report. The Clostridium and Escherichia are the only two that really bother me besides the lack of the good ones on top (Prevotella, Bacteroides, Peptoclostridium, etc.) But sarcina and subdoligranulum finally came under control. It seems perhaps the few weeks that I was able to get Rx Clay into her lunches actually worked to our benefit. And it does look like a huge improvement over the Aug 1 report despite what they say.

I'm attaching all the reports in case there are some data scientists who want to take a stab at these.

Hoping there are some here who will be able to analyze and inform. It just doesn't make sense to me. It's almost as if they got Betty's report mixed up with someone else's.

 

[daftcat75]

I got a new person on the AnimalBiome support. New to me anyway. Wasn't my usual contact. He was brief in his response. I don't like him. At least not yet. He answered one question about how much fiber to give her. But he didn't comment at all on the report.

He said Betty should have 1/4 tsp of fiber twice a day. Yeah. I don't think that's going to happen. She's already treating 1/32 tsp like poison. I don't see us getting 7 more of those into a meal. She eventually finished lunch and lunch feeder. But it was delayed long enough that she nearly left a 50% remainder on dinner. I got her interested in a second pass and she only has 1/4 portion remaining. I fully expect that to disappear before second dinner. She left a small remainder at breakfast too. But of course that was going to be finished without question since breakfast to lunch is her longest interval without food. You'd think I should put the fiber in her breakfast. And I might. But for now, we'll skip lunch fiber tomorrow and put it into second dinner. Let's see if that has snowballing delays on the overnight like it does on the daytime shift. Maybe she'll take the fiber more readily in a fresh can portion over her fridge lunch. And whatever the schedule, I'm hoping even the small amounts she'll eat will be beneficial. Because I don't see us getting to 1/4 tsp or 1/2 tsp.