Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

[k9diabetes]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

Looks like there's a neurology practice pretty close to you. (I can see your IP address but no one else can.)

I can't overstate how useful a veterinary neurology consult can be. They can tell so much more than a general practitioner vet and conduct tests that GP vets don't do. I've had two dogs treated by a neurologist, including our diabetic. His loss of ability to stand turned out to most likely be a mini stroke as he recovered within a few hours. The dog we have now has spinal and hip pain and we had him fully worked up including MRI.

Natalie

[MisterAlan]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

Yeah sadly i am financially not able to provide for his mri scan at the moment so i asked for a consult from one of their surgeons and he suggested intervertebraldisc disease, infection of the discs, my main vet had a talk with the surgeon and we are putting him on pain meds and antibiotics at the moment to keep him comfortable and go from there. But sadly without a scan we wont know for sure After dinner tonight and about an hour later it seems he can move pretty steadly again just needs help lifting but no need for me to carry him. my house has alot of laminate flooring so im making use of what rugs and foam mats i have at the moment to help him move around but it seems he struggles with his front legs when there isnt steady mats for him to grip on so i plan on buying alot more tomorrow and just lay them everywhere he normally goes. As far as his back legs it seems it is only his back legs that are weak and it seems it is weak equally from what i observe he is front heavy so i think he sometimes struggles in the front due to the sudden change in mobility his front muscles arnt use to it but this is all guessing from what i can observe so far. It has only been a week since all this happened and ive seen ups and downs so far i will do my best to keep him comfy for the time being.

[k9diabetes]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

Boots with rubber grippy bottoms can also help with slick floors.

[sibhus]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

MisterAlan, im also dealing with a diabetic husky whom is overweight and also has some hind leg issues. In his case, he has some joint inflammation in his leg which if I don't treat using a NSAID daily he tends to rise about 150 points due to the residual pain in his body. My dog is overweight at 87lbs and is using 10 units in the morning(has a snack) and 30 at night but that is due to he eats his entire meal at night which is around 1100 calories. In my case, since my dog is overweight this contributes to insulin resistance but your dosage sounds very low.

You might be dealing with inflammation or arthritis, although as others have noted it could be nerve related and perhaps an X-ray can isolate this as its usually cheaper. As someone stated methyl B12 can help with diabetic neuropathy and is cheap. But the older and heavy dogs develop joint paint/inflammation easily as in my case and as a result im using light doses of Galliprant until he can shed his weight off. A good vet can palpate and manipulate the joints and pickup on arthritis or a joint issue. An orthopedic vet might be a better choice than a vet.

Good luck and hang in there, its been a tough month for me as we were diagnosed last month but im finally getting my husky under reasonable control.

[MisterAlan]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

Thank you sibhus i greatly appreciate your input since we have similar situations. Yeah i also think his doses are low it seems my dog has climbed back up to the 480s and 500s but my doctor said to increase his units from 7 to 8 units and see how it goes. I did notice that when his BG was controlled when he arrived home at the 100s he could still walk around but very weak now it seems i need to always help him up but he tries to waddle with his back legs but they wont support. Currently i would never thought i would have a problem feeding him and not having problems poking the crap out of him with needles and he simply doesn't care haha. Yes he is on galliprant at the moment along with tramadol so we can assume hes not in pain with all those pain killers in him. It seems as his BG rises he starts to pant a little more. At the moment he seems extremely whiny at nights so ive tested if its pain it turns out its not. And hes testing me how i react to certain things he does to get my attention. It seems it is anxiety but i dont know what triggers it but so far ive left the room for 1 hour last night and see what he would do and seems hed just fall right to sleep until he hits another panic attack anxiety. The problem with the whining and getting up on sitting mode i assume he wants to go outside to do his thing but it seems he wants the attention of me to lift him up to walk around in the room a lil and repeat. I dont mind but it will confuse me when i dont know when he has to go or when he wants attention because i cant feed him the attention or he will use it against me and it will only get worse. But its only been a week so far and Ive actually found myself quite comfortable giving him shots taking his BGs and taking him out to relieve himself which is a bit crazy because of the towel i use to support sometimes it either covers him or causes the aimer to go everywhere and i have to wipe him down lol. Waiting on that old dog harness helper to ship in and i think it will be much easier to handle his restroom breaks also i can just pick him up if i have to if he doesn't wanna go before bed time because he will literally hold it for 10 hours plus because he doesn't wanna move. Well that's it for now wish me luck that i don't have to increase his insulin too much because i might have to change to vetsulin to novalin at Walmart and my vet is open to those options but she would rather keep him on vetsulin if it regulates well since its made for pets but sometimes you just cant sustain it. Also Natalie thanks for finding me a neuro practice for me i will look into it and plan out my options to see what i can get done for the guy.

[sibhus]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

MisterAlan, to give you a point of reference, my dog at start was 87lbs and was told by the vet to start at 15 twice a day as a starting dose. But the ideal dosage is actually 20 units twice a day. In my case im doing 10 and 30 units due to his eating habits and after a month I can get him between 150-300 glucose levels at the moment. Others on here probably can advise better on dosing as I got some great feedback from a few of the other longtime members.


Ive had several huskies and well frankly as they get older and overweight, the joints flare up and cause them to do many of the things you explain. Getting them at the right weight is very important, so ive changed over to a lower fat adult meal. Again, see if you can find an orthopedic vet whom can isolate this to possible osteoarthritis/arthritis or nerve related. Arthritis can be verified by leg extension and hip articulation movements by a smart vet while some will just go straight for a X-ray of the lower back/rear legs. You may want to inquire with your vet about an NSAID like carprofen/galliprant and try it for a few days to see if he responds, as that will also help isolate his rear end weakness to arthritis/joint inflammation or something else.

I went down a wild good chase as you thinking it was neuropathy and it was arthritis. If your dog has neuropathy, one tell tale is that when they walk, they tend to drag their paws and knuckles and you'll hear a scraping sounds as they cant pick up their foot properly.

Its tough fighting both these issues simultaneously but hang in there.

[MisterAlan]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

Ahh thank you for giving me this info on his legs. At the moment what you described as neuropathy seems to fit at least from the symptoms wise fits perfectly. His paws knuckle in and he drags them when im helping him sometimes, sometimes he can get a nice stride in before he goes back to knuckling. Ive held his hind legs when he potties and it seems he can lift his legs but somehow he cant control them that well as if he has no feeling in them. I am sure since hes old he has arthritis also but after you told me the neuropathy signs it seems he has them both. He is currently 80 lbs im sure its dropped a few more since he doesnt want to eat a full meal lately unless its homemade food. I will look into a consult for orthopedic vet when possible. Also it seems upping his unit by 1 dropped his BG down 100 points at peak insulin. So its at 400 but i think it will drop a little further in 2 days and see where it settles and do another curve with my vet. At the moment im battling his new found use of whining and since he doesnt want to walk he is damn full of energy being a husky hahah.

[MisterAlan]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

Ive been away for quite a bit because I've been busy with school and regulating my dog and figuring out all his kinks and researching and i have very good results so far thanks to you guys and your support and advice. First off my dog was panting and always nauseated for an entire month and i thought it was because i didn't have his diabetes regulated. One night he didn't sleep at all and was breathing very fast but didn't seem like he was having a hard time gaining oxygen so i took him to the pet hospital because this looked serious. Well as always when you go to a vet hospital they want 5 grand worth of scans before diagnosing anything and i couldn't fork that out because i just loaded up on his diabetic visit recently. All i got was the normal check up and a complimentary scan to check his lungs. This showed nothing and the vet said its odd because every organ doesn't seem to have any problems but Cloud just looked extremely distressed and sickly. So i told her to give him a pain killer shot and ill take him home to see if its pain or not that is causing it. The shot seemed to have given him respite and allowed him to sleep for a few hours before waking up with labored breathing but not as bad. Well i decided to start taking out medicines of my dog that he was on recently just straight cold turkey. It seemed to do the trick he was on tramadol, gabapentine, and galliprant for pain. The next 24 hours these symptoms went away pretty much 80% if not completely and it seemed i had my dog back since going to the hospital for his diabetes crisis. He was still on galliprant but it seems it didn't affect his breathing but the former 2 seem to be the culprit. Ive taken him off galliprant now and he seems to do just fine also, so it seems pain is not a big factor in my dogs condition from not being able to walk. So his heavy breathing and sickly feeling went away after taking him off those medications.

Now onto regulating. I slowly upped his dosage every week trying to get some curves to look more level. From 7-15 units was very frustrating but i took alot of advice and didn't care about the numbers too much till i had a descent nadir and routine before panicking(very hard to do for any owner with a diabetic pet i believe!) after trying everything out. Throughout May and June i have located his nadir which is 4 hours after injection pretty consistently from all my of my checks so in order to save money i just check his nadir and fasting times because i was im in a tight spot. At first 7-10 units it didn't budge much staying in the upper 400 nadir at 350s. From here as i increased i would get 400s still but the nadir would drop to the 200-150s as it went up but spike really fast to 400-450s on fasting. When i got around 12-13 i saw nadir at 80s but spike up to 350-400. So i thought to myself i seem to have found my playground for tweaking his food now after finding his nadir since this is the only thing that i can tweak for now after ruling out infections. Throughout this Cloud seemed to be a tough guy the diabetic symptoms hardly showed, no more drinking like mad and urinating but his regulation is still a mess but no symptoms. Now i did extreme research on diets for him since he cant eat chicken and basically all diabetic food is chicken based sadly so i had to home cook his meals. I read everywhere online and on this site with alot solutions but seems alot of it conflicts but works in each case for each person so i can only test and find out. I had to learn how much calories a dog his age and ideal weight should eat then break it down to two meals in grams of carbs protein fats he should intake. Currently he is eating 200 grams of cooked ground beef or turkey, 70 grams of barley cooked, 40 grams pinto beans, in each meal along with 14 units of vetsulin. This proved the best min/max solution i can find for him at the moment because his nadir75-80/fasting150-180. This is subject to change like most people say but at the moment this has been steady for 3 weeks and i think i have him regulated at the moment. Side note i had him on 15 units before and his fasting were in the 250s so i listened to the advice i read here and tried going down one unit and that seemed to do the trick for his BG.

Now onto his final problem his hind legs didn't work. Seems after a month of no improvement my parents thought he would be paralyzed for good, and the vets pretty much thought it was anything other than the diabetes causing this problem. Me on the other hand i had this gut feeling it was the diabetes causing this problem because it basically came at the same time. So i heeded everyone's advice and loaded him up with vitamin b-12 methyl i purchased from GNC because every other brand contained artificial sweetener it seems. Well these past three weeks after getting his curve regulated he started trying to walk on his own. The first week he lifted off about 6 inches on his own but that was the extent. Five days later he could get up on his own but not walk. Second week he got up made it half way down the hall. Four days later made it all the way to the back door. Two days later he could go walk back and forth from back door to his room on his own. Third week which is this past week he is able to go in and out with little to no help and is able to do his business without me aiding him from losing balance. These past two days he has regained his confidence and is walking around the house more often now and seems a bit more spunky that he can because he comes out telling me to fix his food immediately lol. It seems everything is starting to normalize for Cloud and the family the routine is set but he seems to go back to his whimsical personality now that he got his legs back haha. Also Cloud is on 500mg CBD oil and it seems to work so i will keep him on this. I am very thankful for everyone's advice and encouragement here and i don't know how to repay you back for this because odds are i probably would have euthanized him if i saw no improvements and he was still miserable but thank fully hes back to his normal self pretty much soon. I will still come in whenever i can to keep updates for you guys. Thank You Everyone at K9Diabetes.

[jesse girl]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

Great Update . Yeah many times the caretaker has to be the detective on figuring out what is wrong . Vets only spend a short time with their patients same as people with their doctors .Its all trial and error . You become the foremost expert on your dogs condition . Many times in western medicine we just try to treat symptoms and really dont cure much . Our body does most of the work and sometimes we unbalance the body by taking medications .

Great work figuring this out you probably wont no for sure if the b/12 or better blood sugar or both helped improved mobility but its wonderful cloud is on a better path

I am a total believer in a balanced homemade diet and the reason I believe jesse has had such a long life with disease ( knock on wood ) and possible why her epilepsy went into remission 4 years ago having it since a pup

Its not that complicated but us humans have a tendency to make it complicated . You take it step by step . If it works you keep it if not you throw it on the scrap heap . In the end most times if you want good results you may have to do most of the work which you did

Keep up the good work and congrats . You might want to let your vet know what you ended up doing to suggest to future patients . Stop in from time to time to tell us how things are going . Its so important for newbies to learn and get information that just isnt available from the professionals .

[MisterAlan]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

Its been over a about 7 months now and during clouds high BG numbers time i was expecting him to go blind because the cloudiness started to enter into his pupils. Fortunately i got his BGs under control and it seems to have stopped in its tracks so far. Ive had to re adjust his insulin levels to a lower dosage from 13 to 11 over these few months as he slowly got healthier. Im hoping its not a honeymoon phase since the numbers are going down at a nice evenly sloped rate. I first caught on to his insulin dosage needing to be reduced when he would pant a little bit around his nadir time and i would check his Bg's and it would show up as LO on my tester given that those numbers can give or take a few numbers and he showed no signs of hypo yet i just fed him some food and just adjusted his insulin in .5 over the weeks until it stabilized again. His highs before eating and insulin shot ranges from 100-140 which i see as acceptable and his nadir is in like 60-80s. this has gone on for about 5 months. I think if i can keep the BGs from not going past 150 points i can stave off his blinding. Just a little update and info for people that might have a similar situation

[Raysaint]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

Great work. It shows the importance of home testing.
My dog is similar, in that he doesn't show signs of hypo, he usually just rebounds.

[MisterAlan]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

Ive run into a weird problem currently for my dog. I have literally dropped his insulin units from 12.5 to 7.5 now within a month and a half time frame. His BGs are always around 80-90 during his checks before meals so i find it to low and im scared he might go hypo so i decreased the insulin by .5, but each time i see it in the upper 70s to 80s. But after decreasing 2.5 units over a 2 week frame it still stays around 80-90. So i decided to decrease the insulin and add more carbs to his diet and i would still get 80-90 numbers and this also gave me basically a really nice curve to be honest. Odds are i will keep decreasing till i see him in the 120s before meals and 80s during his nadir. He seems normal on everything not showing signs of hypo or anything weird with his behavior. During his nadir which is on average around 50s sometimes upper 40s for about an hour or 2 which he is sleeping. I was wondering if hes getting usage of his natural insulin production back and the body is actually balancing his BG's along with the added insulin because his numbers are always around 80s to 90s when i check after a 24 hour period of adjusting the unit by .5 and the adding of more carbs and i did these separately for me to see if it is him getting back his body functions for insulin. Just wondering if anyone has had this happen to them and what should i expect in the future thanks.

[jesse girl]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

Yes similar problem with jesse . The vet suggested we stop giving insulin for a week maybe 10 year ago thinking the diabetes was a misdiagnosis . I did 3 days and there was some movement lower but she was in a higher range so she went back to injected insulin . She has always had a lower dose from a normal starting dose for her weight . I have recently lowered her dose maybe 15 % to 6.5 units total for the day .

You do have to wonder when blood sugar looks close to normal for a diabetic dog and that being quite rare that something is going on

My philosophy is keep lowering the dose until you see a rise back up a bit and regulate from there

I do believe many dogs are receiving a dose that maybe to much but the body is able to handle it for the most part and the only evidence maybe the appearance of rebounding from time to time

[MisterAlan]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

Okay seems his 12 hours periods are staying at the 80-90s with an occasional 60 apparently. Ive dropped his units by .5 constantly and I'm at 5 units now from 12.5. He seems much more energetic and is running around in the backyard due to the cold weather. I'm guessing his pancreas has come back online from this trend I'm seeing because he seems really healthy on energy levels from what i can see. The only thing i can see that I've changed for him is that he always had skin issues because he is extremely allergic to dust out of all things. I have been spraying his entire body with a spray called Gentacalm for the past 2 months to try and get control of his skin infections by pre-coating his skin against the allergic reactions because i didn't want to use to much oral antibiotics on him since he has been on them pretty much his entire life so they should be barely effective now. He has completely stopped having break outs in skin infections so far and licking/scratching till hes bleeding on his body. My best guess after lowering and adding carbs and his BGs stay in the 80-90s is that his body has gotten healthier also i think the constant skin infections were a factor in his pancreas shutting down possibly because the body was strained to the max as he got older and the organs couldn't handle everything it was being attacked and the pancreas was the first to give out but this is just a guess of mine. But i think my diabetic dogs BGs are always around 80-90s from what i can see from the data collected. I'll keep lowering the dosage until i hit a rise or maybe ill have to take him off insulin and just keep him checked everyday to see if he goes back to high numbers. If i take him completely off i might have to consult with a vet just to see whats going on because I've looked around if a diabetic dog becomes undiabetic like this and i haven't found any information on it so far except it happens for cats but no cases of dogs. Ill post more updates when i grab more data most like up till hes off judging by this trend his BGs are going.

[jesse girl]

Re: Dog diagnosed with diabetes 4/28/20

We have had a member that went through times that insulin needed to be drastically reduced and then be reintroduced back to the dose that was needed before the drop . Most think that once a dog becomes diabetic and a loss of function from the pancreas to produce insulin it can't come back either permanently or temporarily but we have seen gestational diabetes when a dog goes into heat .We have seen dogs go completely in remission after being spayed .

My Jesse I believe went into gestational diabetes and contracted pancreatitis which caused her diabetes to become permanent but still its unusual for her lower dose of insulin

The lowering of her dose in the last couple months has seemed to give her more energy not unlike your dog and its possible just having a lower dose may make the dog feel better than a dose that is more than is needed and the body having to deal with that and working harder

Its all speculation but being on this forum for over 10 years there is so much more going on than what is medically understood . No real studies and what's been discovered is from caretakers that deal with it every day but for the most part that doesnt get out to the general public but is contained within forums like this helping some but many caretakers will just struggle to keep there dogs healthy dependent on vet care that hasn't changed much treating this disease