[Pippi's Mama]

We had a bit of a scare with Pippi last Friday night, but she is back to her Pippified self now, thank goodness!

I’d been concerned that her blood glucose numbers were going too high, so I took her to the vet last Wednesday for a comprehensive blood test and to explain to him what was happening with her blood glucose levels. Her blood test came back great. Her blood glucose on the results was around 212 at 1:45 p.m., so he felt that we needed to go up a half unit on the insulin to 4.5 units a.m. and stay at 4 units p.m.

Later in the afternoon after we had gotten home, Pippi ate grass and threw up. Then when it was time to eat at 8 p.m., she won’t touch her supper. This was extremely weird as she is a little hoover. The last time she had not eaten was 16 months ago when she was diagnosed with diabetes with a 600 blood glucose level. After getting her regulated, she has not been sick at all.

I had tested her bg before putting the food in front of her that night, and it was 209, so I knew that high blood glucose wasn’t the problem. I kept offering her food and she kept refusing, so I called the vet to ask what to do about giving her insulin if she didn’t eat. He said that if she had not eaten by 10 p.m. to give her 1 unit. If she wasn’t better by morning, to give him a call. I let her sleep for a while, then offered her food at 10 p.m. and she ate, so I was able to give her the normal amount of insulin.

The next morning, she seemed o.k. and ate her breakfast. But that night, she didn’t want to eat again. She did eat this time if I hand fed her.

Once again on Friday morning, she got up and ate her breakfast normally, but late that afternoon, she seemed quiet and mopey. She had been having some gas, so I thought she might have a little bug or something, but thought she’d get over it.

That night, we went out to dinner. When we walked in the backdoor, there was bloody diarrhea everywhere. I thought that maybe something had ruptured. It was awful. I was in a panic. Thank goodness I was able to get in touch with the vet and rush Pippi over to get her help! After testing the sample I brought, the vet said that she had a clostridium infection. He said that this bacteria can live in the intestines of dogs normally, but can get out of control sometimes. And since she is a diabetic, she was more susceptible to it.

He gave her a shot of Baytril, Cerenia, and Vitamin K and started her on Flagyl to be taken orally 2x a day for 10 days. He said it would also help if I’d give her a tablespoon of plain yogurt with her meals. He said not to feed her that night, just give her 1 unit of insulin so her bg wouldn’t go too high.

By Saturday morning, Pippi’s diarrhea had cleared up, and she began getting better and better. By Monday morning, she was back to her feisty self. She is still on the Flagyl and yogurt at meals. I read up on clostridium and the info said that once an animal gets it, they can get it again here and there, so I’m going to make the yogurt a normal part of her meals now, as it aids in digestion. It doesn’t seem to have an affect on her blood glucose levels and Pippi eats it fine when it is mixed in with her food.

Since I have raised Pippi’s insulin to 4.5 units in morning and 4 units in evening, she hasn’t had those high levels anymore and seems to be back to normal on that front as well.

I don’t know if this infection could have possibly had something to do with the high bg levels before she started showing signs of sickness. But as diabetes is a progressive disease, maybe her body just needed a tad more insulin. I’m going to do some bg curves next week after everything settles down.