Sweet angel Gimli... March 15, 2016

[Carol & Milo]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

Awww, that poor little pup. This is a lot for him to go thru.

I agree with Joan about taking him off of antibiotics until he goes to the new vet. If it was me, I would not give him anything until he sees the vet....no insulin, no antibiotics or anything else...just food and water. Let the new vet do some bloodwork without anything in his system. Hopefully it was something else causing his high BG and maybe he is not diabetic. *fingers crossed*

I just looked at his pic. He is adorable

Good luck.

Carol & Milo

[Gimli's Dad]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

First off, thank you to all of those replying and giving me insight and hope!

He just had the one round of antibiotics and then coughing stopped after and then he just started getting tired and lethargic the week following. We took him in and all his blood work looked great except his blood glucose was over 750 and he was urinating constantly. He got 2 units that day and that night he was nearly done and I gave him Karo to get him pepped up. I didn't own a meter at this point. A day and a half go by and he is again over 750 and now I own a meter. Vet said 1 unit every 12 but after paging through this forum I chose 1/2 unit. Couple of hours went by and he was still over 700 so another 1/2 unit. The vet thought maybe he was going to be needing insulin every 36 hours. However, if you look at the readings I posted it never happened to get high again and it was a fight to keep him from going to low. During that 36 hours we stopped the dry puppy food soak in water we were getting from the vet and stopped our dry puppy food all together mainly because he did not have much of an interest in either but would eat the moist food from the vet when he looked desperate. I got the soft puppy food with gravy and he tore it up. His levels also stayed down since then. No idea if there is a correlation between type of food raising his sugar levels but I could track the drops after he ate the wet gravy puppy food. He went back up to stay for the day for monitoring at the vet today. He was 180 an hour before I dropped him off at 9am and 80 when he checked in. They called while I was typing this just now and said his last was 300. They said he ate some off the food I dropped off that he has been eating and some of the puppy food they have. They said they are going to check him for a UTI and said he may need insulin again if he goes over 500. Can't wait till 9:45 am Tuesday for the specialist in hope they can figure it out.
*edit add on- he walks as if he is off balance and rear legs are stiff.

[CraigM]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

He went back up to stay for the day for monitoring at the vet today. He was 180 an hour before I dropped him off at 9am and 80 when he checked in. They called while I was typing this just now and said his last was 300. They said he ate some off the food I dropped off that he has been eating and some of the puppy food they have. They said they are going to check him for a UTI and said he may need insulin again if he goes over 500. Can't wait till 9:45 am Tuesday for the specialist in hope they can figure it out.
*edit add on- he walks as if he is off balance and rear legs are stiff.

are you saying he is at the vet clinic for a days curve, and they are allowing him to eat throughout the day? Did he have breakfast before going to the clinic? If he had breakfast at home, and then got additional food (more than a tiny treat) that sort of makes the rest of the days testing useless?? Seems to me they won't (shouldn't) make any insulin adjustment based on today's testing if he was given addition food that would raise the blood glucose.

Just my thoughts.

Craig

[Gimli's Dad]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

I don't believe and official curve has been done because in addition to trying to keep him stable at 2 pounds with his metabolism running full speed ahead he is looking like a skeleton. So I know the food intake is interfering with his readings cause when taking all of those readings over the weekend it really helped me know what was raising him and what was lowering him. An hour before I dropped him off at 9am he was 180 and 80 when he arrived. They called at 2pm said he ate some of the beef stew puppy food I dropped off in addition to the dry watered down puppy food they gave him and he was at 300. I with withheld the watered down dry stuff all weekend and he never got that high by feeding him the puppy stew gravy stuff. He was at 47 when wife picked him up at 6:30 pm Central time. If she doesn't periodically give him Karo tonite he will drop dangerously low based on me running his numbers so often over the weekend and seeing what intake runs his levels up and down. Fourteen hours till he sees specialist!
I am so confused and probably would not gotten as far as he has had it not been for the expierence of this group and postings.

Gimli and I thank all of you!

Chris

[k9diabetes]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

You are in for a very difficult time with such a small dog. Dosing is just difficult with those kinds of weights - no way around it. I've seen a lot of tiny dogs who were hypoglycemic on 1 unit and spilling ketones on half a unit, which isn't so surprising given that 1 unit is twice as much insulin as half a unit.

Any diet can work for a diabetic... It sounds like the gravy food is working the best for him, not overwhelming the insulin and not being overwhelmed by it. I would stick with whatever seems to be working best for him.

Is he on Vetsulin?

If so, you can use a U100 syringe to more finely dose his insulin. There is a conversion chart here:

http://www.felinediabetes.com/insulin-conversions.htm

That might help a little bit.

If you can find a food to feed him every day for a few days, you could do a curve and get a general idea of how his food and insulin are going in - whether they are working together or not well matched.

Natalie

[Gimli's Dad]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

Spoke with specialist today and they suggested letting him go. They said they also detected a severe heart murmur at a 4 on a scale of 1 to 6. At a total loss cause I want to give him a chance and they were very doom and gloom. A week and a half ago he was mirror boxing with himself and fetching and now he falls over going to the bathroom. I haven't had to give him insulin since early Saturday and it went from the high side to fighting to keep the levels up.

[jesse girl]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

my jesses odds were slight at best 6 years ago.it took a year to get her back to her old self

the surprising thing i did not hear one vet say to let her go but i did not think she was going to make even after 6 months and she proved me wrong

its going to be some hard work with no guarantees but there is always hope as long as they are trying

[Joan]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

Of course there is no way for me to know for sure, but I will tell you that right now I have several pugs on my lap that had "death sentences" from vets more than 2 yrs ago. They are alive and thriving right now. On the same token I lost a 4 yr old pug last wk, 8 hrs after the vet told me nothing was basically wrong with him. Its enough to make you lose all confidence.

If you feel you want to continue, and most importantly if Gimli wants to continue, then give it a try. I would monitor his bg but give no insulin unless he is very very high. I do not think he fits the diabetic diagnosis. I would give him the food that he will eat readily, and not worry just see if he can gain some weight and strength. I guess my philosophy is in the end i would rather look back and KNOW that I did everything possible.

Not sure where you are? If you got the name Gimli from somewhere near Gimli Mb Canada, I know an excellent vet in Winnipeg.

Praying for you both, Joan

[Gimli's Dad]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

We rescued him from the St. Louis area. I am not ready to give up on him and feel like I am failing him and my kids if I don't try. I wonder how much he is suffering right now. He was very low last night and I had to work a twelve hour over night shift. Since I had been fighting the low numbers over the weekend as opposed to him being high I told the wife to give him kyro every few hours while I was at work to keep him from going into a coma. She has no luck doing the stick for glucose test. Needless to say when I got home he was at a 615 which was the highest since early Saturday followed by insulin. He fell on his own to 440 and then 300 by noon. The specialist who I thought would give me hope did the exact opposite and said he is diabetic and his survival chances are pretty much non-existent. He has had no interest in food since yesterday but I made me a cheeseburger when I got home and he perked up. Needless to say he ate some cheeseburger and I am sure it jacked his numbers but after that vet visit I think he deserves some burger!

[k9diabetes]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

Did they identify the cause of the heart murmur?

Our diabetic was born with a congenital heart defect and recovered after surgery.

Natalie

[Gimli's Dad]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

Did they identify the cause of the heart murmur?

Our diabetic was born with a congenital heart defect and recovered after surgery.

Natalie

We had a consultation this morning with endocrine specialist and they had him in back for 15 minutes or so. Said she heard a severe heart murmur and it was at a 4 on a scale of 6. She said even if we try to correct it he still had issues and wouldn't survive.

[k9diabetes]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

They should have identified the cause of the murmur. Perhaps it's not correctable and that's why they didn't describe it, but I would ask them.

Often they can tell just from the sound of the murmur and don't need a cardiac ultrasound.

I would want to know the cause so I could determine for myself how serious the problem is.

Natalie

[k9diabetes]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

Our dog did not have diabetes at the time, but he had fleas, ticks, kennel cough, diarrhea, and by the time of the surgery he was so weak he could barely walk. One night, his breathing was so shallow that we thought he had died.

In his case, it was a patent ductus arteriosis and they do just fine if they survive the surgery - it's pretty much repair or they die so you take a chance that they will die in surgery.

They may very well be right and there's nothing that can be done, but I wouldn't leave that call to them. Better for you to know as much as you can about what his problems are so you can know what the right path is.

Natalie

[LizE]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

So sorry that you got such disappointing news. When my dog was first diagnosed we were advised to put her down based on how sick she was and how old she was. It was a gut wrenching moment that I think of almost every time I look at her.

The vet thought we would spend a lot of money trying to treat her and would still lose her and I don't think he wanted us to go through all that. We opted to treat her on the most basic level hoping she would stay alive long enough for my son to get home to say goodbye to her. My dog survived but I sympathize with the emotional devastation you are going through.

You obviously love your dog very much and have done a fantastic job in caring for him. Please take some comfort in knowing that whatever decisions your family has to make will be the right thing to do. I'm hoping for the best for you!

[momofdecker]

Re: 14 week old puppy with diabetes

Welcome to the forum. You'll find a lot of support here.

Tough to be looking forward to seeing a specialist to give you hope and hopefully answers and to leave with doom and grim and more questions than answers.

One of my co-workers has a cocker spaniel that was dx with a serious heart murmur when he was a pup (under a year old). Their vet (not a specialist) advised that they put him down due to the murmur. They chose not to put him down. I don't know off hand what level murmur he was dx. with - but I do know that he's had a very good quality of life. He's showing his age these days but his owners are hopeful that he'll see his 15th birthday in August.

Lost my diabetic dog a few years back, but his whole experience, along with the great folks on here, taught me how to be the advocate for my pets that they need me to be.

Being able to make an educated decision is one of the most valuable things you'll need. To get there you may need to be quite proactive in asking the questions to get the answers you feel you need to make that educated decision.

Did the specialist cover anything regarding the diabetes? One tip I would offer - when he runs low - karo, honey or syrup will raise the blood glucose (bg) quickly but can also be quick in / quick out. Wonder if you could follow up, after giving the liquid sugar, by getting him to eat something carby (piece of pasta, bread, etc...). Or maybe a small biscuit with honey or karo on it. The carby follow up may take a bit of time to raise the bg but would stay in his system a bit longer than the liquid sugar. You've got a whole forum of folks here who can offer suggestions to work with the diabetes complication.

How about the murmur - what is the prognosis if you choose to give your sweet pup a fighting chance? Is there a long term prognosis or just a short term one? If the murmur is serious - what symptoms/troubles should you be watching out for? Does he show signs of coughing, fainting, collapse, exercise intolerance (and can any of these symptoms also be caused by uncontrolled diabetes)? Has he been tested for heart worms (or has that been ruled out)?

What other major obstacles might your pup face? Weight? Neurological complications? Vision impairment? Infections (UTI, etc...)? What's the big picture of his overall health? What additional risks does he face? How can each obstacle be addressed? What are the options?

It seems like your pup has a great human watching over him - one who is willing to advocate for answers. Wishing you the best in getting what you need to make the best decision for all.

Holli

Edited to ask a few more questions:
I just re-read through your thread and have a few more questions. Sorry for so many.

When he was originally dx. with diabetes - he had a full blood panel run and only bg was high. Did the diagnosing vet check his heart? I ask because if the specialist detected a serious heart condition - it seems odd that the original vet would not have mentioned any heart concern?

It looks like your pup was also treated for suspected kennel cough? Again - did the original vet ever mention concern over a heart murmur? Could the murmur have been mistaken for kennel cough? Seems like it cleared with antibiotics though?

Did the specialist address your pup's goopy eye at all - as it doesn't seem that a heart murmur or diabetes alone would cause that?

I only ask because I know my (non diabetic) pup (who is now three) was dx. with a mild murmur when he was young (somewhere around 8-10 months old). Last April (2015) we came home to him having green goopy eyes and coughing fits (sometimes honking sounds, sometimes reverse sneezing, sometimes hacking/gagging sounds) - I took several videos to share with his vet. We were worried about the heart murmur. We had xrays done and his heart was enlarged at the time. He was on heart worm medication but we had him tested to rule that out anyway. We were given several options to try and decided to treat for suspected allergies - and the eyes cleared up quickly. The cough quickly lessened but took a bit longer to completely go away. The meds they gave him were not antibiotics but prescription allergy meds (hydroxyzine pantoate 50 mg). My daughter had the flu around the same time he got his symptoms. She had a cough that lasted well beyond the aches & fever (to the point I'd take her to her pediatrician twice as I was convinced she had strep or something else going on) but apparently the strain of flu going around last year had a lingering cough. Vet said she could not have gotten our pup sick - but his timeline lasted about the same as hers and started shortly afterwards.

Again, sorry for so many questions. Just thinking out loud a bit....