New member Snowball

[jesse girl]

something to consider if you continue to see your dog being lethargic is to reduce the dose maybe temporarily and see if your dog perks up a bit

some dogs on rare occasions have a reaction to the insulin . One dog i remember could not use NPH insulin . My jesse is a 26 pound beagle cant have more than 3 units at one time or her sugar spikes

Now its very possible your dog may need more insulin and we define insulin resistance as giving the same amount of insulin as weight so that would be 8 units for your dog but that is fairly extreme

Usually there is a medical reason why a dog needs so much insulin . Like thyroid problems . high cholesterol things like that

If things dont improve you may have to explore further with some lab work the problem with that is he elevated sugar can skew the results .

I think it took 6 months for jesse to be back to her normal self but she was very sick

like i suggest a curve will be helpful and if you can get the curves from the vet to compare we can see the progress or not with raising the dose

[Raysaint]

The arching of the back can sometimes indicate pancreatitis. A simple test right at the vet's office can check for elevated pancreas.

It's best to try and eliminate other conditions that might have an effect on regulation. As others mentioned, insulin resistance can have a few causes.

[jesse girl]

just to add infections of any sort like UTIs and ear can create resistance and the dog wont feel well

[robl45]

Originally Posted by Raysaint

The arching of the back can sometimes indicate pancreatitis. A simple test right at the vet's office can check for elevated pancreas.

It's best to try and eliminate other conditions that might have an effect on regulation. As others mentioned, insulin resistance can have a few causes.

Yea, its just weird that it started like right after hitting the ear for blood. Someone said I might be hitting a nerve or something. I did just call the vet and they said they would send the other curves over.

[robl45]

302 at 6:05pm this evening. I got the stuff from the vet. This is on 3 units. I'm thinking I'll put her back on 3.5 units and see how it goes. Still the only place I can get blood is the ear. i tried both sides of the mouth on the lip. She is fine with it, but no matter what I do, the meter either doesn't register the blood or it doesn't get enough blood. I'm thinking maybe it gets saliva in it?

First curve 6/16/2018 she was on 1 unit.

8:40 320
10:56 366
12:56 360
2:56 306

They had me increase to 2 units

6/24/2018

8:30 472
10:30 377
12:50 340
2:40-406

Said increase to 3.

7/14/2018

8:30am 516
9:30am 435
10:30 536
11:35 516
12:35 606

Told us they didn't think my wife was giving the insulin correctly and said to stay on 3 units.

7/21/2018

They had me do the shot at the vet at 8:25am
8:30am 439
9:30am 185
10:30am 130
11:30am 98
12:30pm 102
2:30 pm 99

They said to drop to 2.5 at that point I think we did that for a day, but we could clearly see that the dog was still constantly thirsty so we put it back to 3 pretty soon and she has been on that since.

[jesse girl]

from the curves you posted it appears numbers went higher with a larger dose maybe showing you have passed the dose that was needed . Raising the dose at full unit increments was probably to large for a dog your size and its very possible you are giving to much insulin

[robl45]

They appear to have gone down each time except the third one when they said my wife didn't do it right.

[jesse girl]

if you look at the trend on one unit all numbers were in the 300s . The second curve 300s and 400s . Now the third one as you said they believe the shot wasn't given correctly and thats possible and its just as possible it was given correctly and the higher trend was correct

What you want to keep an eye on if you continue to raise the dose and the numbers stay high or go even higher may give you the answer . Also be watchful for a crash when the body reaches its limits to protect itself with the bodies stored sugar

also you did see what was a possible crash in sugar on the forth curve with that big drop is sugar from 8:30 to 9:30 thats a very large drop in one hour

[robl45]

On the fourth curve I gave the insulin right before they did the first reading. I do agree that it did go down quick. Currently the numbers are going down as we increase. I'm nervous going past 3.5 though. Is there like a level you get to when it finally gets it down and then you have to reduce to maintain it? Or do we just kind of increase till it's low enough and then leave it there?

[jesse girl]

Its hard to say . All i go by is the clues from what the numbers tell me and my opinion its possible the dose maybe to much but like i said other medical condition maybe playing a part keeping things higher

You really have to be a detective and its fortunate you are testing sugar

if the dose is to much it can be difficult finding your way back thats why its so important to go slow and conservative dose adjustments

My jesse was on 6 units which was a normal starting dose . I ended up giving her 3 units . It took a long time to figure that out . So even doing everything correctly did not work out for jesse