Angel Mochi December 2020

[Raysaint]

Re: Should I reduce his amount of insulin?

Try not taking the dog for a walk, and get an idea of how many points she goes up after eating.
If her fasting is 10, does she go up 5 points in the next 2 hours? Maybe do a short curve, every hour for 3 hours after eating, no walk.

[Lchow022]

Re: Should I reduce his amount of insulin?

Should I not reduce the insulin yet and just do the testings first to see if the walk is whats causing the crazy drop?

I know he does drop quite a bit every time we go for walks. So whenever he's on the high side in his 400's mg or 20's mmol we take him for a short walk and he would drop about 5mmol points.

I know back then when he had more of a consistent curve his blood sugar would drop a lot at night after we go for walks too. It would be in the high 300's right before dinner and about an hour after dinner and insulin we take him out for a walk and then it would be down to the 85-125mg or 4-7mmol range. But this is lower than usual...and it dropped all the way down to 50mg(2.8mmol).

[jesse girl]

Re: Should I reduce his amount of insulin?

determining if the walk is accelerating the drop in sugar and if confirmed you may have to address that . you could try to reduce the dose but remember you need a week to settle . you should hold the dose even if you see higher numbers .

you can give some honey or sugary treat before the walk and see how sugar goes .You need to test before and after walk

you can walk at a different time that doesnt have as much impact on sugar

you do want to walk mochi . Its important to work off some of that energy and get some exercise

[Raysaint]

Re: Should I reduce his amount of insulin?

My concern is that reducing the dose just to offset the drop will have a negative affect on the rest of the 12 hours. You already have some high fastings.

I'd still want to see the drop without a walk, so you can determine if you just need to address the walk. Different time maybe as Jesse suggested.

[Lchow022]

Re: Should I reduce his amount of insulin?

I just found out my dad has been giving mochi a slight less of a dose...he was giving around 4.75 units when I've been giving him 5units...
I checked his blood sugar yesterday when I came home from work around 7pm(1 hour after food and insulin)..it was up at 25.3mmol (450mg)...we quickly took him out for his walk and came back half an hour later. I checked his blood sugar right away at 7:30pm and it dropped down to 18.3mmol (330mg). I told my dad to give him 5units today which is what I normally give him.

I got home from work at 7pm and did the same thing.
His blood sugar was still quite high at 18.8mmol (340mg). We took him out for a walk again and it dropped down to 13.9mmol (250mg) at 7:30pm. At 8pm it dropped to 11.9mmol(215mg) and at 9pm it dropped to 9.1mmol (165 mg).

Seems like the walk does cause quite a big drop..
I'll do what raysaint told me to do with not walking him after dinner and insulin and test his sugar out once he consistently gets the 5units for a few days first.
Because of the drastic drops do you guys think his body will use up the insulin very fast and then his blood sugar will go high faster?

[Lchow022]

Big Drops in Blood sugar

Hi,

I had concerns for mochi's blood sugar drops last month and it seemed to still be happening. It seems like it's happening more and more now that I've been checking more frequently. It also looks like his blood sugar is always high and then when he goes for walks that's when it drops.

I'm not sure what could be causing his blood sugar to stay so high..and then when we go for walks it drops drastically.
For example yesterday I checked his blood sugar at 7pm (an hour after his insulin injection). It was 350(19.4mmol)...then we went for a walk and I checked his blood sugar right after at 8pm and it was down to 170(9.4mmol).
I know walking him drops his sugars a lot but I don't understand why his blood sugar barely moves and stays quite high throughout the day until we go for walks.

On Sunday his blood sugar was up to 460(25.6) at 12pm(nadir time), then I told my dad to take him out for a walk and see if it'll drop his sugars. We came back 45minutes later at 12:45pm it dropped to 380(21.1)..then it just started slowly dropping every 2 hours. I'm not sure whats happening..
Is it his body that's not able to process the insulin properly now that he's older?..Should we not walk him that often cause his body might be using up the insulin too much too fast?

[jesse girl]

Re: Big Drops in Blood sugar

Did you ever experiment not giving the walk for a day or 2 and see what blood sugar did for the day ? You may actually need to probably do a week to give the body a chance to adapt

I have been raising jesses dose some over the last year do to higher fasting in the morning so i decided to reduce the dose and stayed at the level for a week and come to find out her sugar was very good . I guess her body was not happy with the higher dose even though her sugar said she needed more

The fast drop from the walk could create rebound and cause sugar to go higher and with that it may stay there with little movement till the next walk

I had the same problem with jesse . It was nice to get her sugar lower with the walk but it was mostly short lived . In time we figured out what did work and have been doing that ever since but there is always ups and downs along the way .

You maybe giving to much insulin or not enough . The drop from the walk maybe confusing that

[Raysaint]

Re: Big Drops in Blood sugar

I, like jesse suggested, suggested doing no walk on certain days and comparing sugar levels with days when you walk him.

Sounds like his sugar is not dropping without walks?? Could be that walks start his metabolism and then things start working properly.
If I remember, you said sugar drops a lot a couple hours after eating/insulin, with a walk. But did you check sugar 2 hours after without a walk?

If walking is the suspected trigger, you need to compare sugar levels and drops on days with a walk and different days without a walk. It's the only way you can confirm if walks is the cause of sugar changes.

Metabolism slows down as we age. And the body can react very sensitively to exercise. So bigger swings in sugar because of these 2 factors may be possible.

[Lchow022]

Re: Big Drops in Blood sugar

Thank you for helping me out!

I'll try and do the comparisons this weekend. It's hard for me to check curves until the weekend because I work 9-6 everyday .

I'm only able to take his numbers when I get home from work and that's after he's got his insulin.
The last time I checked was on the 19th. 2 hours after insulin at 8pm with no walk was around 230 (12.9) then we went for a walk and came back around 9pm and it was down to 120 (6.7).

His blood sugar has been all over the place too..since he's hurt his leg he hasn't been wanting to go for walks as much so we have to use dehydrated chicken to lure him to walk and do exercises.

[jesse girl]

Re: Big Drops in Blood sugar

Well maybe take a break from walking . This weekend would be a good time and see if numbers stay elevated with little movement or you see a curve and movement in the numbers similar to the walk or not

I would probably do the curve on Sunday at least having a couple days without a walk and possible rebound occurring from the walk

If you do end up with pretty good numbers without the walk thats probably affecting the entire curve and you will need to address the walk either by giving something sugary before or maybe find a different time to walk with less impact or you may have to reduce insulin where the walk would have less insulin for the drop during the walk

You know the walk is dropping sugar and substantially . What you want to know if this affects the entire curve and has been contributing to the spike higher

[Lchow022]

Urine test and confusion

Hi everyone,

Mochi had a blood test and urine test done. His blood test showed that there was a couple things that went up slightly like his liver enzymes and a kidney number. But it went up only slightly so my vet said he should take a urine test to see if his kidneys are ok.
The problem is he is only working part time and I got the results back for the urinalysis. It showed that everything was normal besides having a bit of glucose in his urine because he's a diabetic and that he has loss of protien in his urine.

I am too scared to look up anything on google because I'm worried it can lead me to being more anxious since I just came out of the hospital myself..
Has anyones dog had a higher number in their protein count?

[Raysaint]

Re: Urine test and confusion

Protein in urine can be temporary, or persistent. It should be tested more than once, over a period of time.

Did the vet suggest a possible kidney infection?

[Lchow022]

Re: Urine test and confusion

No..he didn't mention anything about a kidney infection.
There was one number in the kidney section (I dont remember which one) that was just slightly above normal. Then my vet told me to do a urinalysis to see if his kidney functions are ok.
His test came back with everything normal besides the high protein number which has me confused. My vet basically just texted me saying his kidneys are working fine but will have to monitor with another urine test in 3 weeks due to the high protein loss.

I've become very fixated on that number wondering what it could possibly be.

[Raysaint]

Re: Urine test and confusion

I wouldn't worry. Kidneys seem OK so protein could be a one-off.

Many times numbers that are high or low in bloodwork or urine or whatever is an anomaly caused by something related to diet or infection or something treatable.

In my own personal urinalysis over the years, there's been times my endocrinologist has said " you're spilling protein in your urine." My kidneys are ok but it indicated i had too many high sugar periods. I needed to tighten my blood sugar control a bit. And next time, 6 months later, protein levels were fine.

[Lchow022]

Re: Urine test and confusion

Thank you! I hope its nothing too. Its just worrisome how high it is. So I spoke with the vet that was going to do mochis dental work and he suggested to do another urinalysis plus a creatine level test?
Hopefully its just an infection...he wants mochi to go onto antibiotics before and after his dental work..
That is quite a bit of antibiotics so I'm quite reluctant to get his dental done..but his teeth are getting really bad.