Diet Change Advice

[StarvedArtist]

Re: Diet Change Advice

So is it normal for a dogs BG to go up after a meal before the insulin starts taking affect? I have actually never done a curve on Chinook because my vet has never told me to. I’ve done so much research lately and I felt like he needed a curve to see how his body was handling the insulin. His BG jumps like 100 points up before his insulin starts bringing it down.

I love love love my specialist that he goes to and she has like 20 diabetic patients and has treated over 100 in her time as a specialist so I know she knows how to handle diabetic patients but I just feel like there’s some steps missing with caring for Chinook. She tells me it’s okay if his BG is staying in the 300-500 range as long as it’s stable but he has lost 4.5 lbs since being diagnosed. I read that when Bg is that high, the body burns the fat and that’s why he is losing so much weight. He definitely needed to lose the weight with his arthritis in his legs and he just acts like a completely new dog but I don’t want him to continue losing down to nothingness. He really doesn’t need to lose anymore weight now.

Should I be asking about switching to an insulin that works quicker than Vetsulin? This is his curve. High numbers are normal for him right now. I have only seen him in the 100’s like once in the past few months and the 200’s are just very few and far in between. I had given him 5 units the last few days because my vet said to go down a tad with giving a new food. Which his lowest was only 315 so I went ahead and went up to 6 units starting today. I’m gonna stay keeping an eye on it and I know to not change it for days but his bg 2 hours after his meal this morning is back up like 100 points from before he ate.

9:15AM: 365
11:15AM: 459
1:15PM: 344
3:15PM: 315
5:15PM: 391
7:15PM: 550
9:15PM: 558(checked and fed a little before 9:15)

Sorry for my rambling. Just trying to get some advice on what to do because I know the vet will help some but I have to advocate for my dog and speak up when I think he needs something more or changed. I’m learning as much about dog diabetes As fast as I can lol

[k9diabetes]

Re: Diet Change Advice

It looks like you aren't getting 12 hours out of the Vetsulin. And certainly the dose needs to go up. There's no reason to leave a dog's blood sugar in this high of a range. Overall, it's a reasonably flat curve the I would expect an increase in dose to bring down all of the numbers.

It's unfortunate that the veterinary community has moved away from curves. Trends come and go and curves have gone in and out of fashion, but I regulated my dog myself using curves and a home meter and I still think it is the best way to monitor at home.

Food makes a big difference in generating spikes like you're seeing after a meal. Anything that's very quickly digested (usually carbs but can be other things as well - varies dog to dog) will spike the blood sugar quickly.

With new food and an increase in insulin dose I would let everything sit as is for now and monitor for four or five days. It's not uncommon for both food changes and a dose increase to change the shape of the curve. So wait and see what 6 units does before considering any more changes.

Natalie

[k9diabetes]

Re: Diet Change Advice

At one point, our dog was treated by the guy who wrote the book your vet uses for endocrinology. That's unfortunate because he was useless.

Can your dog survive with blood sugar never below 300... probably yes. But not thrive. Why not go for the best regulation that's safely possible?

You don't need "normal" blood sugar for your dog to do well but if that was achievable, that's what I'd want...

Generally, if you can keep the blood sugar in the 100s and 200s, that's excellent. That also mostly keeps sugar out of the urine, which can cause infections.

Once you're pretty much settled on an insulin dose and a diet, you can use your curves to see where tweaking might be needed. Timing of food and injections, digestibility of food can be varied.

But say you wound up with with blood sugar starting at 180-200 and spiking to 300 for an hour or two. That wouldn't be a problem for me. The overall range is more important.

The flatter you can get the curve, the tighter the regulation can be.

If you haven't seen these yet, take a look:

https://www.k9diabetes.com/insulinfood.html

https://www.k9diabetes.com/regulated.html

Natalie

[StarvedArtist]

Re: Diet Change Advice

At one point, our dog was treated by the guy who wrote the book your vet uses for endocrinology. That's unfortunate because he was useless.

Can your dog survive with blood sugar never below 300... probably yes. But not thrive. Why not go for the best regulation that's safely possible?

You don't need "normal" blood sugar for your dog to do well but if that was achievable, that's what I'd want...

Generally, if you can keep the blood sugar in the 100s and 200s, that's excellent. That also mostly keeps sugar out of the urine, which can cause infections.

Once you're pretty much settled on an insulin dose and a diet, you can use your curves to see where tweaking might be needed. Timing of food and injections, digestibility of food can be varied.

But say you wound up with with blood sugar starting at 180-200 and spiking to 300 for an hour or two. That wouldn't be a problem for me. The overall range is more important.

The flatter you can get the curve, the tighter the regulation can be.

If you haven't seen these yet, take a look:

https://www.k9diabetes.com/insulinfood.html

https://www.k9diabetes.com/regulated.html

Natalie

Thank you for all the info! I’ll monitor and see how the BG does this week with 6 units and I’ll read over the links you sent.

[MomtoMax]

Re: Diet Change Advice

Just curious, what version of THK did you go with? Whenever I open the box, the smell of real food hits me and makes me hungry – wait, it is real food!
I’m glad to hear your pup is loving it! Max loves it too, but again, he’s a Corgi and would eat garbage if I put it in front of him…
Donna