Angel Mochi December 2020

[Lchow022]

Too much protein in urine?...

Hi all...

My dog Mochi went in for a blood test and urine test. His blood work came back really good but my vet said for his urine there is excess protein in it.
So we ended up doing another urine test to focus on the protein.
He said there is quite a bit of protein in his urine so that can indicate that he's in the early stages of some kidney problems..

I am starting to worry and panic all over again...he said for me to continue doing what we were doing and in a couple of months do another urine test for him.

Has anyone experienced this with their doggies? What were your outcomes?

[Daisydog10]

Re: Too much protein in urine?...

Not sure but bumping this thread up.

[Lchow022]

Need advice..so torn

Hi everyone,

My dog mochi has bad allergies and he's been on and off Apoquel(allergy med) for the past few months. Everytime he's been on it his blood surgar raises up between 300-500. So I take him off of it and a couple days later his blood sugar goes back down. I talked to the vet about it a couple weeks ago and my vet says to play around with the dosage. So we cut his dose by half. We give him only half a pill every morning and that's it. It doesn't help with his allergies as much but it does help a tiny bit still. I took his blood sugar today and it's back up to 420..going to take a few more today so I can give the numbers back to the vet. Before taking the allergy meds his blood sugar was only at 150.

Please help and give me advice on what to do..Should I ask the vet to raise his insulin? Or should I just take him off of it?

[jesse girl]

Re: Need advice..so torn

well thats the key you have to do a curve to see if you can raise the dose and you probably need to be consistent with giving the medication for a week

its possible you may need a lower dose of insulin with the drug you dont know unless you do a complete curve and check to see how stable sugar is

[Aggie]

Re: Need advice..so torn

Winston's been on Apoquel for a long time before diabetes. I don't think you can go on and off of it, or it won't be effective. We've never been off of it so I don't know how it affects blood glucose. We are pretty close to regulation, though, so it doesn't prevent that.

If your dog cannot tolerate Apoquel, maybe there are alternatives. It's been a great thing for Winston, who went from bleeding hotspots and miserable itching to no hotspots in a few weeks.

Is Apoquel known to mess with blood sugar? I haven't seen anything about that.

[Raysaint]

Re: Too much protein in urine?...

This is pretty technical, but you can glean a few interesting bits of info and discuss with your vet.
A low protein food might be a good start.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3354822/

[Lchow022]

Re: Need advice..so torn

I did a small curve today every 3 hours starting at 12 pm. He gets his Apoquel at 630 in the morning. He's been on Apoquel for 2 weeks now. My vet told me to take this curve after he's been on it for a couple weeks.

12pm-420
3pm-306
6pm-291
930pm-280

I'm not sure what to do at this point..the vet already cut his dose of Apoquel in half. He use to take half a pill in the morning and half at night and his crazy itching wasn't as bad and his swollen paws went down. Now that he takes half the dose I notice he still gets itchy but not as bad as when he was off of it. The Apoquel does help everytime he gets put back on it. But Now the question is..should I take him off of it again because of how it raised his blood sugars?
He was pretty regulated for a while now so this concerns me that his blood sugar will stay like this if he continues with the allergy medication...

[Judi]

Re: Need advice..so torn

How much insulin are you giving? I'd just raise his dose. We had to give Jenny prednisone for awhile and I was going to raise her insulin if needed

I did a small curve today every 3 hours starting at 12 pm. He gets his Apoquel at 630 in the morning. He's been on Apoquel for 2 weeks now. My vet told me to take this curve after he's been on it for a couple weeks.

12pm-420
3pm-306
6pm-291
930pm-280

I'm not sure what to do at this point..the vet already cut his dose of Apoquel in half. He use to take half a pill in the morning and half at night and his crazy itching wasn't as bad and his swollen paws went down. Now that he takes half the dose I notice he still gets itchy but not as bad as when he was off of it. The Apoquel does help everytime he gets put back on it. But Now the question is..should I take him off of it again because of how it raised his blood sugars?
He was pretty regulated for a while now so this concerns me that his blood sugar will stay like this if he continues with the allergy medication...

[Aggie]

Re: Need advice..so torn

Yes, raise the dose slightly? Those numbers aren't awful. I think it would be more informative with numbers every 2 hours, for a 12 hour period, because it's quite possible the low point of the curve was somewhere in between those long 3 hour times. The curve is incomplete (as it also starts too late) and so it's hard to judge what to do with the insulin dose.

What were his curve numbers without the Apoquel? And how much insulin does he currently get?

[Lchow022]

Re: Need advice..so torn

He gets 4 units morning and night. My vets not in until Friday and I don't want to adjust the dose until he says to do so. My dad and I decided to take him off of the apoquel until we speak to the vet because we don't want consistent high numbers for a week. I think the numbers are higher in the morning right when he gets his pill and then when the medication dies down a bit later his blood sugar drops a bit as well?

His curve was good before he started his allergy meds again. It wasn't a full 2 hour curve but it was a every 3 hour again. All the numbers from morning to night ranged from 140-200.

My dads freaking out thinking if we raise the dose of insulin he'll become more immune to it and then he'll become insulin resistance...oh dear..He has the right to worry since we've been constantly raising his dose though..He went from 2 units to 4 units within a year..Is that common??

[Aggie]

Re: Need advice..so torn

Don't worry about being immune to insulin. He needs the correct amount to keep regulated. Yes, I believe it is common for the amount to change over time, either higher or lower.

BTW all dogs have a BG rise in the morning after eating and then it falls again because the food raises blood glucose, and the insulin has to have a little time to kick in. That is not necessarily due to the Apoquel.

[Raysaint]

Re: Need advice..so torn

Increasing insulin doesn't cause resistance. Our bodies change over the years and that affects how we metabolize things, which causes the need for more insulin. Some drugs can also cause resistance, as can other conditions.

Prednisone, an immune suppressant, (for treating dog allergies and itch) is known to be able to cause insulin resistance. Apoquel isn't a steroid like Prednisone, but because it performs a similar function (but by blocking enzymes), who knows how that affects the immune system and metabolism, so maybe Apoquel could cause resistance and higher blood sugar as a result.

"Apoquel® is the brand name of oclacitinib, an FDA approved immune suppressant drug in the Janus Kinase (JAK) inhibitor class made by Zoetis."

[amydunn19]

Re: Need advice..so torn

I think I mentioned earlier but it bears repeating. If apoquel works for Mochi, I would not hesitate to raise insulin to compensate for it. Insulin isn't harmful and the amount doesn't indicate some "worse" level of diabetes. The pancreas doesn't produce insulin anymore and it takes whatever amount of insulin that he needs. I will admit I kinda felt the same way at first - I thought more insulin meant something wasn't right and maybe I was doing something wrong. But, it isn't a bad thing - it is just necessary to maintain control.

I personally used apoquel with Maggie and it was the only thing that stopped her out of control itching. So, for me the risks or any side effects were worth it because I had to give her some quality to her life. And being miserable with itching to the point of harming herself was just not acceptable to me. Now, if apoquel doesn't work, it may not be worth changing things up. That is something you have to weigh. But don't let increasing insulin stop you from making his life better.

[Raysaint]

Re: Need advice..so torn

I'm with amydunn, you need what you need. I've been given prescription drugs before and my doctor told me it might mess up my control. So I check myself over 2 or 3 days to see if the mess up is consistent, then adjust my dose to get back to normal. You gotta keep balancing that equation.

[Lchow022]

Help!! Just noticed my dogs skin color on the back of his leg is dark!

Does anyone know why our dogs skin color might be darker? My dad and I just noticed that our dogs back legs are darker.

Around his butt area and his thighs..it's quite darker than the rest of his skin...can it be anything serious?!

-lina