Diabetic Dog - questions

[max&emmasmommie]

Hi, everyone. My petsitter texted me yesterday and said she has a client with a diabetic dog who keeps needing more and more insulin. I took a look at the www.k9diabetes.org website, and I want to refer them to it. However, I'd like to give them a little advice in using it. It looks very different than this site, though, so my advice in using this site won't do. Can someone with a diabetic dog answer a few questions?

1. This dog is all ready going blind from cataracts. I want these poor people to be able to cut to the chase as they are short on time. (I'm also wondering if that means he's not going to be possible to regulate). Which pages should they look at first?
2. They are feeding the dog Prescription Diet WD and giving him chicken baby food as a treat at shot time. Is this prescription food bad? Which foods are better? I have looked on the k9 site, and there are 19 pages of what are essentially profiles of dogs showing what they are being fed, but I don't see anything indicating what is best, better or worst, worse. Of course, I'm not registered there -- maybe I would find better info if I were, but I'm not intending to register -- just want to know if there is particular page on the site these people should go to first for food options.
3. The dog is 9 years old, but I don't know anything else about him. The family has 5 kids. So, I assume money is an issue.
4. I have offered to help them learn to test and do curves at home. That's about all I can do as I don't want to accidentally give them bad advice.

Any advice or direction on where they should look for help would be very appreciated!

 

[Squeaky and KT (GA)]

Dale,
PM 'kse' (Kim/Kitty-GA)....she has a diabetic dog, Sally. I agree, the K9diabetes site isn't very well organized compared to our site here - we're SO lucky we have so many wonderful people!

HUGS!!!

 

[Hope + (((Baby)))GA]

Dale, I sent you a PM with a phone number of a long time member of K9 diabetes site. She'll help you and your friend. She's having carpet installed today so she probably won't be able to do much till tomorrow but she did get right back to me today.

 

[max&emmasmommie]

Hope, thank you! I sent the email address to my pet sitter.

Lyresa, thank you, too. I'll PM her. I'm hopeful that vets are better at taking care of diabetic dogs, and that is why the k9 site doesn't need to be as intense. Dog insulin has been made for a longer time, and although it's not available any longer, at least dog diabetes has been a more familiar issue for the vets.

 

[k9diabetes]

Hi!

I am the administrator of the K9Diabetes website... (which I think is well organized - it's just that canine and feline diabetes are different in a number of ways, such as diet is not as important a part of regulation and there is no going without injected insulin). The site is http://www.k9diabetes.com and the forum, which I think works pretty much the same as this one, is http://www.k9diabetes.com/forum.

There are a number of informational pages on the main website that discuss diabetes and regulation in dogs in general.

I would be happy to help personally with the petsetter's client (my email is k9diabetes@gmail.com - I hand it out like candy and it's easy to find other ways so no need to protect it from public forums) and there is also a wonderful bunch of folks at the forum who would be happy to help.

A few quick responses regarding the information presented so far...

Cataracts in diabetic dogs are very common - I'd guess three quarters of diabetic dogs eventually develop them. They come from a sustained period of poor regulation but have no bearing on whether or not the dog "can" be regulated. Often it took so long for the diabetes to be recognized that the cataracts were already past the point of no return when insulin was started.

Diabetic dogs tend to do really well on Science Diet WD. Dogs are like Type 1 diabetic people - their diabetes is completely unrelated to their diet. They lose the ability to produce insulin ever again, so the food then is matched not to preventing diabetes or putting it into remission but in matching the action of the insulin in a dog's body. And a lot of dogs process insulins fast enough that they really need some carbohydrates in their diets to avoid having a sharp drop in blood sugar in the first couple of hours after a meal and injection.

So I wouldn't be in any rush to change the diet. I would put all time and energy right now into working on getting the insulin dose worked out and matched to the current diet. Once that's done, if they want to eventually change diets, they will have the experience they need to do it.

Dogs also use insulins differently than cats. They tend to do best on intermediate insulins like Caninsulin and NPH. Some are starting to use Levemir, but like most insulin products, the results have been highly variable, great for some and not good at all for others.

I could hazard a guess about the reasons for the insulin requirement continuing to rise based on the dog's weight, diet, and units of insulin per injection, number of injections per day. Considering all the usual suspects - some dogs are started on ridiculously low doses or only once a day (they virtually always need twice daily injections even with Levemir), the right dose was bypassed and the dog is rebounding, or there is another health issue such as Cushing's disease or thyroid problems that are making the dog resistant. It's also possible, if the blood sugar has been high for a long time, that the dog is temporarily resistant to insulin but will break through that resistance with enough insulin.

So please do send that person my or our way! We can help!

Natalie

 

[max&emmasmommie]

Natalie,

Thank you! (And thank you to Hope for highlighting this post in a message to me!) I gave your email address to Fawn, and I hope the family contacts you. I also gave her the address of the website.

That is really good to hear that diet is not the problem. (Maybe that is why vets are often unaware that it is an issue for cats to have carbs -- they are afraid of hypos if there are no carbs in the food!)

I am also relieved to hear that blindness does not mean the dog is severely damaged. I did make it clear to Fawn, my pet sitter (isn't that a great name for a pet sitter?!) that diabetes in dogs means insulin is absolutely necessary in all cases and that I'm not even following a "natural" treatment for my cat's diabetes. (She thought I might have found a natural treatment when I stopped using insulin! I wish there was one, but alas, no -- well, except that for some cats diet is the answer.)

I understand from the website that sometimes a dog will go through a short honeymoon period which can result in hypos if there insulin on board, but no testing going on. I really hope they are testing or contact me or you for help with that!

By the way, I didn't think there was an organizational problem with the site. I think anyone without a medical degree is likely to be overwhelmed and have trouble absorbing so much information in the beginning; it's just the way it is, but I was hopeful that a few pointers would make the process easier for them. I think we all feel for the newbies as we have been through that uncertain, confusing, and extremely scary time. Your overview is great, but, of course, I was coming at the information from the point of view of a cat's mommie, and I wanted to be sure that the prescription diet industry wasn't making as much of a mess with dogs' food as they do for cats' food.)

Thank you; thank you; thank you!

 

[kse]

I responded to your PM and will be glad to assist in any way that I can, though Natalie would be a much better contact!

I do find that feline diabetes and canine diabetes are very different, but both are manageable. Good Luck!

I joined the K-9 site also, there is a lot of information there. I use NPH and feed Science Diet WD, like Natalie suggested.

My Dog, Sally, is on a pretty low dose of insulin. I hometest her -- before every injection and do periodic curves when I see a large variation in her preshots. She has been dx diabetic for about 10 months and has no indication of cataracts and seems to be doing well.

Once again, Good Luck and please let me know if I can help.

Kim