Hypernatraemia

Status
Not open for further replies.
Jenny and Fennec

Jenny and Fennec

Member Since 2015
We took Fennec to the emergency vet last night because his blood sugars were consistently high and he became very flat and lethargic. I think his morning shot may have been a fur shot, so his evening shot had too much work to do.

They did a full blood panel and found that he was responding, finally, to the evening shot (this was at +3 hours), but also found his sodium levels were dangerously high. They think it's been building up for a while- the vet said if it had been a sudden jump to that level he would have had seizures. They've kept him in on a careful IV fluid regime to bring him down, and I'm collecting him and taking him back to our vet this morning.

The vet last night wasn't sure of the cause but a bit of searching has brought up a wikipedia page which says this can be a severe complication of uncontrolled diabetes, and we have struggled to bring Fennec's numbers down. He had a bad day yesterday (Weds) on top of a really bad day last Friday, and a fairly bad day on Monday. Has anyone else come across this?
 
Hi Jenny, I don't know anything about the sodium thing, but I've followed your other post and I hope now that you have him on the right insulin & it isn't being diluted, you'll be able to get Fennec's diabetes under control. I also saw that he's suffering from herpes virus. Have you tried Lysine for that?
 
Hi, thanks for asking. He's back home now- his sodium level came down with some IV fluids overnight. The vet last night was full of doom and gloom, saying it would take days to get it down, so I was very pleasantly surprised and glad to have him home. However, he's had no insulin since last night and when I checked him at home he was down at 4.3! An hour later he had come up to 8.1, but he's not getting any insulin until tonight. We're really not sure what's going on!

We're not going to treat the herpes just yet. I know it's a bit chicken and egg, but I'm hoping that his body will get on top of the virus as we get on top of his blood sugar. His eyes are already back to normal, fingers crossed the nose will improve soon!
 
I thought that, due to his high blood sugars, he might be dehydrated (and in DKA) but the vet thought he was ok. His kidney and liver function were fine as well. His urea was up a bit but nothing to worry about, according to the vet. We're to get his electrolytes checked either tomorrow or Saturday at our own vet.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top