My dog has been diagnosed with diabetes today

[Brunneria]

@phil1966

Just 'hugged' your last post. Obviously, she gets half of that hug!

Good luck with this, but at Bluetit says, you are in a better place than most to understand what you are doing, and why.
I hope you have many years with her as a well controlled diabetic.

 

[Resurgam]

Hi, So sorry to hear about your Border Collie, Issabella, it isn't easy I know as my cat (17 years old) was diagnosed with diabetes last October and it has taken 7 months to get his bg under control. I took him to the vet today and his bg is 5.7 which is the best it has been since diagnosis. He was initially on a low carb diet (Hills prescription diet), but got pancreatitis on Boxing Day and spent 2 and a half day in the vet hospital, so they had to change his diet to a light chicken and rice receipe (Hills) so that it was easier to digest and reduce the chance of him getting pancreatitis again.


Take care

Marilyn

Cats are obligate carnivores - there should be no rice in their food, nor any sort of carbohydrate for that matter. Dogs are fairly omnivorous, but they were never designed to eat large amounts of carbs, they should be eating mostly meat - fatty meat. It can be cooked or raw - I always boiled the things I got from the butcher to kill off anything nasty. Feeding the wrong foods to animals is just wrong - look at the problems with cattle and BSE from sheep offal.

 

[Erin]

Wishing you the best of care you get for Issabella. It's so sad when animals get serious illnesses. The insulin treatment must require delicate work. As for the money, is it possible to compare Vet clinics? When our cats had to be treated our neighbour suggested to go to the Vet hospital connected with the SPCA for example. Best of luck and I'm sure you will give her the best of care.

 

[phil1966]

@phil1966

Just 'hugged' your last post. Obviously, she gets half of that hug!

Good luck with this, but at Bluetit says, you are in a better place than most to understand what you are doing, and why.
I hope you have many years with her as a well controlled diabetic.

Thanks, @Brunneria - She's definitely going to be a well controlled diabetic

 

[Pinkorchid]

Do you have pet insurance, most policies will cover you for conditions like diabetes.

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Most pet insurance is taken out for a year at a time and only covers a new ongoing illness until the policy expires so even if you renew the policy it will not cover treatment for that illness again unless maybe if you have the highest level of pet insurance cover which can be very expensive. No other insurance company will cover it if you take out a policy with them because it is a pre existing condition

 

[kentish maid]

my daughters dog had diabetes she developed cateracts had those removed and lived for 10 yrs with diabetes died at 15 years old we miss her very much she was worth every penny we had to spend one her.

 

[Jaylee]

Resurrecting this thread as one of our dogs has just been diagnosed with diabetes. We were pretty sure she had it as she started drinking loads and waking us up about 3:00am to go to the loo.
She has to spend a day at the vets tomorrow where they determine her "glucose curve" and insulin dose and after that she'll be on twice daily insulin injections. She's a pretty hardly little dog (didn't even flinch when the vet took a blood sample from her neck), so I'm sure she'll take it all in her stride

Fortunately, we've got pet insurance which will cover 80% of the monthly cost

Here's a picture of her looking as cute as ever

View attachment 21475

Cute dog. Stick at it with the hound.
Incidentally my old boss had a diabetic Jack Russell many years ago. He knew nothing of diabetes. Lucky I did!
One of the craziest things I've ever seen is a hypoglycemic dog trying to coordinate four legs & nose diving into her water bowl..

They ain't much different to us.. It knew it needed to eat.. & pointing at the right bowl.

 

[noblehead]

\
Most pet insurance is taken out for a year at a time and only covers a new ongoing illness until the policy expires so even if you renew the policy it will not cover treatment for that illness again unless maybe if you have the highest level of pet insurance cover which can be very expensive. No other insurance company will cover it if you take out a policy with them because it is a pre existing condition

@Pinkorchid , our dog insurance is a lifetime policy, meaning if the dog was diagnosed with a life-long condition like diabetes the policy would cover the cost of the treatment throughout the dogs life, however you do have to keep renewing the policy with the same insurance company and its not transferable.

 

[phil1966]

As an update - she's at the vets today having her insulin requirements determined. She had a full blood test yesterday which showed a blood glucose level of 24.9(!) but fortunately there are no other issues
our insurers have confirmed coverage - up to £4,000 a year for her diabetes with no overall lifetime cap and they cover 80% of the costs, paying out monthly. We've already spent over £200 on the tests and consultations so I'm glad we've got insurance!

 

[Bluetit1802]

My goodness, that's high! And I was panicking when Ness was 7.5!

Great that you have lifetime cover for chronic conditions. (same as us), worth it for the peace of mind.

 

[phil1966]

My goodness, that's high! And I was panicking when Ness was 7.5!

Great that you have lifetime cover for chronic conditions. (same as us), worth it for the peace of mind.

Yeah, it was very high - Weirdly, that's exactly the same blood sugar reading I had when I was first diagnosed (I thought owners were supposed to become like their pets, not the other way around )

It's definitely worth having the lifetime cover - I think it was only about £5 a month more to get the top level of insurance and, looking back, that's definitely been money well spent

 

[Jaylee]

As an update - she's at the vets today having her insulin requirements determined. She had a full blood test yesterday which showed a blood glucose level of 24.9(!) but fortunately there are no other issues
our insurers have confirmed coverage - up to £4,000 a year for her diabetes with no overall lifetime cap and they cover 80% of the costs, paying out monthly. We've already spent over £200 on the tests and consultations so I'm glad we've got insurance!

Question. Is it possible to test a dog's blood sugar levels with a "home kit" these days? We're talking 25to 30 years ago with my old bosses dog & he had to chase the animal around the garden with a pee strip!

 

[phil1966]

Question. Is it possible to test a dog's blood sugar levels with a "home kit" these days? We're talking 25to 30 years ago with my old bosses dog & he had to chase the animal around the garden with a pee strip!

Yeah, you just take a drop from their ear and use a normal meter. Apparently you can get dog specific blood glucose meters but that's more marketing than anything

 

[phil1966]

Just as an update - the vets' finished the monitoring today but there's still a fair bit of testing to do as her blood didn't come down as much or as quickly as it should (high was 28 and it didn't come down below 14: should be between 4 and 8 for dogs)
We're starting on 6 units of insulin twice a day with regular monitoring for a week and hopefully we'll see some improvement over that week: if not, her insulin dose will be increased

Fortunately, she's a very good patient and didn't flinch at either the lancet in her ear or the injection

 

[Jaylee]

Just as an update - the vets' finished the monitoring today but there's still a fair bit of testing to do as her blood didn't come down as much or as quickly as it should (high was 28 and it didn't come down below 14: should be between 4 and 8 for dogs)
We're starting on 6 units of insulin twice a day with regular monitoring for a week and hopefully we'll see some improvement over that week: if not, her insulin dose will be increased

Fortunately, she's a very good patient and didn't flinch at either the lancet in her ear or the injection

What are they feeding her..? I know it was many years back with my experience. But you'll be surprised that they throw a fair bit of carbs in dog food... (As a filler.)

 

[phil1966]

What are they feeding her..? I know it was many years back with my experience. But you'll be surprised that they throw a fair bit of carbs in dog food... (As a filler.)

They're currently recommending keeping her on her normal food which is a canned food with a (relatively) low carb content (around 12%) - dried food contains up to 70% carbs!
We may have to alter her diet depending on how she reacts to the insulin but I'm very wary of "diabetic" food for dogs (as I am for humans) as it looks like the main feature of it is a higher price tag!

 

[AtkinsMo]

I saw this yesterday, so when I read this thread, I thought of you! It's actually a link to Marikaa Sboros' page, but it's a report about a man who has written a low carb book (I guess) for dogs. From that page there are links to his page / book. And the lower you can get the carb intake, the less insulin you'll have to buy, the fewer possibilities of errors, just like Dr Bernstein's 'Law of small numbers'.

Good luck.

http://foodmed.net/2016/12/30/schulof-science-beat-canine-obesity/

 

[phil1966]

I saw this yesterday, so when I read this thread, I thought of you! It's actually a link to Marikaa Sboros' page, but it's a report about a man who has written a low carb book (I guess) for dogs. From that page there are links to his page / book. And the lower you can get the carb intake, the less insulin you'll have to buy, the fewer possibilities of errors, just like Dr Bernstein's 'Law of small numbers'.

Good luck.

http://foodmed.net/2016/12/30/schulof-science-beat-canine-obesity/

Thanks for that - I'll have a read