Pancreatitis & regulating diabetes

[Emma3010]

Hi everyone I'm new to this forum! My dog Molly is a 11lb Yorkshire terrier diagnosed on 4th January with diabetes she had DKA on 8th January ended up in ER we nearly lost her and then on 24th January diagnosed with pancreatitis (cPLI test was 2000) she is on Royal Canin Low Gastro Intestinal Food weighed with boiled chicken works out at 3/4 dry food (with added water) and 1/4 boiled chicken.

We are having a huge amount of difficulty getting her regulated her BG is still very erratic being high in the morning drops until about 1pm to 18 then rises again as in high so above 30 she is currently on 6u Caninsulin twice a day she was started on 2u and we've increased slowly as per the vets now she was getting lower numbers before the pancreatitis diagnosis can pancreatitis cause elevated BG? She hasn't had a flare up with pancreatitis as of yet.

We are also feeding her three times a day as not to induce a flare up as per the vet Obviously this is a viscious circle as the second meal is not supported by insulin so I would love anyone's feedback with pancreatitis and how this can affect the BG and should I swap her to two meals or would I risk a flare up?

Thank you!

[CraigM]

Re: Pancreatitis & regulating diabetes

Welcome to you and Molly.

I don't have any experience with pancreatitis and hope one of the experts drop by.

I think you are correct that three meals can be a problem. You said the low point is around 1pm? When do you feed the second meal? Does the blood glucose seem to rise with the second meal?


Lets see what the experts have to suggest.

Craig

[MomofGus]

Re: Pancreatitis & regulating diabetes

Hello and welcome. I have not had experience with pancreatitis in my diabetic dog, but I do believe it will be difficult to regulate the glucose while being treated and healing from pancreatitis, which could take a few weeks to heal. I believe there are others here who have had this problem with their diabetic fur babies. Unfortunately diabetes and pancreatitis go hand in hand.

[Emma3010]

Re: Pancreatitis & regulating diabetes

Thanks both of you for replying her BG seems to be lowest around midday then starts climbing she is fed at 5am has insulin at 5.30am then is fed again at 11am then fed at 5pm insulin at 5.30pm we are going to try decreasing her to two meals and see how the pancreatitis reacts (although diagnosed she's not had a flare up) she's on a pretty high dose of insulin for her size she is 11lbs on 6u twice a day and although she's come down to 18 at her lowest point it then rises to very high levels in the afternoon (reads hi on glucometer so above 30) prior to the increase her lowest reading was 24 but I think the extra meal is elevating it very high and if her pancreatitis is causing the higher readings we may well have to adjust insulin again!

[jesse girl]

Re: Pancreatitis & regulating diabetes

hi and welcome

jesses experience with DKA and pancreaitis was 7 years ago so jesse is saying you can get through this. i did not think jesse would make it and actually 6 months after it was a struggle controlling her blood sugar . we used a fast acting human insulin to correct her higher sugar and gave it every 6 hours with her intermediate insulin which we gave every 12 hours . it was allot of attention and testing blood sugar at home which without doing that jesse would have not made it . it bought her some time

me and jesse traveled a different path. her vet at the time did not suggest going to more than 2 meals a day so we were on the standard 12 hour 2 meals with shots and it was not working . so me and jesse needed to come up with a plan outside of the medical community and decided to go to one meal a day the logic in my mind was to treat pancreatitis for jesse was fasting her with no food to give the pancreas a break . well i thought more meals gives no break so i thought one meal even with that being larger gave her body a break from digestion for a period of the day . now the food i give her is homemade and highly nutritious without fillers so the meal isnt that large

well she has not had an attack since that early time (knock on wood ) I cant say its her routine that has made the difference but she has done well . the key though is to not have another attack and if you see any onset you need to probably fast the dog again for maybe 24 hours and return food to the equation quite slowly its really quite brutal and dangerous complication as you already know . what your vet is doing is the normal approach but like jesse routine its hard to say if there is a benefit over just 2 meals

as far as blood sugar 6 units is a larger dose for a 11 pound dog not saying your pup may need this dose or maybe more but if you are seeing large swings in blood sugar it can point to a dose being to much even though you may have raised the dose slowly because sometimes the other complications once completely healed may need less insulin so something to be aware of

my suggestion if you are not doing it is to test blood sugar at home . just testing at the vet in your pups situation may not get the job done . remember flareups of the pancreas do happen so be aware of the symptoms to catch it early

most come though this and the odds are greatly improved with the care your already giving

[MikeMurphy]

Re: Pancreatitis & regulating diabetes

Hi and welcome to you and Molly.

My Lily had one pancreatitis attack about two years ago. The most important thing we did to prevent future attacks was to put her on a low fat diet. It looks like you have already done this, so that is good.

As jesse girl suggested, 6 units of insulin could be considered a larger dose for an 11 lb dog and if you have gone beyond the correct dose, that can cause big swings in BG.

Does Molly currently have any skin or ear infections going on? Infections can cause higher BG levels.

[amydunn19]

Re: Pancreatitis & regulating diabetes

My Maggie fought pancreatitis from a very young age - she was bitten by a copperhead when she was a little over a year old. She got a pretty severe case of pancreatitis at the time. At 7 years old, her pancreas was just done producing insulin so she was diagnosed with diabetes. She lived almost 9 years as a diabetic but she was plagued by pancreatitis. I became so familiar with it that I could actually stop a flare up before it got started most of the time. Maggie had some really bad cervical spine damage and she was in terrible pain so we let her go. It was time but I am glad to say diabetes and pancreatitis never slowed her down.

I took a totally different approach than jessegirl but it goes to show that learning what works for your dog is key. What I did may not work for you but it did for us. I fed Maggie four times a day. I did not feed her conventional type meals for all four meals. Two meals were a bit heavier(her meals with insulin) and her other meals were more like heavy snacks - dog frozen yogurt, boiled chicken, baby food, some canned food. I avoided kibble or carb heavy stuff for snacks. The point was to keep her digestion working for most of the day without overloading it. She would get sick if she went over ten hours without food. I always attributed it to small dog metabolism. They throw up bile sometimes.

I sometimes used R type insulin or fast acting, to knock down a spike. Most of the time, though, she was just on her regular insulin. The third meal you are feeding without insulin might be a bit heavy and that could be throwing you off. Also, regulation is tough when you have pancreatitis thrown in and it does take a while to heal. Regulation can take some time, even without complications. I would home test - doing this will allow you to make adjustments to insulin dosage or food.

[djs mom]

Re: Pancreatitis & regulating diabetes

i found my boy dj in 2008 running through the neighborhood so i dont know exactly how old he is, but guessing 10-11 yrs. he has hyperlipidemia, pancreatitis and diabetes. he is 15 lbs and is currently getting 9 units of novolin 2x per day. he takes fish oil tabs and recently began taking gemfibrozil. he is very active during the day, loves to bark at squirrels and go for walks. for the past week, he has been very restless at night, i keep a water bowl by the bed and we're up every couple of hours drinking lots of water, then going out to pee. his bloodwork prior to starting gemfibrozil was cholesterol 900, triglycerides 6,400! yes, 6,400!!! the gi specialist said his blood looks like a strawberry milkshake. i dont know how he is surviving with these readings, but am so glad he is, and am trying everything so he can have a good quality of life. i know you all understand, but i love him soooooo much. i call him my "therapy dog" cause he keeps me sane. the gi specialist also is recommending chitosan, but our vet is not familiar with this and is hesitating. does anypne have experience with chitosan? our next bloodwork is march 8 and im praying his numbers are better. heck, im praying he even makes it til then: