Hi All,
I just joined after reading posts for several weeks. I will leave out previous medical adventures and skip forward to explain our most recent excitement. Our 4 year old Golden Ret-mix Daisy had a grade two mass cell tumor removed a little over a year ago. Even though the vet got good margins around the tumor, we went the extra mile with radiation therapy and *another* extra mile after that with 10 weeks of Prednisone "just to make sure we got it" in the words of the oncologist. The oncologist forgot to mention the possible side effect of Prednisone was that it might leave the dog with type 1 daibetes. After we figured that out, our vet put our 100 lb Golden retriever on Vetsulin. I am very close with my nephew who has been a type 1 daibetic since early grade school, so we were not discouraged at all by this new challenge. We've got many meters and count carbs, etc. We had a lot of trouble with the Vetsulin, and finally got things under control after switching to Novalin-N bought at Wallmart. I personally felt my vet took too long to give in and support this idea. 5 weeks ago, I figured out my dog Daisy was having big time vision problems, and took her to the vet. The vet said "oh yea, many dogs that turn diabetic will go blind from cataracts within a couple years. He showed me the cataracts in Daisy's eyes. He told me we should just let it mature and if we wanted to, then we could look into removal of the cataract lens in each eye. This opinion differed from many that my wife found on the net suggesting that infections and inflamation can result when you let cataracts "over ripen" in a diabetic dog. Not wanting to take a chance with our baby Daisy, we had her examined at a University Vet School, and they said we should do the surgery now to avoid complications often associated with over-mature cataracts. The lens replacement surgery was done 3 days ago, and we are in the midst adjusting insulin to counter the effects of steriods that we *must* use for at least a few weeks. Some probably forever in low dosages. I can feel the love on this list. Real pet owners "get it" when it comes to returning the unconditional love they get from their dogs. I gave my vet an insulin curve graph of 72 hrs in 2-4 hr intervals and he thought I was a total whack-job. Dogs are family. I laugh when I think how much more my dog's medical care has cost than any car I've ever owned. I don't regret that one bit. Cars don't love me! My wife and I love our dogs & cats. Well, lots of love here. Just checking in. Hope I can help in some small way. Mikey
I just joined after reading posts for several weeks. I will leave out previous medical adventures and skip forward to explain our most recent excitement. Our 4 year old Golden Ret-mix Daisy had a grade two mass cell tumor removed a little over a year ago. Even though the vet got good margins around the tumor, we went the extra mile with radiation therapy and *another* extra mile after that with 10 weeks of Prednisone "just to make sure we got it" in the words of the oncologist. The oncologist forgot to mention the possible side effect of Prednisone was that it might leave the dog with type 1 daibetes. After we figured that out, our vet put our 100 lb Golden retriever on Vetsulin. I am very close with my nephew who has been a type 1 daibetic since early grade school, so we were not discouraged at all by this new challenge. We've got many meters and count carbs, etc. We had a lot of trouble with the Vetsulin, and finally got things under control after switching to Novalin-N bought at Wallmart. I personally felt my vet took too long to give in and support this idea. 5 weeks ago, I figured out my dog Daisy was having big time vision problems, and took her to the vet. The vet said "oh yea, many dogs that turn diabetic will go blind from cataracts within a couple years. He showed me the cataracts in Daisy's eyes. He told me we should just let it mature and if we wanted to, then we could look into removal of the cataract lens in each eye. This opinion differed from many that my wife found on the net suggesting that infections and inflamation can result when you let cataracts "over ripen" in a diabetic dog. Not wanting to take a chance with our baby Daisy, we had her examined at a University Vet School, and they said we should do the surgery now to avoid complications often associated with over-mature cataracts. The lens replacement surgery was done 3 days ago, and we are in the midst adjusting insulin to counter the effects of steriods that we *must* use for at least a few weeks. Some probably forever in low dosages. I can feel the love on this list. Real pet owners "get it" when it comes to returning the unconditional love they get from their dogs. I gave my vet an insulin curve graph of 72 hrs in 2-4 hr intervals and he thought I was a total whack-job. Dogs are family. I laugh when I think how much more my dog's medical care has cost than any car I've ever owned. I don't regret that one bit. Cars don't love me! My wife and I love our dogs & cats. Well, lots of love here. Just checking in. Hope I can help in some small way. Mikey
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