Eddie Bear, RIP

[Blackjack'smom]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

I did not give the B12, just the herb. But,honestly I don't know if it was the herb that really helped. I hope he continues to improve like my boy did..those little things mean a lot!

[Rubytuesday]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

Very excited for you that you may be seeing some improvement. I will send along good healing vibes.

You were very right not to give any more insulin to try to correct this mornings partial dose.

Tara

[Eddie]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

Sadly we don't seem to be doing quite so well today. Eddie's legs seem more wobbly and he is extremely lethargic. Apart from going outside to toilet every few hours, and eating, he has slept all day.
He is alert, and will look up if we rattle a treat box etc, but otherwise he just looks exhausted and stretches out on his bed.
The vet says that this is not normal for diabetes and so he is convinced that something else is going on, possibly a tumour on his pancreas. Last time he had a scan, his pancreas looked "denser" than it should but the vet could not say why.
I wondered if anyone else's dogs had suffered this sort of extreme tiredness, especially early on in the process (only 3 weeks since diagnosis).
Thanks
Antonia

[jesse girl]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

jesse was extremely lethargic i would take her out for drives to look for rabbits i would find one and she would get up and look than lay back down

it was difficult to see her like that and really it lasted 6 months and i did not think there was much hope for here at the time but tried to get her out to do the things she likes even if her interest was low

i thought possible she had a reaction to insulin because she was most lethargic at shot time and she felt her best at maybe hour 10 after shot

i ended up giving her 3 dose of insulin for the day which made the dose smaller at shot time so my thought was maybe there would be less of a reaction if she did have a negative response to insulin we also switched to one meal a day

over time she got a bit better every day sometimes a backward trend but she would bounce back she also has epilepsy also and actually that seems a bit better.

if you do have big swings in blood sugar that can definitely not feel good for your pup so thats more of the common reason and once that stabilizes they feel better

so you have to put on your detective cap try things one at a time small in nature and if you see some positive results continue remember they may take that 2 steps back and that is expected so give it some time to evaluate on whether it is successful

we tried many things with jesse how we ended up where we are today was small steps forward and each small success was a piece of the puzzle which gave us a direction forward

[momofdecker]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

Sadly we don't seem to be doing quite so well today. Eddie's legs seem more wobbly and he is extremely lethargic. Apart from going outside to toilet every few hours, and eating, he has slept all day.
He is alert, and will look up if we rattle a treat box etc, but otherwise he just looks exhausted and stretches out on his bed.
The vet says that this is not normal for diabetes and so he is convinced that something else is going on, possibly a tumour on his pancreas. Last time he had a scan, his pancreas looked "denser" than it should but the vet could not say why.
I wondered if anyone else's dogs had suffered this sort of extreme tiredness, especially early on in the process (only 3 weeks since diagnosis).
Thanks
Antonia

Antonia -
Decker suffered from extreme tiredness. His vet claimed it was because of his persistently elevated bg (ran 300-600 from Dec 2011 to May 2012). But having the benefit of seeing him everyday we knew that was not true. We just had no idea what the cause may be. His energy level, as long as his bg was not bouncing around, from Dec to March was good to great. In March we noticed he would tire easily. By May, despite his bg finally reaching regulation range numbers, his energy level took a nose dive. Decker is hypothyroid. His main symptoms were high cholesterol and lethargic behavior. Both could also be explained by his uncontrolled diabetes.

Looking back, there were some additional clues that may have pointed to his hypothyroidism earlier:

• Decker had initially lost weight at diagnosis but by January his weight held steady despite his bg being uncontrolled for months. Most uncontrolled diabetics lose weight.

• There was a patch of fur on his scruff area that was shaved by his diagnosing vet in Nov. 2011. We knew loss of fur was a symptom but didn't learn till afterwards that lack of fur regrowth is also a symptom. That patch of fur never grew in.

• His bg did better in warmer temps. Cold intolerance is a symptom of hypothyroidism but what goes unsaid a lot of the time is that heat seeking behavior is a sign of cold intolerance. With thick black fur, Decker would lay directly in the sun on 80+ degree days.

• In March Decker had a nasty infection on his belly area that was never able to be explained.

• In May he had an eye infection that was originally thought to be Horner's but likely was uveitis.

• There may be signs on a CBC (blood panel) as well. Low white blood cell count. Low red blood cell count. Low hemoglobin. Anemia. High cholesterol (and high triglycerides, with the cholesterol being the higher of the two).

• Decker had on/off again leg weakness. I'm still not entirely convinced his neurological challenges don't all relate back to his hypothyroidism.

• Decker's lethargic behavior & exercise intolerance was likely a result of his low thyroid levels possibly complicated by his uncontrolled diabetes.

Decker was also tested by way of UC:CR for cushings. The results from the UC:CR make it highly unlikely that he has cushings. He was tested for fasting lipid levels and had a cholesterol value of 1055 and triglyceride value of 383. Both more than double the high range of what they should have been. Decker was also suffering from chronic pancreatitis, likely caused by his high lipid levels. The combination of all he had going on was likely the reason he was so difficult to regulate.

There could be many other concurrent things that also cause lethargic behavior in dogs. Sounds like you've been doing a great job of keeping your vet up to date with your observations and that is one of the best things you can do! Hope you are able to find some answers and that Eddie's rear legs regain their strength soon. Holli

[Blackjack'smom]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

I remember one Saturday shortly after Blackjack's diagnosis, that I had worked and upon returning home, my husband informed me that Blackjack had hardly moved from the one spot he was laying in all day. He would go out (he was outside most of they day) and help him change positions a bit, but he was not interested at all in moving around much.I was so worried that day about the possibilty that he woud not get any better. We were so concerned that we made a trip that evening to our local emergency clinic. The vet there actually gave us more encouragement than we had gotten from our regulart vet about his weak back legs,etc. Our regular vet too had mentioned that we might be dealing with a tumor somewhere in the GI tract...he had the Stim test to rule out Cushings, as well. Those days were very tough, as you sometimes had to physically make him move,etc. There was a period of about three weeks when I brought his food and water to him each time, as he did not stand long enough to eat from his bowl in the stand I hope that this is just a temporary set back for you..

[Blackjack'smom]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

I hope that you are seeing some improvement today with Eddie.

[Eddie]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

Hello and thanks once again for the replies, which have again given me lots to think about.

Today Eddie seems marginally better (thanks for asking Donna!). We're noticing very small things like him wanting to stay outside a while instead of just heading straight back into his bed, carrying his ball around a little,and having a bit of a wash instead of lying flat out on his side. He is still very wobbly and weak but seems to be in better spirits and his tail was wagging a lot more than yesterday.

Holli - I've read a bit about hypothyroidism and as far as I can tell, he has few of the symptoms apart from the extreme tiredness. He had his tummy shaved for a scan 2 weeks ago and I have noticed how nicely it is growing back already. I will ask the vet if they have checked his cholesterol. They have done blood tests but I do not know exactly what has been checked.

At the moment he seems to be following roughly the patterns described for Blackjack and Jesse so I still think it is likely to be all connected to the bg levels. I am encouraged by Blackjack's and Jesse's stories especially what you say about having setbacks along the way and that improvement may take quite a time.

The vet has suggested increasing the insulin dose to 12 (from 10) but from what you all say, we should go slower than that and increase it very gradually.
Thank you all very much for all your replies.
Antonia

[jesse girl]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

with raising the dose you do want to pay attention how they feel usually if they are feeling better your probably going in the wright direction if after a dose increase you see your pup to be more lethargic after a few days there maybe a problem with the dose

numbers are great for information but does not tell the whole story

hollis decker was a good example of raising the dose with not feeling very well which pointed to to much insulin

it great you are in tune with your pup it will be helpful in pointing you in the wright direction

i am not a fan of moving to fast unless things have become more desperate we went that direction early on which led to problems

[momofdecker]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

I agree that hypothyroidism is unlikely in Eddie given his weight loss along with the way he has been responding nicely to the insulin. Just put it out there as an example.

If your instinct says there is more to the lethargic behavior than just elevated bg - keep your eyes open and note even the seemingly insignificant things. You never know, when looking at them as a big picture they may end up providing a clue to something else that may be going on.

You are doing a great job with him! Still hoping his legs come around for you and that his bg stabilizes in a good range soon.

[Eddie]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

Today Eddie seems to be showing a slight improvement again, though only after a very bad start in the morning when he collapsed on the floor and I wasn't sure that he was going to be able to get up at all.
Once he got going, he became a lot steadier and he has been more interested in going out when the other dogs go out. Each outing (only a max of about 15 yards walk from the house and back again) does tire him out a lot still and he spends a lot of time sleeping.
We decided to increase his insulin just by 0.25 so he's on 10.25 with a view to increasing slowly up to 11.
We are using Diastix provided by the vet so have a very rough idea of his sugar level trends through the day - the actual numbers seem to bear little relation to his actual bg figures but I hope they might flag if his levels change radically.
His appetite is very good and I'm hoping that when we weigh him next week he might perhaps have slowed or even stopped the weight loss.

[Eddie]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

As a PS to my earlier post we have just done a Diastix check on Eddie and found that it is much lower than all the others we have done over the last week (we have been doing 5 per day). They have all previously been ranging between 250-600 on the Diastix scale but we have just had one at less than 100 (stick hardly changed colour). He's not behaving any differently to normal.

The vet says it's ok and we should just give him his tea and a slightly reduced insulin dose(8 units instead of 10.25). She says it is probably just the pancreas getting going a bit now that it's had the help of the injected insulin (what is called "honeymooning"?).

[Rubytuesday]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

Oh, the change on the diastix would make me nervous. With as weak as Eddie is he doesn't need a set back of going too low.

I have seen you post to Jenny asking for a reliable brand of meter in your area. She may not have seen your question, but if you private message her it should go right to her email and she won't need to be on the forum to receive it.

The reason the diastix are not good in this situation is that if the body senses the BGs getting too low they might shoot out stored glucose then spike the BGs. It is a body saving mechanism that some dog's do better then others, and some dog's not at all. The diastix only give you an average BG since the last time the dog has urinated. In any reading there could be lows and highs mixed in.

True that he could be honeymooning, but if that is the case you want to be able to adjust his insulin accordingly.

We seem to be a different breed then I think most vets are used to dealing with in that we are willing to monitor and adjust insulin to a larger extent then most vets give us credit for.

For whatever reason, honeymooning or a now too large dose, I would want to see what is going on with a meter. His strength just seems so precarious.

Tara

[jenny]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

Hi' have sen you a pm with more info on the BG machine I am using. Sorry so short, but having to use a stupid phone keyboard xxxx

[jenny]

Re: Eddie - leg weakness/ neuropathy

Hi Antonia,
Sorry about last nights garbled messages, I was in bed and trying to answer you on a phone and kept going wrong, was half asleep too.

Great that you are considering home BG testing. I think Its the way forward. It will hopefully give eddie the best control possible and you vital info on his dosing and looking out for lows. As Ruby said the urine strips will be telling you what eddies sugar level was like some hours before when the urine was actually made in his kidneys, not stored in his bladder.

I currently use the one touch ultra machine, either the mini or the ultra 2. I havent found much difference between them and both use the same test strips. I was given these machines from a diabetic human and buy the strips from ebay. The strips are the expensive bit as you get through loads in the begining. They cost me 7-12 pounds per 50 strips, important to check for long expiry dates on ebay and reliable sellers with good reputations. The lancets I buy from my local pharmacy at about 7 pounds per 100 and last for ages. I like the pricker that comes with these machines and use it on the highest number to get a good bleb of blood. The strip then sucks this up well and I dont waste any strips.

Human machines tend to give slightly lower readings on animal blood to lab tests. Example pippa may be 10 mmols on my machine and a lab test will come out at 12.5-13.0mmols. Some have worked out calculations to adjust for this difference, I tend to just record the machine reading and watch the trend on there.

Many on here use a variety of machines and seem to have quite the collection ( craig!!!!) There is an animal machione the alphatrax that vets use and can be purchased from a vets on online vet supplier. It is probably more accurate with animal blood but much more expensive and the strips are much much more too and not often available on ebay.

There are often special offers in local pharmacies for bg machine for £10-15 pounds, may be worth asking a local guy if you have a good one. The drug companies who make the machines make all of their money on the ongoing purchase of strips, so if you know any human diabetics they probably have a ready supply of machines that they are using themselves.

I test Pippa on her inner lip and always get a sample, she does not mind at all, and doesnt even get a treat after, though this is worth offering at the begining to get them to cooperate nicely. Some test on the elbow callous or ear ( craig) or even the base of the tail (tiggy). I now test her fasting and pre afternoon walk with occasional curves if concerned or worried. At the begining I was curving weekly and testing much more. Good to try and find out the nadir of the insulin, when it is most powerful and the BG will be lowest. This can be different in every dog. Pippas is normally 8-9 hours post insulin.

Have a look at my PM. I do have some spares and would be happy to post to you to get you started if you like. Lots of great videos on here too re starting Bg testing, I loved Margarets video with sweet lucy and learnt alot from this.

Sorry so long, hope Eddie feeling better today re leg weakness. I havent any experience of this, but it sounds scarey.

You are doing great Antonia. Early days and sounds like Eddie going in the right direction. Well done. xxxx