Blue's Journey

[blue]

Re: need help!

Readings today and yesterday haven't been very good. Lowest 301 and highest 410. Hopeing to do curve tomorrow only problem my husband doesn't get up as early as Blue and I. And to think I use to be the late sleeper! haha
I will let you know just as soon as I do it for your advise. I would like for you all to meet my baby Blue

[k9diabetes]

Re: need help!

We are really looking for the shape of the curve so that we can know how to gauge how an increase in insulin might effect Blue.

I'm not sure how often you check the BG now but unless it's checked as often as on a curve, you can miss deep drops or sharp upward spikes between meals.

Ideal is for the curve to be as flat as possible.

I'm really anxious to see what you get.

As for sleeping... yeah, that seems to be one thing a lot of us sacrifice in the process! Our dog eventually went to four injections a day of faster acting insulin so had to have it every six hours. We did 4am, 10am, 4pm, and 10pm as that allowed me to have some sort of real life in between.

It was actually better than the three shots a day we did briefly. With that schedule, one of them was always at some horrendous hour of the day.

I've never been an early riser so 4am sucked. But I have also always been really good at going BACK to sleep so that's what I did for that three years.

Natalie

[k9diabetes]

Re: need help!

Would you like to have me change the title of Blue's thread? That one sounds kind of panicky and I don't think you're as worried now as you were then.

If you want to change it, just let me know what you'd like it changed to.

Natalie

[blue]

Re: need help!

Only able to do 5 and 10 hours post a.m. injection during the week. I will do every 2 hours, as close to 2 hrs as possible. I have to have help holding him, he"s little but might as well be a great dane when it comes to holding him for that.

[blue]

Re: need help!

Sure lets change his thread. This site has sure helped to calm me more than you know. What about... Blue's Journey

[k9diabetes]

Re: Blue's Journey

Done!

Natalie

[blue]

Re: Blue's Journey

Did Blue's curve today. here are his readings:
Fasting 287
2 hr post injection 187
4 hr post inj 204
6 hr post inj 324
8 hr post inj 337
10 hr post inj 405

need to let you know he did get his treat after breakfast as usual and at noon.this is typical day to day. One thing I keep forgetting to tell you is I give him 2 1/2 cc of Dia-ionx at night.Active ingredients Vit c, Magnesium, potassium, Zinc, Chromium and Calcium. It states: proprietary blend of 74 organic minerals and trace elements. I started him on this Dec. 26,09.
Please let me know your thoughts on these numbers and what you think I should do. One other thing..He didnt eat his full breakfast this am like normal.

[k9diabetes]

Re: Blue's Journey

So this was on 5 units... is that right?

Given that he didn't eat all of his breakfast, these numbers are probably lower than normal in the morning.

It looks to me like you could raise his insulin dose half a unit.

It does look, from this curve, like he might not be getting 12 hours from his insulin but the smaller than usual breakfast skews things some. If you can raise his dose half a unit and then wait approximately a week and curve him again, then we can see how things look at that point.

There is a fairly large difference in highest and lowest blood sugar but it is occurring first thing so a snack isn't likely to help but tweaking the diet could. I wouldn't change anything until after his next curve.

Natalie

[blue]

Re: Blue's Journey

Great. I will increase to 5 1/2 in the morning. First time I will beable to do another curve will be on the 6th or 7th of Feb. So it will be a little over a week. If you think it will be ok I will wait about sticking him until I do the curve. Have you heard anything about the Dia-ionx? I ead alot of reviews on it and with it being minerals and trace elements I thought I'd try it.

[k9diabetes]

Re: Blue's Journey

I'm not familiar with Dia-ionx... we didn't supplement Chris much as he was sensitive/allergic to many things. And he was on a ton of meds even after eliminating all the ones he couldn't tolerate. So we didn't add anything we didn't absolutely need.

I think he will be okay as long as he eats all of his food. I would be concerned if he starts skipping parts of his meals though. If he does, the dose should be reduced.

Natalie

[blue]

Re: Blue's Journey

thank you sooo much for all your help.I understand about all the med., Blue also takes med for his thyroid. He was so funny this pm when I got home. He started playing with one of the toys and wanted lots of love. It makes me feel so good when he is like this. I will let you be until I do his curve again, there's more people like me that need your help. You have a set of wings and a halo I just now it!

[k9diabetes]

Re: Blue's Journey

So is Blue the rare cooperative and docile Min Pin?

I think 90% of the people needing ideas to make injections manageable have had Min Pins!

Natalie

[blue]

Re: Blue's Journey

Are you serious?! My vet told me that diabeties is not common in min-pins. I really wish we had more vets to choose from in our area. Blue is really good when it comes to shot time as long as he sees his cheese..haha

Having some stomach issues the past few days off and on. This is what caused his diabeties. One vet that I had used for years on all of our animals kept giving his a mixture that contained steriods for his stomach.thats why I changed to the one I use now, but it ended up being to late. Bless his heart it has always been one problem or another with him. Always had very very iffy stomach. Pancretatis twice, when he starts throwing up he cant quit. He's my lil problem child!

fogot to ask , do you know of a good dry food that maybe won't run his numbers up? Blue loves dry kibble but the only two I've tried is the wd and the purina. I always get higher numbers with the dry but I think he gets tired of my cooking. Thought I might try some dry after we get him regulated if you know of some good maybe organic brandsto try.

[peggy0]

Re: Blue's Journey

I've done research on alot of dry foods. My dog eats Blue Buffalo weight control and I have managed to regulate him with it on vetsulin. We will see if I have to modify for NPH given I'm just switching. It has 46% carbohydrates, about the same as DCO and low fat. If you look through the forum you will see a range of foods, wilderness, blue, dco, WD. Its really a matter of trial and error to see what your dog tolerates with the insulin. You may have to raise his dosage a bit to accomodate it if you want to switch.

[k9diabetes]

Re: Blue's Journey

Min pins aren't at the top of the list of dogs I see with diabetes - in my experience, mini Schnauzers take that prize.

But we have a handful of Min Pin members so it does not seem to be rare in them by any means.

I'm trying to think of all the Min Pin members we have... Pam and Pip, Natalie and Princess, Linda and Daygo, Dawn and Shylow, Jerry and Niki all came up in a quick search of "MinPin."

Which is a lot, but they are probably overrepresented in the forum because they do often present problems with injections and/or home blood glucose testing. So more MinPin people turn to a forum for help.

Has Blue's stomach problem been diagnosed?

There are some new GI panels that can really narrow down what the problem might be. It just requires a blood sample that is sent to Texas A&M.

Can you post a recent curve so we can see how high the food spike in BG is and when it occurs? We can't tell from the one you just did because he didn't spike, presumably because he didn't eat all of his food.

Natalie