Angel Mochi December 2020

[LizE]

Re: muscle decreasing really fast.

I'm so sorry you are going through this. Hopefully the muscle atrophy is just from getting so little exercise.

Would your dog feel better if you used a life jacket when he swam? Snickers has one. She's so comfortable in it that some times she just floats, I assume just to get some relief on her joints.

Without another diagnosis I would focus in on the arthritis. If your dog can handle pain meds start there. Snickers can't use them so she does turmeric. I empty a 720 mg capsule of turmeric and a 1000 mg softgel of omega-3 fish oil into a small bit of greek yogurt and sprinkle pepper on it. This makes a paste that I put on her food (split half at breakfast, half at diner). It doesn't do anything for pain but it is an anti-inflammatory and Snickers has done pretty well with it. Turmeric is a blood thinner so clear it with your vet first.

Tart Cherry is another anti-inflammatory to try that doesn't have any known side effects. I sprinkle half an 25:1 concentrated capsule over her food.

Try to get in what ever exercise you can. I message and stretch Snickers before hand. If it is getting too cold outside then maybe figure out an indoor routine. Even going to a pet store to walk a little. Moving somehow everyday should be a goal.

[Raysaint]

Re: muscle decreasing really fast.

An excerpt from a global vet conference. The text I bolded caught my eye.

"Incorporating nutritional assessment into patient care is critical for maintaining pets' health and their response to disease and injury. The positive impact of nutrition on health and recovery from disease or

injury is well established. Appropriate feeding throughout all life stages can help prevent diet-associated diseases, as well as assist in the management of other diseases, for example, foods formulated for cats

and dogs with chronic kidney disease have been shown to provide significant benefits in wellbeing and length of life.

The World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) has established an initiative for nutritional assessment to be the “5th vital sign” or 5th vital assessment (V5 or 5VA) after temperature, pulse, respiration and pain assessment. Incorporating the screening evaluation as described in these guidelines as the fifth vital assessment in the standard history taking and physical examination requires little

additional time and no cost. Incorporating nutritional assessment and recommendations into the care of small animals also helps develop the partnership between the owner and veterinary healthcare team.

Surveys show that owners have a strong desire to have information on nutrition and diet provided by the veterinary healthcare team.

The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) has set up Global Nutrition Guidelines

1 for nutritional evaluation which have been published in the Journal of Small Animal Practice2 . Following the launch of the WSAVA’s Global Nutrition Guidelines in 2011, the Global Nutrition Committee (GNC) developed a

suite of “tools”

3. These include practical aids for the veterinary healthcare team for making nutritional assessment and recommendations, and include a diet history form, hospitalized patient feeding guide, body condition score charts, muscle condition score chart and calorie recommendations for adult dogs and cats, and a nutritional assessment check sheet, which is filled out both by the owner and the health

care team.

SCREENING EVALUATION

The nutritional assessment has two parts; firstly a screening evaluation and if areas of concern are found there, an extended evaluation may be warranted. The screening evaluation should be performed for every pet at every visit as a part of routine history taking and physical examination. It includes the diet

history, body weight, body condition score (BCS), muscle condition score, and evaluation of the coat and teeth. The 9 point body condition scale is used by the WSAVA

5,6. Body condition is determined using a combination of the visual appearance and palpation of the pet, e.g. is there a waist apparent and

palpation of the amount of fat cover over the ribs. A video for doing canine BCS is available on the WSAVA website.

The BSC evaluates body fat, and it is possible for a pet to be overweight but still have muscle loss, especially in diabetic and other ill pets or the elderly. To address this, a muscle condition score (MCS) is included in the assessment

7. Clinically, BCS and MCS are not always directly related. An animal can be overweight but still have significant muscle loss. This can make an MCS of mild to moderate look

relatively normal if not carefully evaluated. In these cases, although some areas of the body may appear relatively normal or even to have excessive fat stores (especially over the ribs or in the abdominal region), muscle wasting is readily felt over bony prominences.

Assessing muscle condition is important as muscle loss is greater in patients with most acute and chronic diseases compared with healthy animals deprived of food, when primarily fat is lost (i.e., simple starvation). Muscle loss adversely affects strength, immune function and wound healing."

[Lchow022]

Re: muscle decreasing really fast. Degenerative Myelopathy?

Hi everyone,

The past few weeks have been very stressful trying to get my old dog to exercise more and I started filling up the bathtub and having him do some peddling and swimming in there for 5-10 minutes twice a week. His muscles seem to be stiff and decreased a lot..

I wanted to ask have any of you heard of Degenerative Myelopathy?
I am going to have to do the test online and send it to the lab to get results.
My vet suspects it might be that since his muscles have been decreasing so fast...I'm really hoping it's not because it sounds pretty deadly and severe.

If any of you can give me input on your senior pups on arthritis or degenerative myelopathy it would be really appreciated.

Thank you,
Lina

[Lchow022]

Diarrhea and threw up after food and insulin

I came home from work today at 6pm and I got greeted at the door from Mochi like everyday. Seemed happy and playful like usual. But for some reason when I picked him up to give him a kiss his mouth smelled really bad and fishy...and when I fed him at 6:15 he didn't finish his meal. He usually gobbles it down and licks his bowl clean within 1 minute or 2. I gave him his insulin and took him out to go potty. He was pooping a bit at one spot and then again at the next and i knew something was wrong. Then when we went out for a walk he didn't seem all that energetic and wanting to walk...My other dog has arthritis and he was walking faster than Mochi. Then I had to keep yanking Mochi to walk when he kept stopping. He would continue to poop a bit here and there...
When we got home after our walk he threw up all his food..I felt so bad...I dont know if its because of me pulling him and forcing him to walk when he already wasnt feeling well. I freaked out because i was worried he was going to go hypo since he had his full dose of insulin and he threw up all his food..I gave him a bit of my other dogs dry kibbles and dried chicken breast and he ate it. I took his blood sugar at 8:45pm and luckily it wasn't too low at 6.4 (115). I was worried it was going to keep dropping so I kept feeding him the dried chicken breast treats. Now his bs is at 9.2(165).

Have you guys ever had an incident like this?? I'm scared it might be pancreatitis or he ate the cats poo in the litter. What should i do tomorrow morning if he won't eat?? The last time he threw up was almost 3 years ago when i changed his diet to raw pork (recommended by a so called vet) and caused him to have severe pancreatits.

Thank you for taking your time to read this ..

[jesse girl]

Re: Diarrhea and threw up after food and insulin

Well mochi has had pancreatitis before so you know the symptoms now those symptoms can mean other things

for me when jesse doesnt feel good i fast her for the day . Its easy for her because i only give her one meal so i just remove that meal from the equation

I check her pooh in the morning and appetite and give snack if she is up for it

I think after 3 days with no improvement its probably time to see the vet Hope mochi feels better soon

[Lchow022]

Re: Diarrhea and threw up after food and insulin

Mochi is still having diarrhea this morning..I don't know if I should feed him. Should I try?

[Lchow022]

Re: Diarrhea and threw up after food and insulin

He won't eat...should I still give him insulin?

[jesse girl]

Re: Diarrhea and threw up after food and insulin

normally you can give a quarter of the normal dose . I have been doing this as jesses normal routine with only having one meal . so i give her a lower dose and i give a milk bone with no meal in the morning

You do want to test more to make sure the dose you are giving is not to much or not enough because you cant be sure just based off jesses results

[Lchow022]

Re: Diarrhea and threw up after food and insulin

Thank you for responding so quick.
I tried feeding him again just 10minutes ago with a load of boiled chicken breast mixed in with 70% of his kibbles and he ate it with a bit of babying...i ended up just giving him his reg dose of insulin and i will monitor him.

I have a vet appointment at 3:30 but im not sure if the vet can do anything. He ate some grass this morning as well. Hopefully his diarrhea will clear out..i still cant wrap my head around this and why this happened. Does stress cause it or eating the cats poop?

Do you think i should give him some boiled vegetables when i feed him tonight?

[Raysaint]

Re: Diarrhea and threw up after food and insulin

Dogs are scavengers by nature and eat stuff they shouldn't. Cat poo might have been the culprit.
You can give her a half or a 1/3 of a Pepcid, 10 mg size. Shoppers has Life brand Acid Control {famotidine), I keep them on hand all the time.
Check with the vet if half is the right dose, or maybe less.

[Lchow022]

Blood sugar all over the place

Mochi's blood sugar has been all over the place the past few days.
Yesterday at 5:30pm (right before food and insulin) it was at 390..then today at the exact same time it was down to 63. I just checked at 10:30pm 5hours after insulin and its up to 410.

I feel like im having a hard time with keeping his curve consistent. Most of the days his nadir is always 12 hours after his insulin instead of 6hours.
Do you guys know what could be causing these issues?
I don't know why it's all over the place the past couple of days.

[jesse girl]

Re: Blood sugar all over the place

jesse has never been that consistent as i could never guess what her blood sugar is but she usually stays in that 100 to 250 level over a 6 month period but she could be higher and lower at times .

If a dog is quite consistent and the pattern has changed . you could look at a change in food as manufacturers do change there recipes . Need a new bottle of insulin . weather can be a factor . sometimes dose requirements change and may need more or less . The last thing is a trip to the vet to see if there is some kind of medical challenges like UTI

you may want to wait a week or 2 to see if the train gets back on the tracks before a vet visit if not showing any symptoms as things could settle back down

[Raysaint]

Re: Blood sugar all over the place

Read my latest post and threads within it.

I just went thru kinda the same thing. Mid October, fasting sugars suddenly weren't consistent in a good range, some good, some way high. I gave it a few weeks, no change.
So I had bloodwork done, it all came back perfect. I'd had a urinalysis done not too long ago and it had all been good.

So with no obvious reasons, we decided that maybe his body metabolism had changed, as bodies will do, and he just was underdosed now.
I just recently increased his dose just slightly less than a half unit, from 8.5 to just above the 9 unit line on the syringe. Starting to get good morning fastings again.

The other reason I believe his body metabolism changed, is because his curve pattern changed, he's back to a bowl type, from his past strange half mountain type. So he's processing the insulin differently, and with that a dose change was needed.

[Lchow022]

Re: Blood sugar all over the place

Thanks for responding Raysaint and jessegirl.

I feel like I haven't gotten a consistent curve for a while..my dads been sneaking treats for him randomly so I never know. I've just been taking his blood sugar once or twice a week and only a couple times a day and as long as the number looks good I'm satisfied. I told him to stop giving him treats because I need to get a consistent curve for him.

Mochi hasn't gotten any numbers over 330 for the past 3-5 months.
But the past two days he has gone back up to the 400s for the highest. I'm a little worried now and I don't know if I can even raise up his dosage because he had a super low number yesterday.
It's a little scary how it went from 63 to 410.

His numbers are so random..I get a few days of his nadir happening right before food and insulin at the 12 hour mark and then sometimes I get a few days of the his nadir happening 6 hours after insulin. Is it normal to have this?

[jesse girl]

Re: Blood sugar all over the place

Thats normal for jesse . As long as you can keep numbers in an adequate range things are usually ok . I have seen dogs on the forum do ok with regulation in the 300s and 400s and they were happy to see their dog in the 200s on occasion . As long as the dog is not showing ketones and is maintaining weight , Stools and urinating fairly normal and acting generally like the type of dog you have your probably ok

A couple days of some numbers out of whack i would not make any changes . I would probably wait a couple weeks before looking into a change and that would take more testing than what your doing

I get anxious when jesse gets out of whack but she has done that many times over her diabetic life and usually corrects itself

the lower numbers is what i really worry about. jesse gets in the 80s and thats about my limit as for low numbers