New member Snowball

[robl45]

Re: New member Snowball

Gave her 3 units last night. 247 reading this morning. I didn't want to move the dose, but if its high blood sugar causing it, I wanted to do something. This morning she was not walking great, but she is moving. What I definitely notice is on carpet she can walk decently most of the time. On hardwood/tile floor, she looks like she is on roller skates.

[robl45]

Re: New member Snowball

Gave her 3 units this morning. I feel like I'm going in the wrong direction. while she was walking a bit this morning, now she can't stand up.

173 at 9am

Edit: 9:26am and she is walking around a bit. Not super but walking around. She went to to drink from her bowl and fell on her face, but she walked out and in to my office. When I got here at 8:30am, she couldn't even pee. She would just fall down on the grass.

[Raysaint]

Re: New member Snowball

I don't think there's a direct correlation between high sugar in a given time period and problems walking. From what I've read, it's more of a condition that arises and can be erratic until it slowly goes away.
Uncontrolled hypothyroidism can also cause neuropathy symptoms.

I have a pdf file article from a veterinary congress if you want to message me.

[jesse girl]

Re: New member Snowball

I think trying the b-12 is worth a shot with higher doses to see if you see any improvement

It is a bit odd you see snowball does better and then regresses

Blood sugar seems good . Wood floors are a problem for my jesse .

you are doing a good job trying to help snowball and figure this out . It can be difficult to get an answer .

We have seen dogs on the forum with similar problems and it took 6 months or longer for some to get back to somewhat normality but those were much larger dogs

as long as snowball is eating and pooping and is not in extreme pain then you can wait to see if things improve . 11 years old is not real old for a little dog . Really you just started putting effort into this recently and you have done great . Whatever the process its probably going to be slow but snowball is worth it to you

[Judi]

Re: New member Snowball

I think Holli’s Dexter had walking issues that were different but I searched and couldn’t find it

[robl45]

Re: New member Snowball

So todays numbers

620am 247

9am 173
11:10am 190
1:26PM 363
3:42PM 558

It appears I"m getting rebound again. This was on 3 units. I guess I"ll drop back to 2.5 units again. I just can't seem to get it down to a good normal range.

[Judi]

Re: New member Snowball

you need to let a dose stick for 5 - 7 days before you change it again. Their blood sugar will fluctuate during the day

Did he exercise? he might have worn off his insulin by being excited?

Did he find a treat or some bird seed in the yard? makes blood sugar go up

The biggest reason vets don't want us to test at home is because it is too tempting to keep tweaking the dose like you want to do and you need to stop, and be consistent and patient.

hardest thing ever. I get it Try really hard!!

[Raysaint]

Re: New member Snowball

No rebound there, sugar didn't drop low enough from what those numbers show. You need to let the body adjust to a dose for at least a week, then curve, see what the lowest number is, and increase based on that.

Changing the dose every day or two will never achieve regulation. I learned the hard way, trying to tweak all the time like my human diabetes. Tweaking up and down only works with humans on a tight control regimen with fast acting insulin.

Consistency is very important.

[robl45]

Re: New member Snowball

you need to let a dose stick for 5 - 7 days before you change it again. Their blood sugar will fluctuate during the day

Did he exercise? he might have worn off his insulin by being excited?

Did he find a treat or some bird seed in the yard? makes blood sugar go up

The biggest reason vets don't want us to test at home is because it is too tempting to keep tweaking the dose like you want to do and you need to stop, and be consistent and patient.

hardest thing ever. I get it Try really hard!!

exercise, she is lucky if she can move. she walks a bit around the office and usually sleeps. She does get a treat or two at work, but the treats supposedly were recommended by the vet for diabetic dogs according to the person in the office that has the treats and a diabetic dog.

[RowansRys]

Re: New member Snowball

Did she get the office treat(s) today? What time? How many? I would for curiosity sake find out what they actually are (brand, ingredients, calories etc), but for now I would say to cut them out entirely, to get to the "two (carefully) measured meals with insulin 12 hours apart" target for regulation.



You're at the stage now where variables are NOT your friend. Think of it like steering on ice- overcorrecting will spin you off the road. You want to hold a single course, and then essentially spend the time until you can make another evaluation/correction holding the wheel steady with white knuckles and talking yourself out of doing anything at all...

[robl45]

Re: New member Snowball

I think they are alpo. I checked and they say no sugar

[RowansRys]

Re: New member Snowball

If they were little square crackers, they might be alpo. If they were, for her size, the recommended serving would be one treat a day, but she's not really at a "gets random treats" place right now. The question of did she have some today and if so, at what time, remains...

[robl45]

Re: New member Snowball

Little square yes. She had maybe 2 or 3 today. She gets them randomly. I could stop them but at this point that is what causes her to try and get up and walk. I thought the treats shouldn't hurt because they don't have sugar

[RowansRys]

Re: New member Snowball

Ahhhhh, I see where there's some confusion! EVERYTHING with carbohydrate in it gets broken down in digestion and becomes sugar traveling around the blood stream. Sugar is sugar. Wheat is sugar. Corn is sugar. Bread. Fruit. Veggies (except the fiber part, which makes them break down slower and go into the blood slower and more evenly, which is why most diabetic dogs get a high "complex carbohydrate" food- the "complex" means that it takes longer to break down and be absorbed by the body. SIMPLE sugars (like table sugar and corn syrup) go into the blood much faster. The more processed something with carbohydrate is, the faster it goes in. So, if you were thinking of stuff you ate, whole grains of oats that look like giant seeds would be slow, oatmeal would be faster. Green veggies would be slow (mostly fiber and water), but fruit would be faster (simpler sugars, but with fiber), fruit juice would be like drinking sugar-water (super fast rise, the sugar "high" that we often live on!).


So what I'm looking at with regards to these treats, is they're basically a refined wheat. IF she got them before that reading that jumped way up around 1pm, then that would be WHY it jumped way up and wasn't a rebound at all. Then the next question if they were before that, is how long before (because then you can tell about how fast they were going into her system and affecting her readings). If she absolutely HAD to have some kind of treat, I saw in the other thread running that green beans have been used without affecting blood sugar, but I still wouldn't want to add another variable unless TOTALLY necessary, at least until her numbers are more settled and then it could be carefully tested to make sure she was reacting like expected.

[LizE]

Re: New member Snowball

Just want to pop in and offer some encouragement and moral support.

I was devastated when my dog was diagnosed but eventually it got better and we got a routine down. Snickers took a really long time to feel better, even though she was fairly easy to regulate. By a long time I mean many weeks. She was just out of it for a long time.

I sympathize with you about Snowball's difficulty walking. My dog is older and has a lot of problems related to arthritis, with both OK days and not so OK days. Snickers has adjusted fairly well but when she first lost her mobility (torn acl) she got very depressed. It sounds like Snowball could be going through the same thing.

If Snowball's problems are neurological it can take a while to see improvement. Nerves are very slow to heal. You might also ask your vet if something besides diabetic neuropathy is possible, such as a disc problem.

Honestly I think you're doing pretty good dealing with all of this. It's especially impressive that you got up and running on the testing so fast. I think that's the hardest part, really. You're well on your way to getting the dosage figured out so don't get discouraged.