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Does anyone have experience with canine Diabetes?
Hi there ..... I do not have any experience with Diabetes in canines and thought posssibly someone here might have gone through this with one of their fur kids, and have some suggestions I can pass along to my friend. This is the email I received:
"My 9 1/2 years old Westie (male) lost 5 pounds in roughly 2-3 months and we thought he drank a little more and peed a little more than usual. We took him to the vet and he suspects he has diabetes. He put him on glyburide .5mg per day (1/2 a pill twice a day) and last night he was so lethargic he scared me and I gave him 1 teaspoon of corn syrup.
Buddy (and his sister Cleo) is a rescue from a nasty puppy mill and my little guy has been through hell and back. When we took him out, he had severe mange with bleeding and open sores, emaciated, respiratory problems amongst other things.
2 years ago, he had blood work done and even though his liver enzymes were very high, the glucose levels were normal. He had surgery on his paw (suspected foreign object - it was not), a very expensive visit to a specialist who found nothing wrong, it turned out to be possible allergies but he was on antibiotics for over 2 months and I worked really hard to bring him back to normal. We changed his food to MediCal Hypoallergenic (and I can't get the information about how much sugar is in that food and whether this could have triggered an elevation of the glucose levels).
Last year's exam, he was OK other than the fact that he had crystals in his eyes so that slows him down a little particularly at night.
He still gets the occasional flare up and we clean his paws every night with saline water. This summer, he had dental cleaning because of infected gums.
Before we put him on insulin, I want to make sure he really has diabetes cause I am not too crazy about putting more crap in his little body. "
At this point my friend is most curious about whether a trauma to the body can trigger diabetes (like surgery and persistent infections treated with antibiotics or even the food that he is on which may be high in sugar and which was also changed not long after these episodes).
Thank you so much for any information and/or advice you might have.
Take care,
Pat
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