It never ceases to amaze me the love and care some folks take with regulating a diabetic pet. It gives me great joy when clients check their pet's blood glucose - whether before giving an insulin injection OR running a blood glucose curve OR even if it is when something doesn't seem quite right.
Last week I got a new patient in my small animal veterinary clinic here in South Florida. The humans in this family are smart and conscientious! They did their research when their cat was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes.
Two weeks ago I had a client who forced my hand and made me do a blood glucose curve in my clinic. Normally I expect, and strongly encourage, my clients to run their curves at home to avoid the complication of "stress hyperglycemia". This phenomenon is when the liver turns stored glycogen into glucose when a pet is stressed.
As a veterinarian I often envy patient compliance that medical doctors take for granted. An MD tells a patient to take a medication and more often than not, the person takes the medication, for the full prescribed time period, just as the MD prescribed.
One of the most common questions I get is about feeding diabetic pets. Part of this is common sense, but let's chat about the big picture. And the big picture isn't quite the same for dogs as it is for cats.
Last week I received an email from one of our clients asking for me to explain what a normal glucose curve looks like. Ha! There are lots of factors that affect a pet's blood glucose curve. There are pets that have great curves from the start and those (who like a baby who won't sleep through the night) make pet owners want to pull out their hair.
I get some great questions from clients. They inspire me with article ideas and keep me in tune with diabetic pet owners. I enjoy interacting with our readers, and sometimes the questions are worthy of a newsletter. I bet if one person has this question and takes the time to write me, there are likely lots of folks with a similar question.
Sometimes it’s good to go back to basic diabetes topics. Many of our readers are very educated in diabetic pet care, but I need to remind myself that we get new readers all the time. One of the greater concerns of treating diabetes, as we aim to achieve the proper insulin dosage, is hypoglycemia. If […]
When veterinarians diagnose diabetes the tests we suggest may seem confusing to pet owners. I assure you they are not. Let's discuss some commonly recommended tests for diabetic pets and how often and when we may run them! Let’s start with discussing tests for the pancreas, the organ that makes insulin. Then, we will discuss blood glucose tests and chemistry profiles. And finally, we will discuss various urine tests.
Oh, how I enjoy New Years! It’s a fresh beginning. We can think, “Oh thank Heaven that 2012 is over!” or “Maybe I meant to ______ last year, but it’s a brand new year. […]