Diabetic dog

RE: Diabetic dog

Mair Tyler — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 20:11:55 GMT

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your replies. 2 months on we finally seem to be achieving some diabetic control... Despite often coming in with BG >25, her owner (who seems fairly sensible and observant...) has never noticed the dog drinking more. We've had her in on 2 occasions for glucose curves and again we haven't observed any polydipsia. Weird! She's an indoor dog so to present completely out-of-the-blue with DKA is surprising I think -would have expected some urinating in the house at least prior to that! She had been seen a few days earlier with a sore eye and slight weight loss and then I saw her a few days later, barely able to walk! She had no vomiting or diarrhoea prior to presentation so should be no acid-base abnormality due to that. She did have electrolyte abnormalities. I'll look out her initial blood results and post them. Blood gases were just done on venous blood.

Mair

RE: Diabetic dog

Rory Bell — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 19:34:50 GMT

Hi Mair

Silvia and John have made good points. Unless the dog had insufficient access to water or was in anuric / oliguric renal failure, it should have been polyuric from a physiological point of view, and therefore it's probably that the owner didn't notice (kennelled outdoors, multiple dog household, partners working night shifts so dog being walked / let outside frequently over a 24hr period)?

Its unlikely that a dog could have an alkalosis of sufficient severity to override the buildup of a significant amount of ketones, so I tend to agree with John; this dog might have an excess of ketones, but the accumulation of ketones was insufficient to cause a significant drop in pH. If you've run a blood gas, it'd be interesting to see the results?

cheers

RE: Diabetic dog

John Ellis — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 14:12:12 GMT

Hi,

I would also agree its probably likely the owners did not notice she was pu/pd, and while in hospital she was presumably on IVFT so.....

Also, as far as I am aware, acidosis will develop given the ketosis, so its perfectly feasible they may be in diabetic ketosis (DK) and not yet in DKA. Unless like Silvia says, you have a mixed acid base issue going on.

Kind regards

John

RE: Diabetic dog

Silvia Maldonado — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 02:55:15 GMT

I've never seen a DKA not PU/PD. The only it occurs to me is that owner didn't notice, and the IVFT while in hospital where calming his thirst (washing out the glucose very efficiently? moderate hyperglycemia? regular insulin that reduced BG quickly?)

As for the lack of acidemia in the presence of ketones (DKA), it occurs to me that she might have been vomited or having diarrhea, loosing chloride and, as you say, presented an mixed acid-base problem. Was chloride low, compare to sodium? Like you, I would have expected acidemia.