Walter Donovan
Veterinary School Adminstration
Veterinary College Abroad

This spring I attended a lecture by Dr. Bruyette on diabetes in cats and dogs. It was sponsored by Abbott, which makes the AlphaTrak meter for pets, so the lecture was promoting home blood glucose testing and there were reps on hand to sell meters to the vets there. During the break, I heard many of the vets talking about having no idea how to teach owners to do home blood glucose testing or where to test, since they usually take blood from a vein. Or they use the ear, which is not usually a good place to test with dogs – works much better with cats. Naturally, I can understand the vet not wanting to try the lip with a scared and stressed dog to whom they may be the enemy. But the dog’s caretaker at home usually has great success with that technique or with the tail stick method.

One of my goals has been to promote home blood glucose testing among local vets who have been trained by the vet school to discourage it. We made sure that every single specialist and vet Chris saw heard about what we were able to achieve thanks to home testing!

I can’t believe that some vets don’t believe in home blood glucose testing — and that one kept Chris with a blood sugar level of over 400 because he didn’t have accidents! That’s nutty. A couple of vets in the practice I go to don’t believe in urine strip testing (although a vet in another practice suggested it) because it’s “inaccurate.” Well, Frankie’s too small to be pricked with a blood glucose monitor and I should think an approximate reading is better than no reading at all. Bottom line: I feel comfortable fine tuning the insulin and Frankie hasn’t had a hypoglycemic incident.

Edie, thanks much for your kind words – I was quite surprised to read about myself here today! And glad to hear that the vet in question owned up to her part of the showdown.

We had a difficult time with our dog’s diabetes – the standard insulins didn’t work well for him and I was especially frustrated by a veterinary endocrinologist who basically ruled against our changing insulins because his standard for regulation was the dog didn’t have accidents in the house. Our dog never had an accident, even when his blood sugar was 400+ all day. So we had to dig in and sort things out ourselves.

It definitely wasn’t easy to go against what many called the worldwide expert on this particular disorder. But I knew in my heart that we could do better for Chris. I did have to change vets to accomplish it and eventually started to manage Chris’ diabetes entirely on my own with home blood glucose testing.

We also bumped into or were connected with a few people locally who were having similar problems, like a husky who was seizing from hypoglycemia but the same vet school clinic had “forbidden” home blood glucose testing. We found, as you have, that vet skill with diabetes varies widely, including in a single practice.

It was along that path that I got involved in forums for canine diabetes and eventually started my own, a labor of love dedicated to Chris, who passed in August 2008. He was a large dog and survived to fourteen and a half despite severe heart disease and the diabetes.

My moderator, Kathy, had a diabetic dog Lucky who was the first dog in the U.S. to be put on Caninsulin… years before it was offered in the U.S. as Vetsulin… because her dog didn’t do well on anything but pork-based insulin. Intervet worked with her and her vet to get her the insulin her Lucky needed to survive.

So we both try to make things a little easier for others.

It’s a joy to meet you all and I will be checking in when I can.

And it’s always fun to get to put Jasmine on my blog. She’s my second favorite diabetic dog!

This highlights an issue I had early in Jasmine’s treatment for diabetes – vets don’t know everything about every disease, it is too much information. When the highly experienced vet who diagnosed Jasmine retired, I then encountered several vets who had varying degrees of experience with the condition, and each had equally varying, sometimes contradictory, ideas on treatment parameters (all within the same clinic I should add!).

Anyone who ever has concerns about information given to them by their vet should not feel obliged to blindly accept it, and absolutely should feel free to seek a second opinion – your priority is for the well being of your pet, not fear of hurting the vet’s feelings. Like human doctors, vets will have more knowledge and experience in some areas than others. I have since gone to another clinic with vets who really know their stuff about diabetes, and they also have access to a wealth of information from a vet at a sister clinic with a special interest in diabetes. My stress levels have gone way down and the uneasy feeling I started getting at the previous clinic is no more.

p.s. thanks for posting the pic of Jasmine’s cute mug again, not that I’m biased or anything