There is no cure for Diabetes. Treatment will be required for the rest of the pet’s life. It is important you understand your role in therapy to insure success.

HOME CARE

EXERCISE:
Allow your pet to determine how active he/she will be. The important key to remember is to be consistent every day. Heavy exercise affects blood sugar and insulin requirements. If you allow your pet to run around for many hours over the weekend when he/she normally sleeps all day, you may find it extremely difficult and frustrating to determine the correct insulin dosage from day to day. On the other hand, consistent amounts of exercise make this task much easier to accomplish.

DIET:
Normally, the body monitors the amount of sugar in the blood at each moment and determines how much insulin the pancreas should produce. Since you can only “guess” the amount of blood sugar based upon Urine glucose measurements, you carefully regulate how much sugar your pet receives. This is where most pet owners have the greatest problem.

Your pet should receive a small meal (1/3 daily amount) in the morning and the main meal 6-8 hours later. There absolutely cannot be any snacks, biscuits, or people food at other times. If you waver or deviate from this feeding regimen, you may internally upset your pet by failing to regulate the blood sugar. Adherence to this program will make controlling your pet’s disease that much more rewarding. You may feed your pet any type of dog food that is a complete and balanced diet

URINE TEST:
Every morning you should test your pet’s urine using the test strips provided. If your pet is a male dog, this is very simple because of his urinating habits. For a female dog, you may find it useful to fashion a long stick with a small cup on the end, to “catch” a urine sample as she squats. There are two pads on the stick. The top one measures glucose and is the most important. Use the color code on the bottle and read out the amount of glucose (after 30 seconds). The bottom pad measures ketones. If this pad ever changes color after 15 seconds, it is not an emergency but you should notify the doctor. If you find that the glucose pad is consistently 3-4%, notify your doctor.

For cats, placing some saran wrap in the litter box facilitates saving some urine for testing. Home test strips for urine are not accurate. Urine must be tested at the clinic.

INSULIN:
We will instruct you on the proper use of the syringes and medication.