Veterinarian Dr. Laird (Heron Lakes Animal Hospital) presents a case of Lolly, a dog brought in for decreased appetite, increased drinking and urination, possible scooting, and suspected weight loss. Bloodwork and urinalysis diagnosed diabetes mellitus and concurrent pancreatitis; the speaker explains pancreas function and notes that subclinical pancreatitis (chronic, low-grade inflammation without overt signs) commonly accompanies diabetes and can complicate glycemic control. Lolly is being treated with IV fluids (a mainstay for pancreatitis), has a protective cone and IV catheter in place, and is being fed because she is not vomiting. The vet plans to start insulin and monitor blood glucose for at least 12 hours to ensure levels don’t fall too low.
Questions this video answers
At least 12 hours.
IV fluid therapy / hydration.
Chapters
Hey, guys. My name is Dr. Laird here at Heron Lakes Animal Hospital. Today I'm here with Lolly. Lolly's here because mom was saying that she had a decreased appetite. She was drinking a lot of water, and she was also having an increase in her urination at the beginning of or the end of October. Mom had mentioned that she was also maybe sitting down. She wasn't sure if she was, you know, dragging her butt on the ground or what she was doing, but she was exhibiting this abnormal behavior. And so what we ended up doing was whenever we have. One of the other things that mom was really concerned about was about potential weight loss. Now, whenever we have a severe amount of weight loss, one of the things that we have to take into consideration is cancer. And so what we did was we went ahead and we did some blood work and a urinalysis because of the urinary, you know, the increase in urination. And we were able to diagnose Lolly with diabetes. Now we were also able to diagnose her with something called pancreatitis. So that you guys are aware, the pancreas is the organ amongst many things. One of the things that it does is it produces digestive enzymes which help us break down our food, and it also produces the insulin to help keep our blood sugar under control. Same thing for them. And so one of the things that is very common in diabetics is that they will have pancreatitis at the same time. We suspect that the cause of pancreatitis in dogs, a lot of our diabetes, rather a lot of times, is something called subclinical pancreatitis. And so what that is is essentially, they have this inflammation of the pancreas, which is the organ that produces the insulin, and it's having all this damage done to it little by little. But the dogs or patients that we're aware of, we don't think they show us any signs of pain, discomfort, no change in appetite, no change in the stool, no vomiting. And so that's one of the main things that we have to take into consideration when we have a patient who's newly diagnosed with diabetes. The other reason we need to take that into consideration about them potentially having pancreatitis is because it can sometimes make it more difficult and more challenging for us to go ahead and get their diabetes under control. So right now, we have Lolly on some IV fluids. As you can see, she's got this cone on to make sure she doesn't chew out her IV catheter. And she's got this little, this little accordion fluid line. So that way as she moves around in the cage doesn't really get tangled up. One of the mainstays for pancreatitis treatment is IV fluid therapy and or hydration. Now, some people will say that you don't want to go ahead and feed them for about 24 hours. The status on that is we actually want them to eat as quickly as possible once they're able to keep food down. With Lolly, she is not vomiting, so it is totally fine for us to go ahead and start feeding her. She is eating today. And so once we diagnose them with diabetes, the other thing that we're going to want to do is we're going to want to start them on insulin. Now, the thing is, you want to make sure that their blood sugar doesn't drop too low. So typically what's going to end up happening is the veterinarian is going to want to monitor them for the first at least 12 hours to see what happens with their blood sugar. Is it going to go high and then go really, really low, or is it just going to kind of do what it should normally do, which is kind of stay in the normal range? If you guys found this video helpful, please give us a thumbs up. Subscribe and share. Thanks for watching and have a great day.
