Sensor created for human diabetics works on animals with diabetes

0
585

Dear readers,

Diabetes is difficult to manage in the best of circumstances. Diabetes can be poorly treated even in people who recognize the risk of their blood sugar levels spiraling out of control. Constant monitoring of blood sugar levels and dealing with diet and exercise becomes exhausting.

Now consider the experiments a pet owner goes through when his pet is diagnosed with diabetes. Pets do not understand and may not know the importance of following the treatment plan. They may not like the new food they have to eat. They don’t appreciate the feeding schedule, which suddenly has to be done exactly along with a needle prick every 12 hours (even if the needle is very small).

Cats are naturally the most difficult. Most dogs will eat whatever you give them, but cats can be very picky. They will turn their noses up at prescribed foods for diabetics and insist on eating something they are used to. Cats don’t eat “in the queue”. They eat when they like it. Cats don’t respond as well to insulin. They are often insulin resistant, so the insulin injections do not trigger as quick or effective a response as they do in dogs.

And cats have a harder time getting blood when it’s time for a glucose test to see if the insulin is working. The actual blood draw creates stress that causes blood sugar spikes, which incorrectly elevate and invalidate readings, so you can’t even document that the insulin is working properly.

Fortunately, a scientific innovation is making it easier for humans to monitor blood sugar levels in dogs and cats. With the FreeStyle Libre, which was developed for diabetics, the pet owner can check the blood sugar level without leaving the house.

The FreeStyle Libre is a half-dollar sensor disc. On the pet, a strand of hair is shaved over the shoulder blades. The sensor is then glued to the prepared skin. The round white disc has a tiny needle in the center that penetrates the tissue under the skin when the disc is glued in place. It starts checking the glucose level in the space under the skin every 15 minutes for 14 days.

Using the FreeStyle Libre reader or an iPhone app, the owner can download and read glucose levels for two weeks by holding the reader or phone over the sensor. The sensor disk reads and stores data for eight hours at a time, so the pet owner must download the information every eight hours. The data, including graphics, can be emailed to your veterinarian or printed out and taken to your veterinarian’s office.

With this information, true pictures of how the pet’s body reacts to the insulin can be seen. Decisions about how much insulin to give and when and how much to feed the pet can be made more accurately. Best of all, the pet only needs to go to the clinic on the day the FreeStyle Libre sensor is applied.

The 14-day sensor costs around $ 65. The reader costs approximately $ 125. However, if you have an iPhone, you can just download the app and use your phone as a reader. If you have a diabetic pet, speak to your veterinarian about how you can use this to monitor glucose levels. It improves both monitoring results and your pet’s quality of life.

Do you have a question for Dr. Johns? Email at JohnsDVM@aol.com. Write to Pet Peeves, PO Box 2949, Fort Walton Beach, FL 32549. Johns is a veterinarian in Niceville.