Diabetes, Seizures, Pancreatitis

Question:

Dear Dr. Smith:

We have a min pin who was a rescue, we brought him home at 28 lbs (he now weighs 23.5 lbs - 4 months later), he was 35lbs when he was found, and in our experience he has a chronic and sometimes acute case of pancreatitis.

He began having seizures on Saturday the 3rd, he would have a seizure and then vomit, he wouldn't eat and was drinking excessively and urinating excessively as well. He was also lacking energy and interest and having tremors and facial jerks between his seizures. We suspected he got into some kind of toxin the night before. The vet we took him to gave him a muscle relaxer and suggested we do some blood work if it didn't clear up in a couple of days. On Monday he was still drinking/urinating excessively so we took him in for the blood work. It came back to show him as having a 667 blood sugar count, a 3+ urine glucose, a 721 cholesterol, elevated liver, elevated platelet, spec. CPL is 538, RBC, Hemo, Hema are all low, all reticulacites are high, thyroid T4 is 0.4, and all electrolytes are low.

Because of all those numbers the vet isn't sure what came first, the diabetes or the other stuff, and what caused the seizures. They also aren't certain of why his tremors have continued and why he is continuing to vomit twice a day. But they are recommending he be hospitalized for a min. of 3 days to get his blood sugar/insulin balanced and to do an x-ray on his liver/pancreas and treat his pancreas. He does lay around quite a bit but he perks up when we go to the vet or go outside, he certainly isn't acting like a dying dog. We're at an impasse with the vet. They won't start the insulin without what they said to be a minimum of $500 worth of testing to balance it out, and then they warn that option doesn't treat the liver or pancreas. The hospitalization they want to do will be $950-$1500 or more. We Just Don't Have those kinds of funds. We would put him on an herbal regimen and a strict home cooked diet if we knew what to give him. But the vet won't even speak of herbs at this point. We don't want to put him down, but they said it was our only other option. I'm not so ready to throw in the towel.

Can you offer any answers?

Thank You,
Staci S.

Response:

Hello Staci,
Thank you for your inquiry to Holistic Pet Info.  There appears to be a lot going on with your Min Pin. I cannot ethically recommend an herbal only treatment with a blood glucose of 667. He needs to be immediately placed on insulin. If you can’t afford further diagnostics, I highly suggest you take his records to another veterinarian. At the very least he can start insulin treatment, fluid therapy for electrolyte balance and possibly a blood transfusion. This should be more reasonable to support your dog now and wait to see if any of the blood parameters normalizes. At the least this may be a more sensible option over euthanasia.

You may start a home cooked diet with low fat, high fiber and pancreatic/digestive enzymes such as Vetri-probiotic BD from Vetri-Science. Consulting with a local holistic or acupuncture veterinarian should help give you other options such as also using acupuncture and Chinese herbals. Finding out if the diabetes or seizures came first is important, but stabilizing the glucose and treating the epilepsy is absolutely crucial. Best of luck.
Sincerely,
Colleen Smith DVM, CVA