Insulinoma in dogs

[Pamela]

Hello, I just lost my dog diagnosed w/ insulimona. She was a pug..7 yrs. old, starting loosing her appetite 2 wks before the dreadful day.
She had a red tumor during the process on her belly. She lost weight, appetite, very fatigued. I found her lathargic on her side when I came home from work, yellow on her eyes, belly and ears, first impression was liver failure, rushed her down to the Vet, they kept her on IV's Dextrox etc. for 4 days did a ultrasound and discovered a mass near her pancreas and offered to do surgery.
We took her home and brought her to a local vet and he stated that surgery or euthunisia was the only 2 options, and surgery was a very risky one because they have to reconstruct the duodeum and they die anyways after the surgery. It was a shock and she has been euthunized since then.

I know this is a web site for people that have insulimona but I feel that animals are very simular to humans and people need to know there is really no cure or cause. Sometimes they can be treated to keep the insulin levels up but how long can that last. WE need to find out what causes this dreadful rare disease. If anyone out there knows about this please inform me. This is obviously my first experience w/ this and I could be all wrong and ill informed.

Thank you,

Pamela :

[Unregistered]

Dear Pamela,

I realize your post was almost a year ago (I hope you will be able to see this). And I hope your doing well. My dog died just yesterday from the same thing as yours. My beautiful 12 year 7 month old "baby girl" Gypsy died yesteday moring. She was a very loving, affectionate and loyal dog who was always by my side for the past 12 years. I would have never asked for a better companion. It happened so fast it all is a huge blur to me. She was fine when I left for work Monday but when my 2 yr old and I retuned home she was disoriented and panting harder than I have ever scene her pant. As the evening went on she seemed a little better but not herself. She showed absolutely no emotion what so ever to me or to my son, (My husband is out of town until Friday). She had a very restless night (we both tossed and turned) until around 1am when her panting increased by 2:30 am she was having one seizure after the other 20 -30 seconds apart. I called a friend to be here with Miles while I took her to the 24hr emergency vet. Her glucose had dropped to 14, which was the reason for the seizures. They kept her to try to stabilize her and to find out what was going on. After dropping my son off at preschool today I went to consult with her regular vet. She was so attached to her she offered to consult w/ the emergency care vet where she was in the ICU. On her advise I went to go check on Gypsy rather than wait on a call. I thank god I did, she was waiting for me. The Emergency care vet then told me they made several attempts to stabilize her glucose but it never rose above 40 and wanted to discus her quality of life, the one thing I did not want to hear. Apparently it is believed that this condition is caused by a type of glucose tumor located in the panaceas. Not with in 10 minutes of leaving us alone she quietly passed away in my arms. I was so thankful I did not have to make the decision, she made it for me. I am so glad to have had the last 12 years with her. I know a dog does not live as long as we do, but we sure do make them apart of our heart, sole and family. Now I have to figure out how to tell my son Gypsy is gone. I've made the decision I will wait until my husband gets home on Friday as long as I can keep telling him she is at the doctor. Your so right we need to find out what causes Insulinoma!!

[Unregistered]

Hello to all and thank you for all your information. My boston terrier Pugsley was showing signs of being lethargic, thirsty, incoherent, and although we took him to the vet several times and he was diagnosed and treated for low blood sugar, he still want into a grand mal seizure, and then many small ones until finally back to back every 15 minutes. During these weeks, he was eating, vomiting and then seizuring, and also seizuring after exercise... although his grand mal seizure was while he was asleep in the middle of the night. Pugsley has now been in the hospital for 5 days and every possible test has been run. His ultrasound today showed a spleen covered with tumors, although this is not the cause for low blood sugar. We chose the surgery since Pugsley is ony 7 years old, very healthy until now, and we were told his prognosis could be well over 1 year or more. Today they removed his spleen and 3 insulinomas from the back side of his pancreas. His sugar level immediately rose. This was at 6:00 p.m. today and as of 15 minutes ago, his sugar level is 168... meaning, his body is producing the levels on its own. Prior to the surgery, he could not survive without the IV and that's why he's been in there so long. If his levels continue in an upward mode and he does not develop pancreatitis, he stands to have a good quality of life. The surgeons were not overly optimistic at the time of the ultrasound but once they were in there, they were very happy with the outcome. There is no concrete evidence of survival rates after this type of surgery however I will post the results as we move along. So many posts have helped us understand so if there is anyone he needs any information from our experience, we will be happy to help. We're praying for our Pugsley

[Unregistered]

I'll say a prayer for your Pugsley too. My yorkie Riley was diagnosed with insulinomia today (7/18/07). I am devastated. The vet doesn't think surgery is going to help -- but, maybe that is what we'll do. I'm so confused now. My Riley is only 7 years old and besides having issues with his back legs as a puppy -- he has been very healthy. This came on suddenly with panting and shaking and falling over -- it's been terrible. I'm trying to keep him on a good high carbs and protein diet and he has seemed so much better - but, I'm told that it is short term.

Best wishes and happy thoughts to everyone else going thru this now -- these little guys sure find their way into our hearts!

[Unregistered]

I know of people who have switched to a raw meaty bone diet. You do need to understand which bones are eaten by a dog. Also uses K-9 immunity and k-9 transfer factor and her dog is still alive with out surgery. Our dog was diagnosed in feb with same cancer, we had to do surgery and she just passed away last night. Surgery did give her a quality of life. We chose not to do chemo or radiation as those just make things worse. Feeding your dog carbs is feeding the cancer. Insulinoma produces insulin so it can take the sugar out of the body dropping you to a low BG. Mocha got used to being low blood sugar but she also had to be put on prednisone to keep seizures from happening. When blood sugars get too low I used sugar water mixed with ensure. I was told that ensure would help keep mocha from spiking then bottoming out later. Poly MVA may be of some help too. I did not get a chance to get that. I joined the rawmeatybones group on yahoo and they were of great help. there is also a cancer group there for dogs too.

To learn more about some cancers look at NewsTarget.com I think is the link. You can get a lot of information there about cancers, chemo, radiation etc.

Our dog food is not made for a Carnivore. Carnivores eat meat not veggies. Occasional berries etc but not steady diet.

The end for this cancer is not a great way to be. Maybe you wont have the grand maul seizures we just went through with our baby, one after another all the way to the vet hosp an hour away plus what happened before we left.

I wish you good luck and hugs to Riley and you. Get educated on this so as to prolong Rileys life the best that you can and to give the best quality of life you can. You may not make the same decisions we did, but make them as your gut tells you to. Even if it goes against a regular vet.

I will try to find my way back to this site to see if you at least got my message and hopefully to hear you will look into to some of this before jumping into the fire. and to be of any other help that i can be if you want any help from me.

I'll say a prayer for your Pugsley too. My yorkie Riley was diagnosed with insulinomia today (7/18/07). I am devastated. The vet doesn't think surgery is going to help -- but, maybe that is what we'll do. I'm so confused now. My Riley is only 7 years old and besides having issues with his back legs as a puppy -- he has been very healthy. This came on suddenly with panting and shaking and falling over -- it's been terrible. I'm trying to keep him on a good high carbs and protein diet and he has seemed so much better - but, I'm told that it is short term.

Best wishes and happy thoughts to everyone else going thru this now -- these little guys sure find their way into our hearts!

[Doo's mum]

I know this site ie a kind of "warts and all" but it helped me yesterday when I had to have my little Scooby-doo put to rest. He had 3 massive seizures in a row and didn't know me at all in the end. I was appreciative of the post as it let me know what to expect. Thanks.
Rest in peace my lovely boy love mum xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Unregistered]

Our 12 year old Portuguese Water Dog was diagnosed with insulinoma at the end of August. It has just been 2 weeks. We decided to try medical therapy instead of surgery. He had 2 smaller surgeries for mast cell tumors over the past 3 years and I hated to put him through such an invasive surgery. From my reading, it also sounds as if the tumors usually recur, and I do not want to go through this again.
His first 10 days on prednisone went pretty well, but now he is acting very lethargic and not eating well. We have a vet checkup later today for his blood sugar. He's been a wonderful pet and companion and this has been very hard on everyone in the family.
Any tips on diet that he will like, I am afraid he is not eating enough to keep his blood sugar up.

[blesher]

Our 12 year old Portuguese Water Dog was diagnosed with insulinoma at the end of August. It has just been 2 weeks. We decided to try medical therapy instead of surgery. He had 2 smaller surgeries for mast cell tumors over the past 3 years and I hated to put him through such an invasive surgery. From my reading, it also sounds as if the tumors usually recur, and I do not want to go through this again.
His first 10 days on prednisone went pretty well, but now he is acting very lethargic and not eating well. We have a vet checkup later today for his blood sugar. He's been a wonderful pet and companion and this has been very hard on everyone in the family.
Any tips on diet that he will like, I am afraid he is not eating enough to keep his blood sugar up.

Had the vet visit, and his blood sugar is good, so we are going to reduce the dosage of prednisone and see if that perks him up!

[Verna]

Our Airedale was diagnosed with an insulinoma at the age of 8. She was a terrific dog and as I was a nurse, I decided that surgery was the plan as she was fairly young. She did well with me doing twice daily blood sugars (on her ear) and she was ever so patient knowing that a little bit of cheese was her reward. She had the surgery on October and then just before christmas I noticed a change in her symptoms, drinking lots and peeing a great deal. So her new diagnosis was diabetes. She went on insulin twice daily. Sometimes she would have low blood sugar because she didn't always eat when hungry. So occasionally she would have a seizure. She would eat something unless very low. Our other Airedale would know when when her blood sugar dropped and would warn us. Occasionally we would have to rub corn syrup on her gums and she would recover quickly. She did well and seemed to have a good quality of life. Other than putting on weight because of the insulin, she did well.
One day in April she was at the groomers and jumped off the table and hyper extended her wrist. The only solution would have been surgery. Well I had always wondered when I would know when the time was up. Well this decided it for us. We couldn't put her through another surgery. She seemed to be ready. So I held her while the vet put her down.
The biggest problem was the other dog was very upset because she didn't have a job anymore being a "seizure dog" . So we very quickly got another Airedale as she was so depressed. All in all we were glad we did it this way.

[Amylogamy]

It seems that Insulinoma is happening more and more in dogs now a days. I had no idea of this decease until this past Sunday when I had to take my Sophie to the emergency clinic. She had been acting a little strange in our walks. Not really wanting to walk just dragging. First I thought it was due to the hot weather we were having in Los Angeles during this summer. Then I started to notice her reluctance to go for our long walks even in cooler weather. Dragging and me pulling the leash to make her walk. I thought because of her Arthritis and her age, she is 10, she was getting slower. This past Sunday was pretty bad. We started to go for our long walk. About 5 long blocks from our place she refused to walk anymore. She seemed wobbly, shaky, disoriented. I got scared and sat down with her on the grass then she started yelping and going in circles like a wounded animal. I though something had bit her on the grass, pulled her up and moved her to the side walk. Same thing. I pulled her up again and we stated to walk again just a few more paces. She over 50 pounds. I tried carrying her only to make half a block. Finally somebody saw us and offered help. They took us home in their car.
After a battery of tests and three days in the hospital, Insulinoma was the diagnosis. I have her home now. She is eating small frequent meals and on prednisone. She seems to be doing well for now. Surgery was recommended. Financially impossible.