One of the common misconceptions is that pets with diabetes will exhibit all the complications of diabetes known to occur in man: Loss of vision from diabetic retinopathy, kidney failure from diabetic nephropathy, stroke and heart attack from large vessel disease, and the risk of amputation from small vessel disease, weakness and pain from diabetic neuropathy.

None of these occur in pets, not because diabetes behaves differently, but because these complications occur over decades in man. While vision loss or impairment can occur in dogs as a result of diabetes induced cataracts, which are very rare in cats, they can be successfully treated with surgery.

In order to prevent these complications in man, very tight control of blood glucose is required resulting in patients having to take insulin and oral diabetes medications multiple times a day along with multiple daily measurements of their blood glucose.

However, in pets, our goals are much easier to attain. Our goals are to lower the blood glucose sufficiently to prevent or lessen the common clinical signs of diabetes, which are excessive drinking and urination, slow or delay the progression of cataracts, preserve ideal body weight as both obesity and being too thin can complicate management, and prevent hypoglycemic reactions.

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