Diabetic Squirrel: looking for advice

[BurrandSparrow]

Hello! I have a six year-old non-releasable intact male eastern grey squirrel. I've had him since he was around ~12 weeks old after well-meaning good samaritans attempted to raise him which resulted in a slight failure to thrive and extreme over-acclimation to humans. He's been in my care or the care of another wildlife rehabber since then and hasn't had any significant health or behavior issues until now.

In the past several months he showed a sudden increase in weight gain, which was unusual for him as he's always trended towards being rather thin and slight for an eastern grey. He then began showing a significant increase in drinking and urination, at which point I was able to track down a local veterinarian (who does not have extensive experience with squirrels/exotics) to look at him via word of mouth (I live in a state where squirrels are not legato keep in captivity). He was anesthetized and examined by the very kind staff and unsurprisingly his glucose (confirmed via blood and urine) was 456 mg/dL.

We opted to try cutting sugar/carbs from his diet (has was eating primarily sweet potatoes as the staple of his diet, along with many carb-heavy snacks such as dried pasta. COMPLETELY my fault and I take full responsibility/guilt for this). I switched him to kale/collard greens, Timothy hay and Henry's Healthy blocks and started doing daily urine glucose checks using dipsticks ordered online. However, after a week his glucose is still testing extremely high (>2000 mg/dL) which is dramatically higher than he tested at the vet. I'm not sure if the dipsticks are potentially inaccurate, but more likely we suspect his glucose levels are not going down. The vet and I area bit stumped what the next steps are. The vet and I searched through threads on here and saw that at least one squirrel was put on Glipizide with good success, but we aren't confident about the dosage or any other specifics about medication/management.

in summary, does anyone have any helpful information on the management of diabetic squirrels, especially using Glipizide or other medication?

Thank you so much for reading this! It means so much to me and my non-releasable squirrel (aka my beloved family member!)

[MyBushyTail]

I just copied and posted the below, which is one of my older posts. Hope this helps you out some.

My Angel was 7 years old when he was first diagnosed with type two diabetes. He was a grey squirrel that gained too much weight in less than 3 months which I am sure is what led to him developing type two diabetes. Prior to that he had always been so very lean - weight ranging between 580 grams to 610 grams the most. At the time he was diagnosed with diabetes his weight was about 688 grams - which was way too much for him and at one point his weight even went up to 720 grams which again was way too much for him.

Since my squirrel had type two diabetes he was on an oral medicine not insulin shots. He was on Glipizide which is an oral diabetes medicine that helps control blood sugar levels. My vet had it compounded - a liquid form which I chose to have flavorless since it was much easier to get my Angel to take it having no flavor. For my Angel the Glipizide med was as follows - Glipizide 2.5mg/ml 30ml - Give 0.15ml by mouth once every 24 hours. There were several times before he lost weight that his diabetes was so out of control that I was giving him 2 doses a day - every 12 hours and that always helped to lower his blood glucose levels and get it back to normal. When he was first prescribed the Glipizide the recommended dose was higher at 0.27ml every 24 hours. 08-09-2014 was his first dose ever given which I only gave 0.17ml - I wanted to start out on the low side to see if there were any bad effects. 08-10-2014 dose 0.17ml. 08-11-2014 dose 0.19ml. 08-12-2014 dose 0.25ml. 08-13-2014 through 08-26-14 dose 0.27ml. On 08-28-2014 I cut back to 0.15ml as I had been afraid of hypoglycemia due to Angel's actions. The 0.15ml is the dose I stuck with as that amount seemed to be what worked best for my Angel. Of course there were times over that winter of 2014 that he would gain weight and his controlled diabetes started getting out of control so I would end up increasing the dose. I always gave the Glipizide to him at the same time every day which for Angel was first thing in the morning right after he woke up. I would just put it on a baby spoon and he would lick it right up - he used to think that it was his morning treat.

You may want to ask you vet about Glipizide just to see if it may be an option for your squirrel depending on what type diabetes your squirrel has?

I really did not change any of his diet just cut down a little on the amount of sugary foods given. With Angel weight gain was the culprit - as soon as his weight would increase the diabetes would get out of control - a weight of 640-650 grams is all it took for the diabetes to get bad. I tried to keep his weight between 580 grams and 600 grams with 620 grams being the highest. Below 620 grams worked out great - he was as diabetes free as he could be and ended up not needing any Glipizide medicine at all. He was maintaining his diabetes all on his own just by staying lean. Unfortunately I lost my Angel on January 14, 2016 but not from his diabetes from odontomas complications.

[squirrellyfries]

I just copied and posted the below, which is one of my older posts. Hope this helps you out some.

My Angel was 7 years old when he was first diagnosed with type two diabetes. He was a grey squirrel that gained too much weight in less than 3 months which I am sure is what led to him developing type two diabetes. Prior to that he had always been so very lean - weight ranging between 580 grams to 610 grams the most. At the time he was diagnosed with diabetes his weight was about 688 grams - which was way too much for him and at one point his weight even went up to 720 grams which again was way too much for him.

Since my squirrel had type two diabetes he was on an oral medicine not insulin shots. He was on Glipizide which is an oral diabetes medicine that helps control blood sugar levels. My vet had it compounded - a liquid form which I chose to have flavorless since it was much easier to get my Angel to take it having no flavor. For my Angel the Glipizide med was as follows - Glipizide 2.5mg/ml 30ml - Give 0.15ml by mouth once every 24 hours. There were several times before he lost weight that his diabetes was so out of control that I was giving him 2 doses a day - every 12 hours and that always helped to lower his blood glucose levels and get it back to normal. When he was first prescribed the Glipizide the recommended dose was higher at 0.27ml every 24 hours. 08-09-2014 was his first dose ever given which I only gave 0.17ml - I wanted to start out on the low side to see if there were any bad effects. 08-10-2014 dose 0.17ml. 08-11-2014 dose 0.19ml. 08-12-2014 dose 0.25ml. 08-13-2014 through 08-26-14 dose 0.27ml. On 08-28-2014 I cut back to 0.15ml as I had been afraid of hypoglycemia due to Angel's actions. The 0.15ml is the dose I stuck with as that amount seemed to be what worked best for my Angel. Of course there were times over that winter of 2014 that he would gain weight and his controlled diabetes started getting out of control so I would end up increasing the dose. I always gave the Glipizide to him at the same time every day which for Angel was first thing in the morning right after he woke up. I would just put it on a baby spoon and he would lick it right up - he used to think that it was his morning treat.

You may want to ask you vet about Glipizide just to see if it may be an option for your squirrel depending on what type diabetes your squirrel has?

I really did not change any of his diet just cut down a little on the amount of sugary foods given. With Angel weight gain was the culprit - as soon as his weight would increase the diabetes would get out of control - a weight of 640-650 grams is all it took for the diabetes to get bad. I tried to keep his weight between 580 grams and 600 grams with 620 grams being the highest. Below 620 grams worked out great - he was as diabetes free as he could be and ended up not needing any Glipizide medicine at all. He was maintaining his diabetes all on his own just by staying lean. Unfortunately I lost my Angel on January 14, 2016 but not from his diabetes from odontomas complications.

Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply! I have started him on Glipizide and have already seen a significant change in his behavior for the better. I was curious how you monitored his glucose while he was on Glipizide? I'm still using dipsticks every few days but obviously won't see a difference since the Glipizide won't change glucose excreted in urine. Did you use a glucometer and prick to check glucose or was there another method you used? Any feedback is greatly appreciated

[MyBushyTail]

Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply! I have started him on Glipizide and have already seen a significant change in his behavior for the better. I was curious how you monitored his glucose while he was on Glipizide? I'm still using dipsticks every few days but obviously won't see a difference since the Glipizide won't change glucose excreted in urine. Did you use a glucometer and prick to check glucose or was there another method you used? Any feedback is greatly appreciated

I would test his urine three times a day with the glucose and ketone sticks plus I took him to my vet for blood tests.