Therapeutic monitoring of blood glucose concentration in diabetic animals can be a frustrating experience for veterinarians. The two primary goals of insulin therapy when treating diabetics are resolution of clinical signs and avoidance of insulin-induced hypoglycemia. Clinical signs such as polyuria, polydipsia, polyphagia, weight loss, weakness, and attitude changes should alert the clinician to a potential problem with glycemic control. Ideally, blood glucose concentrations are maintained between 100 to 250 mg/dL and 100 to 300 mg/dL in diabetic dogs and cats, respectively. With the described goals in mind, diabetic monitoring usually focuses on history, physical examination, and ideally, testing that allows identification of not only glycemic control, but also the glucose nadir. In addition, monitoring should be relatively inexpensive, minimally labor intensive, and induce little or no stress for the animals.
Currently, a 12- to 24-hour glucose concentration curve is considered the gold standard of diabetic monitoring. Glucose concentration curves...
