Taz is a Border Terrier who has had a bit of a busy year. He first had a problem back in April last year when he started drinking and urinating much more than he had done previously. He was getting up a lot in the night to go to the toilet and had lost some weight.

This can happen for lots of different reasons. In Taz’s case some blood tests revealed that he had diabetes. In Taz’s case his body does not produce enough insulin which is needed to store the sugar from his food in his body. Without insulin the sugar levels in his blood get very high, which can become life threatening if uncontrolled.

In order to control his diabetes we started Taz on twice daily insulin injections. These are administered by his owners, and are given with a special injection pen. The amount of insulin we give is very dependent on the individual dog. It is also affected by food type and quantity so Taz has to have a very strict diet and exercise management.

We soon started to get Taz’s sugar levels under control. He has to come in regularly for us to measure a glucose (sugar) curve which looks at the level of sugar in his blood over a day. This is to make sure his glucose levels are not going too high or too low. Thankfully his diabetes is well controlled.

Unfortunately shortly after his diabetes diagnosis Taz started to have dome problems with his eyes going cloudy. In some cases diabetes can cause cataracts, so this was our first thought with Taz. He went to see a specialist eye vet and had surgery to remove his cataracts. Although this surgery can be very successful it does come with possible complications.

After his surgery Taz unfortunately developed glaucoma (increased pressure within the eye). He had eye drops to try and control this and reduce the pressure as it can be very painful. Despite the drops however one eye did not respond, and the only option left was to consider removing his eye.

Taz underwent enucleation surgery here. Due to his diabetes and his strict regime of food and insulin we had to be very careful to monitor his sugar levels and anaesthetic closely. Thankfully Taz did brilliantly and recovered really well from his anaesthetic. When an eye has been painful and vision has been reduced dogs can be much happier once the eye is removed. Taz hasn’t looked back since and is doing great!