My wife and I are both "dog people". We have three Airedale terriers, all of whom were "rescued". But as much as we love our dogs and think that they're special, there is another class of dogs who perform some very important and possibly life saving functions.
We all have seen dogs who have been trained to help people who are blind or dogs who help those who have lost their hearing. Now there are specially trained dogs who can identify low blood sugar in humans. According to the website www.dogs4diabetics.com, these dogs can detect "subtle scent changes that hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) creates in body chemistry, changes undetectable to their human companions."
Hypoglycemia can have some very scary consequences. Our brain needs a steady supply of sugar (glucose), because it doesn't store or manufacture its own energy supply. If glucose levels become too low, as occurs with hypoglycemia, the following symptoms can occur:
Another program, www.allpurposecanines.com , trains dogs who can detect BOTH low and high blood glucose levels. They say that "a strong team concept is essential to the success of a service dog partnership. Parents, family members, healthcare professionals and educators all have important roles to ensure the team's success." Is their program successful? They are "especially proud of the 100% success rate with this program."
In an article in the March 2008 issue of Diabetes Forecast, "what is uncanny is the reliabilty" of these dogs. Trainers at Dogs for Diabetics in Concord, California say that these trained dogs are "right 90% of the time".And what's more, some have "the ability to sense a dangerous drop in blood glucose BEFORE the drop occurs."
From my years of helping people who have diabetes, I think the most important and critical time to know when a blood sugar drop occurs is during sleep. For example, If too much insulin is given before bedtime, a hypoglycemic event may occur during sleep, and the person with diabetes would not be awake to react and treat the symptoms. A Diabetes "Scentry" Dog could save this person's life.
David Mendosa says "this device, which you can wear on either your wrist or ankle as you sleep, sounds an alarm when it detects one of the signs of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar)..... It will beep repeatedly if hypoglycemia causes your skin temperature to drop or your skin to perspire.......The Sleep Sentry will not work for everyone. Extensive testing indicates that users may experience some false positives or false negatives. "
Dr. Julio Santiago, professor of pediatrics at the Washington University in St. Louis, says that before you decide one way or the other, consider this:
“Patients with past episodes of severe hypoglycemia must decide if an 80% to 90% chance of a ‘true positive’ alarm is worth the inconvenience of an occasional (1 to 2 per month) ‘false positive’ alarm…There is no perfect device to eliminate the danger of severe hypoglycemia. Patients who take insulin and have a history of past episodes of severe hypoglycemia should be considered candidates for the Sleep Sentry. Patients without a history of severe nocturnal hypoglycemia may also benefit from the Sleep Sentry, depending on the personal inconvenience associated with false alarms.”
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