Identifying diabetic emergencies

September 3, 2025

Melissa Evans, CVT, LVT, VTS (ECC), discussed these common endocrine conditions in a dvm360 interview.

What are the most common diabetic emergencies in veterinary medicine? Melissa Evans, CVT, LVT, VTS (ECC), owner of Melissa Evans, VTS (ECC): Veterinary Nurse Consulting, discussed these endocrine conditions in a dvm360 interview at the 2025 Fetch dvm360 Conference in Kansas City, Missouri.

Evans is an experienced emergency, intensive care unit, and critical care technician with additional experience in shelter, wildlife, and disaster medicine. She is a RECOVER CPR–certified instructor who has worked in referral and specialty hospitals in New Jersey and New York. Evans is also a relief technician for specialty hospitals throughout New York, New York.

At the Fetch conference, Evans presented a series of continuing education sessions, including on focused on diabetic emergencies. In the session, she discussed emergency diabetic conditions and the role of technicians in providing nursing care. In this video, she addresses the most common of these conditions.

The following is a transcript of the video:

Melissa Evans, CVT, LVT, VTS (ECC): There are 2 that I see most commonly. The first one is hypoglycemia, where the blood sugar is too low. There's a couple of reasons for this, either the patient has gotten too much insulin, or the patient isn't eating the way they're supposed to, and they're still getting insulin. The other one is the opposite, hyperglycemia—so diabetic ketoacidosis, where the body isn't able to use glucose for energy, so it breaks down fatty acids and then uses ketones for that energy. This causes a wide range of problems, acidosis, the patient becomes lethargic, the patient becomes very sick, and they need a lot of care.

For more coverage of the Fetch Kansas City conference, visit the dvm360 conference news page.