Modern diabetes monitoring pushes care beyond the glucose curve
Bottom line
Veterinary diabetes monitoring is moving further away from the traditional in-hospital glucose curve and toward at-home continuous glucose monitoring, according to a new Clinician’s Brief partner podcast featuring internist Dr. Jocelyn Mott and a recent Today’s Veterinary Practice review on CGM use in small animal medicine. The podcast frames CGM interpretation, insulin adjustment, referral decisions, and the first post-diagnosis conversation as central parts of modern diabetic case management, while the TVP review says CGMs have become more affordable and more practical in dogs and cats, giving clinicians multi-day interstitial glucose trend data outside the hospital setting. (cliniciansbrief.com)
Why it matters: For veterinary teams, this is less about a single product update than a broader practice shift. Recent guidance from AAHA’s 2026 feline diabetes management guidelines includes a dedicated glucose-monitoring section, and the 2025 iCatCare consensus guidelines for feline diabetes specifically added continuous glucose monitoring as part of a major update. That reflects a wider clinical push toward lower-stress, home-based monitoring that can better capture nadirs, variability, and possible hypoglycemic events than a one-day hospital curve alone, while also requiring staff training on placement, client coaching, and interpretation of interstitial-versus-blood glucose differences. (aaha.org)
What to watch: Expect more practice protocols, guideline uptake, and case-based education around how CGM data should guide insulin changes, especially as newer sensor models and home-monitoring workflows become more common in primary care. (cliniciansbrief.com)
Key facts
- Topic
- Veterinary diabetes monitoring is shifting from in-hospital glucose curves to at-home continuous glucose monitoring (CGM).
- Species
- Dogs and cats
- Podcast guest
- Dr. Jocelyn Mott
- CGM use
- Measures interstitial glucose continuously and can stay attached for up to two weeks
- Practical benefit
- Provides multi-day glucose trend data outside the hospital setting
- Key limitation
- Interstitial glucose is not the same as blood glucose, and readings can lag during rapid swings
- AAHA guideline date
- April 26, 2026
- Guideline update
- The 2025 iCatCare feline diabetes consensus guidelines added CGM
- Monitoring still used
- AAHA says blood glucose curves are still used to identify nadir, insulin duration, and overall glucose fluctuation
Small animal diabetes care is increasingly being managed beyond the classic in-hospital glucose curve, with continuous glucose monitoring now taking a larger role in day-to-day case management. That’s the throughline of a new Clinician’s Brief partner podcast, in which Dr. Jocelyn Mott discusses how she approaches newly diagnosed diabetic dogs and cats, interprets CGM data, adjusts insulin doses, and decides when specialty referral is warranted. A recent Today’s Veterinary Practice review lands in the same place: CGMs are becoming more accessible in veterinary medicine and are now an important tool for diabetic patient management. (cliniciansbrief.com)
The shift has been building for years. Historically, diabetic monitoring in companion animals relied heavily on in-hospital blood glucose curves, spot checks, fructosamine, urine glucose trends, and caregiver-run home testing. But newer reviews and guidelines suggest the field is steadily moving toward more home-based data collection, partly to reduce stress-related distortion and partly to get a fuller picture of glucose trends over several days rather than a single hospital visit. AAHA’s feline diabetes guidelines, published April 26, 2026, devote a full section to glucose monitoring, and the 2025 iCatCare consensus guidelines highlighted CGM as one of the notable additions to their updated recommendations. (aaha.org)
The practical appeal is straightforward. Today’s Veterinary Practice says CGMs can remain attached for up to two weeks and measure interstitial glucose continuously, with readings available after a short startup period and data captured over time in the home environment. The article also notes that these devices have become more affordable in recent years. At the same time, it emphasizes an important limitation familiar to internists: interstitial glucose is not the same as blood glucose, and sensor readings can lag behind blood glucose changes, especially during rapid swings. (todaysveterinarypractice.com)
That distinction is reflected in current guidance. AAHA notes that a blood glucose curve is still used to identify nadir, duration of insulin effect, and the overall range of glucose fluctuation, and it says a veterinary-calibrated glucometer may be the most practical and accurate method for serial blood glucose measurement. The guideline also cites published work on flash glucose monitoring in diabetic cats and dogs, including more recent evaluation of FreeStyle Libre 2 in cats, underscoring that CGM is being incorporated into practice alongside, not necessarily in complete replacement of, existing monitoring methods. (aaha.org)
Mott’s broader body of work helps explain why this matters beyond endocrinology specialists. In a 2025 JAVMA review, she and coauthors argued for a spectrum-of-care approach in canine diabetes, noting that anticipated costs, lifestyle burden, and financial constraints contribute to early euthanasia, even though diabetes is treatable. That makes home-based monitoring tools potentially important not just for glucose control, but for keeping management feasible for pet parents over time. The Clinician’s Brief episode appears to lean into that real-world challenge by focusing on the first diagnosis conversation as well as data interpretation and dose adjustment. (experts.illinois.edu)
Expert consensus in feline medicine is also moving in this direction. The 2025 iCatCare guidelines state that CGM has been added to the updated framework for diabetes management, alongside newer therapeutic options such as SGLT2 inhibitors. The guideline materials include detailed discussion and imagery around fitting devices such as the FreeStyle Libre 3 in cats, which signals how routine CGM placement and troubleshooting are becoming in specialty and referral settings. (journals.sagepub.com)
Why it matters: For general practitioners and technicians, the main takeaway is that diabetes monitoring is becoming more data-rich, more home-centered, and more operationally complex. CGM can help teams identify trends, nadirs, and possible hypoglycemia outside the clinic, but it also brings workflow demands around sensor placement, adhesive failure, client expectations, scan frequency, and interpretation of lagging interstitial values. Practices that build clear protocols for when to use CGM, how to combine it with clinical signs and blood glucose data, and when to escalate to referral may be better positioned to manage diabetic cases consistently and keep pet parents engaged. (todaysveterinarypractice.com)
What to watch: The next phase will likely be less about whether CGM belongs in small animal diabetes care and more about standardizing how primary care teams use it, especially as 2025–2026 guideline updates filter into practice and newer sensors continue to enter veterinary workflows. More comparative evidence on ideal placement, performance in dogs versus cats, and how CGM-guided decisions affect outcomes in general practice would help close the gap between enthusiasm and protocolized use. (aaha.org)