my cat has kidney disease... any suggestions?we just found out my cat has kidney disease, he is 14 and i read the symptoms and my cat has increased thirst, vommiting, and lost appetite. the vet said its mild, but i want to make him a little bit better. we bought him some Hill's k/d wet food but he doesnt like it, any suggestions?
Posted by Eiskalt
Just try to make the rest of his life more comfortable. Give him plenty of love and affection. Spoil him and let him eat what he wants. Give him some Hill's a/d. Animals love a/d.
Posted by topsecretmoon
Your cat really needs to stay on a kidney diet. Ask your vet for some homemade recipe's for just this such situation. Do this now before he gets any worse. I am guessing he is chronic not acute then?
Also run a chemistry panel at least every 6 months on him.
I have seen cats managed for quite a while by doing this...
Best of luck..
EDITED TO ADD: I wanted to add that injectable Valium given to a cat moments before food will stimulate the appetite. Do NOT let him go without any food for more than a day. Cats can get into a major crises by this
Posted by sleepycatz1972
cannot tell you enough how important it is that he gets wet food in general. dry simply will not give his body the amount of fluids it needs for the kidneys to process as well as they can. it is more important that he eat SOMETHING than he eat just that one specific brand of food. there are more food made for kitties with renal problems than ever before, so if he won't eat hill's k/d, try another brand:
"Royal Canin Renal LP21; Hills K/D; IVD Select Care Modified; Eukanuba Multi-Stage Renal Diet; Hi Tor Neo (available without a prescription), and Purina NF Kidney Function Brand Formula. Hills also makes a G/D diet designed for early stage CRF when numbers are hardly elevated."
i fed my cats on homemade crf diets with wet food every day in between meals. they were not as low protein as many old-school vets would prescribe, but they were still low in phosphorous & sodium. the new line of thinking coming out of vet schools is that low protein is not always the best thing for a kitty with crf, so don't be *too* worried if you can't get your cat to eat K/D.
we did do blood panels every 6 mos or so on my cats to see where they stood, although rarely did the results change their treatment plans. all 3 of my cats that had crf were put on acid reducers - toxins built up otherwise and they would vomit up their food. 2 of the 3 were also put on phosphorous binders & potassium gluconate, both pretty cheap if you go thru a human pharmacy for it.
like the person above mentioned, if he goes more than a day w/o food, it can throw him into a crisis that would be very hard for him to recover from. you will probably find that as the disease progresses, he will go in and out of those periodically. so keep a close eye on his eating and how he seems to feel. the sooner you recognize he's hitting a low point, the sooner you can respond and help him get thru it. every cat progresses at a different rate with this, so don't expect him to follow the same timeline as someone else's cat. after diagnosis of renal problems, my first cat lived for nearly 3 yrs, the second only 3 months, and we just lost the third last week after a year battle. so be prepared for anything, but hope for the best. you caught it early so his chance of being one of the longer loved ones is much better. good luck & hugs to the boy.
here are some good resources for those with kidney disease kitties. it helps to talk sometimes to others who are going thru the same thing and to see what has worked for them:
http://www.felinecrf.org/which_foods.htm
http://www.felinecrf.com/
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Feline-CRF-Support/
Posted by Jean
Doing blood work a couple months is the key to see how the kidney values are. Doing SQ-Fluids ( fluids underneath the skin) will help her kidneys out and make her feel better overall. The fluids will make her pee and keep her hydrated. Feline K/D can and dry and Renal LP are both good kidney diets for cats with kidney failure. Feeding a diet that is for the kidney alone will help the kidneys and keep your cat living longer. Try putting a smelly cat food or baby food mixed with the dry K/D so at least he is getting some form of the kidney diet into him.
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