my cat has chronic kidney failure, advise?!?!?

Question

She's about 7 years old in human years. I found her on the street she was a miracle case to begin with. I usually feed her a variety of "one" and other regular cat foods that she prefers along with whiskas treats. I spoil her basically. Suddenly two weeks goes by and she no longer has an appetite. I get worried. I take her to the vet she takes a bunch of tests and turns out she has kidney failure and can only eat a certain type of perscribed food. Then I notice she drops her food when she eats as if something in her mouth hurts, I go to a 2nd vet which gave her tests and oh intraven? water vitamin, etc. and he came up with the same thing but he also gave her a shot of anibiotics and however said she could eat regular healthy food... So which is it regular food or not? I'm seeing how she responds because what they are reluctant to tell you is that kidney failure means termination... I wish I knew how to take care of her and not get run around. I wish I knew how much time she will live

Answer 1

Susana i am sorry for your cats health, as I think cats that we rescue have a certain place in our hearts. Kidney failure would have to be one of the biggest killers of cats. Unfortunately the prognoses is not good. Once they have developed it it really is a matter of time before the disease starts to take a hold.
I would defiantly get your cat to stay on K/D diet it had good Kidney support and allows the kidneys to have a break from the ingredients from it's food that it has to break down. I would sy the vet thinks that because your cat is not eating then anything will do then listen to you vet. Get a good quality grade food that your cat will enjoy and let him get some strength back again. Start to mix in the Kidney diet and see if you can get the cat to eat it as a sole diet. Unfortunately Kidney diet is not very tasty and the cat may refuse to eat it. You can try heating it up if you are getting tinned food as cats can be stimulated by smell and see if that works.

If the cat is in its advance stages of renal failure you don't have long. Your cat will be feeling pretty lousy and it would be the equivelent of feeling like you have a really bad hangover.

So i would say as long as the cat is happy in himself and eating and drinking (i'm sure he is drinking heaps) then his quality of life is not being compromised, as soon as this goes down hill then you really need to make a decision and think about him and his health and his happiness

Good luck it is a really hard time for you and your family

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

looks like you already have some good answers, but for my 2cents, my mother's cat was diagnosed with the same problem in late January of this year - she was a shelter cat, but my mother has had her for about 7 years. she was licking her lips alot, which turns out to mean that she had an aching stomach, and was acting lethargic. she wouldn't clean herself and wouldn't eat, but when anyone put down fresh water, she'd run over to it and drink the whole thing. anyway, same story about the special food because she shouldn't eat anything with complex proteins - puts even more of a stress on her kidneys - so these special foods usually contain very simple proteins that are easy for the kidney to break down. Feeding her normal food would accelerate the disease, from what we were told.
My mother also opted to go for under-skin injections of a saline solution (possibly medicated, i'm not sure on that) to the back of her cat's neck to attempt to get her kidney levels down. the other option was kitty dialysis or a kidney transplant, both of which are pretty extreme for your average pet owner. The injections are pricey also, costing around 10$ a week. They seemed to bring her completely around though. she's cleaning herself again and eating and whatnot. she goes in for kidney tests whenever she starts acting sick again, but she's eating the kidney food all the time now. Most of the web sites we checked said that its possible for a cat with kidney failure to live 2-3 years after an early diagnosis and treatment.
Anyway, thought you might want to hear some recent personal experiences on the matter! if you are hoping to extend her life as long as possible and keep her comfortable in the mean time, i'd go the safe route and keep with the special diet. At least you won't have her get worse if you're wrong, which could be the result of giving her regular food with this condition. Either way, i wish you the best of luck!

Answer 4

2

Answer 5

I am sorry you are having to deal with such an unfortunate, and yet common problem of the older cat. Perhaps I can shed some light on the problem for you.

The kidneys are the organs of the body which extract waste from the blood and put it into the urine. When the kidneys start to fail, these waste products accumulate in the blood. However, 3/4 of the kidney function needs to be compromised in order for your pet to show any signs of illness, which is why your pet can suddenly appear very ill even if the kidney problem has been occuring over a much longer period.

Symptoms of kidney disease/failure include an increase in drinking and urinating, a decrease in appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss and lethargy. A certain number of cats will also develop sores in their mouths and bad breath if the waste products in the blood are transfered to the saliva. This may be why your kitty is acting like her mouth hurts. If she will let you look into her mouth or smell her breath (kitties are not mouth breathers so this is easier said than done!) I encourage you to investigate further and consult your veterinarian. This particular symptom is called "Uremic stomatitis" (your-ee-mick stow-mat-eye-tis).

At home treatment of kidney disease includes feeding your pet a diet designed to ease kidney disease, vitamin supplementation if needed (not all kitties need vitamins), free access to water at all times, and attentiveness by the owner.

Kidney diets are designed to ease the course of kidney failure by being low in protein, phosphorus and salt. They are actually proven to slow the course of kidney disease in both dogs and cats. However, because of their lower protein content our carnivore friends find them less palatable than the foods they are used to. A kidney diet is superior to normal pet food for the patient in kidney failure...but ONLY if your cat will eat it. As I mentioned above, many pets in kidney failure have a decreased appetite. It is better to have the kitty eating the wrong food than nothing at all, which is perhaps what your second vet was trying to get at.

Some ways to coax kitty to eat the new food is to switch gradually, incorporating her old food with the new kidney food over time (weeks!) until she gets used to it. Sometimes hand feeding kitty, giving her more frequent smaller meals, or giving her the canned food if she is used to the dry will help her make the transition. As a last resort you can add a little of the water that canned tuna or clams is packaged in - just make sure that salt isn't listed as an ingredient or you will be adding back all the salt you were trying to avoid with the kidney diet in the first place.

If your kitty won't eat her kidney diet it is still acceptable for her to eat her old food. Make sure she has plenty of access to fresh water. A number of water bowls or a cat fountain would be optimal. Because the kidneys are struggling, even a couple hours without water can be very harmful.

While you are correct in the idea that most cats who develop chronic kidney failure eventually die from it, this is not a disease for which your vet can readily say "She has 3 months to live". Some kitties live only a few months after diagnosis, others go on to live many years with their kidney failure if it can be managed.

Good luck to you and your little darling.

Answer 6

Hi. I am sorry to hear that your kitty has received such a diagnosis as this. Please understand that even though this is a terminal disease, each cat is different. Life expectancy will depend on the progression of the disease in your cat and how your cat responds to treatments and overall care. Cats can live from months to years with kidney failure - each story is different. Be optimistic, treat your cat the best you can, be prepared when the time comes to help your kitty go with the least amount of suffering... and remember - you saved her already from a life on the streets and she is giving you love in return - enjoy every moment together.

I am sending you a link with more information about kidney failure. It talks about food choices, treatment options, etc.

Answer 7

Hi there,
My friend Rose was about 50 when she first came upon a new natural kidney healing program. Her life had been devastated, literally ruined with stage 4 kidney disease. She had no life, no job because she was too sick to work, not enough energy to see her friends and sat around most of the time watching TV. She basically was waiting around for kidney failure and to start dialysis. She is much better now. She followed a natural method with great results. Visit this site if you want to know more http://kidneydisease.toptips.org
Best

Answer 8

Listen- my cat was experiencing this very thing the past few weeks- would eat food and drop it, kidney failure, just like you describe.

All of our cats, as well, stopped eating their food and were vomiting.

MSNBC just posted a story about Wal-Mart recalling 60 million containers of Special Kitty and similar cat food because, ta da, it caused kidney failure in hundreds of cats and dogs.

Mine nearly died. $1500 later and he's back to normal, but if this came on suddenly, take a look at the food you bought. This was the food we were giving to our cats when all of the trouble started.

Answer 9

This response by a cat specialist veterinarian to a question concerning a "kidney failure" diagnosis on her cat may give you some pertinent (and optimistic) information about the disease:

"I am pretty sure that most cats over ten years of age have some degree of compromise in kidney function. Most of these cats will do fine, without treatment, for several years. At some point, one of the functions of the kidney will become deficient enough to cause problems. For some cats this
will be potassium regulation problems, for others azotemia (inability to detoxify the blood adequately), weight loss or other sigs of kidneys that are just not functioning well enough. Veterinarians, including me, tend to refer to this condition as kidney failure when it really is more accurately described as kidney insufficiency. The kidneys need help to do their usual
jobs and if they get the help, they will continue to meet the body's needs for a long time. Our personal record for a cat that came in to the office in a crisis situation from kidney insufficiency was eight years of good quality life after this initial episode. We have had a number of patients
in which we discovered kidney insufficiency by accident who lived much longer than this after the initial realization that there was going to be a chronic problem with kidney insufficiency.

The things that help the kidneys are these: 1) control phosphorous levels in the diet, through the use of low phosphorous diets, calcitriol supplementation and/or phosphate binding agents, 2) moderate protein levels
in the diet, 3) supplement potassium, 4) use anti-hypertensive agents (we like amlodipine (Norvasc Rx) as a first choice but use enalapril (Enacard Rx) in some patients), 5) do what you can to get more liquid into the diet by switching to canned foods, encouraging water intake with a source of running or moving water, 6) when it is apparent that a cat can not maintain adequate hydration, or needs enough fluids to induce diuresis, use subcutaneous fluid administration. I strongly prefer that my clients learn
to do this at home, so that it can be done daily when necessary and so that it is less stressful to the cat, but if intermittent therapy at our office is all that can be done, we use that approach, 7) when anemia becomes a problem, consider using erythropoietin supplementation. This should be put off until absolutely necessary, unless a cat origin source of erythropoietin becomes available, which may happen. The present products are human origin and cause antibody formation against this hormone in some cats, which is a really serious complication of therapy. 8) for younger
cats, kidney transplant is possible, although it is expensive and does not always work out well.

Eventually kidney insufficiency will lead to a situation in which the kidney have truly failed and this condition becomes fatal. However, this decline in function may take a very long time, if you help the kidneys out, allowing them to do less work and making it possible for them to meet the body's needs in this manner.

I think it is still reasonable to hope for Emily to live 19 to 20 years. There is no guarantee but there is also no reason to give up and passively accept a poorer prognosis for longevity, either.

Mike Richards, DVM
11/26/2000

I sincerely hope this helps in pointing you to the right direction in helping your cat towards a quality life despite his "kidney insufficiency."

Answer 10

Reverse Kidney Disease Naturally : http://NaturallyGo.com/Help