My 8-year-old cat has been losing weight since early spring. She was normal until that time. She did eat some of the contaminated food and I feel awful. She was just diagnosed with a severe case of kidney failure and the Vet says she is terminal. I am on a very limited income but want to do all I can for her. Is there anything or anyone that can help?
2007-07-15 05:21:03 · 12 answers · asked by jrterrierz 2 in Pets ➔ Cats
Yes, there is a lot you can do to stabilize your kitty and give her a good quality of life. Vets always say they are terminal, and that is becuase the damage is not healable. However, you can prevent further damage and many people have kept their cats living for years using some simple treatments. My kitty lived two years after diagnosis, when the vet said only two weeks.
First, go to yahoo groups and find the crf group. They are very knowledgable in care and inexpensive care. Second, make sure you have a vet on YOUR side, wanting to care for your pet. If your vet simply says, CRF is uncurable, look for one who is affordable who is willing to prescribe some simple things to help your kitty. I am by no means rich and easily afforded my kitty's care with extras.
Make sure you know the cause -- an 8 year old cat is not getting it from old age. Is it acute? Poison or infection related? That tells you what you need to treat to make her recover.
It is likely that you need to give your kitty some water, which helps many kitties live a LONG time by itself. The treatment is simply injecting water under the kitty's skin. A lot of people think it sounds scary, but kitty's needle each other all the time, and my kitty easily got used to it, especially since it made her feel better. As she recovered, she needed the fluids less and less. Go to www.bricomedicalsupplies.com for very very affordable supplies to do this -- you can treat your kitty for as long as a year for just $100, when a vet will sell you just a week's worth of treatment for like $20-40 so you can see the benefit.
Is your kitty getting treatment? It is also important to know her BUN and Creatinine to know how far along she really is. Please feel free to email me anytime, I have done a LOT of research and my kitty made a recovery to the point she needed virtualy no treatment and lived like a playful kitten for two years until something else came along (her real problem was recurrent infections). Please take care and cuddle your kitty for me. It is hard to tell, some kitties live weeks, some months some years. More information could help people who have dealt with this answer you more specifically. Vitamin B is another good thing.. take care, my thoughts are with you.
PS, there are a variety of kidney foods your kitty can eat. My kitty did poorly on KD and was starving even though she ate it since it lacks the phosphorous but also lacks protein (whcih is not necessary). She did TONS better on Innova Lite, which has protein but low phosphorous which is what we want. So no, your kitty is not necessarily going to start dying if you feed her something besides kidney diet, my kitty improved when off kidney diet. Vets will tell you that though, since they encourage everyone to pts instead of treating. I did end up pts when the time was right, but before that my kitty did not even need pepcid because she was not even nauseous and her numbers stabilized from BUN 100 plus and Creatinine off the charts to Creat 2s-3s and barely above normal BUN even without the kidney diet.
Also, my cat WANTED to live longer, so pts is not always the answer until you know whether you can make your kitty better. My cat lived two more years of a full life, where she needed hardly any treatments, ate well, played, had no nausea, etc. -- she was very happy. It was worth it to me to give her those extra years, but when she did start to suffer and wanted to be let go, I obeyed her wishes. All the best in this difficult time.
2007-07-15 07:57:39 · answer #1 · answered by boncarles 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
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2016-09-22 09:01:02 · answer #2 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm so sorry. There are a couple things you can do that may slow the progression down. If she will eat it, switch her to the prescription food for cats with renal problems (you can get it from your vet) and you can do subcutaneous hydration to make sure she gets enough fluids. It's not hard and your vet can show you how. These methods were effective in keeping my 19 year old cat with kidney failure going for a few months longer. When she got to the point that she didn't like any food (she didn't like the kidney diet much at all - we didn't do that long and after that I fed her whatever she wanted) and when she didn't want sit still hydration anymore and got weak, we let her go. Kidney failure is not painful, they just start slowing down more and more and losing weight.
2007-07-15 05:29:59 · answer #3 · answered by ? 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You should talk to your vet about putting her on a special diet for her kidneys. They make perscription diet foods that are low in protein especially for animals in kidney failure. You may also be able to give subcutaneous fluids at home. Your vet can teach you how to do this. It helps your kitty remain hydrated and helps flush out her kidneys. It is very easy to do my kitty gets this treatment once a day and doesn't seem to mind.
2007-07-15 05:30:32 · answer #4 · answered by gonnella1205 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is nothing that really helps. You can buy her special food for cats with kidney damage, but she may not want to eat them. (Evidently they are not very tasty.)
You can have the vet give her sub-cutaneous fluids to help counter her dehydration, ad you can even learn to do it yourself. It's not difficult and the cats usually don't mind. (The best place to buy the solution, with a prescription from your vet, is the pharmacy at Costco.)
But these are just temporary measures that hold off the inevitable for a while. When she starts refusing to eat the kidney diet entirely, I would let her have whatever she wants to eat, and make an appointment to have her put to sleep. Death from kidney failure is very unpleasant. You would want to spare her that.
I'm very sorry about your cat.
2007-07-15 06:43:26 · answer #5 · answered by Kayty 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Show her caring, I'm sorry it happened to you both, it's an awful thing the Chinese imports did to our pets.
Love her much as you can, spend a lot of time together.
The FDA is having a hard time getting the info out that people with pets affected like this need to contact them so they have solid info to follow up with. You need to go to their website (I've listed it below) and click on the first blue line in the center text, it'll take you to who you contact for your state. So far they've only had 5,000 people contact them and the actual numbers for this recall with affected pets is in the tens of thousands.
They'll need the phone number and name of your vet for followup, to get copies of your records with them, and the type of food you had, any serial numbers, etc. It will help them bring charges against the people who did this, so it's important.
2007-07-15 12:18:10 · answer #6 · answered by Elaine M 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Get a 2nd blood test test done. My parents' cat was diagnosed with the same thing many years ago. They were getting ready to put her to sleep and demanded another blood test. It turned out that the meds she was on were working and she got better. She lived about 8 more years. Good luck!
2007-07-15 06:35:15 · answer #7 · answered by ? 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Hi
There are many things you can do but you have to be proactive in treatment. Your cat can live years with this if you are proactive. You are going to need to give fluids at home for 1, http://www.weirdstuffwemake.com/weird/stuff/pets/cats/sophia/catjuice.html
Please do NOT feed that garbage the vet gives you (KD)
There are new thoughts to treating this and depriving a carnivore of protein is not the way to go about this. Low protein diet should not be given unless it is the end stage
Please read this pertaining to kidney disease http://www.catinfo.org/#Common_Feline_Health_Problems_and_Their_Ties_to_Diet_
.You do want to cut the phousperous down in foods and binders may help. Calcitrial os one that works if phos is under 6mg/dl. Canned foods are best. Some of the brands you want to look for,Wellness, Merrick, Nature's Variety, Hi-Tor Neo, PetGuard, Pinnacle, Newman’s Own. Stay away from fish as it is high in phosperous
A raw diet may also suit you if you are willing to go that route.
Here are things for you to read
http://www.felinecrf.com/what0.htm
Here are other links
http://www.felinecrf.com/
Here is a board for you to work with other people.
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/FelineCRF/
another
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Feline-CRF-Support/
I hope this helps. Don't hesitate to contact me if I can help further
2007-07-15 05:59:47 · answer #8 · answered by Ken 6 · 3⤊ 1⤋
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2017-03-01 01:44:59 · answer #9 · answered by Arthur 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Just do not let it suffer if this is terminal and the cat is in pain do the right thing and put it to sleep your vet will look after it for you. this sounds cold but you do not want it to suffer
2007-07-15 05:24:58 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋