Kidney Disease?

I have a 16yo male cat that I've had for 15 years A few weeks ago he starting throwing up his entire food.. this went on for a week. I brought him in and his blood came back with low kidney disease. They kept him for two nights and cleaned out his kidney's, etc and gave me new food for him to eat. Well he's not eating that food and he's not eating his regular food either. He eats a little and is using his little box okay, he's just not eating what he used to. He throws up now and then some white stuff.

Is my cat dying? I don't know what to do... if I bring him back to the vet they are just going to run more blood work on him. I've done two blood works already and they both say low grade kidney disease.

... but how long can this little guy live without eating much? Sad!

Hi P pigfinn you've come to the right place for help with kidney disease. Many of us have had or have experience with this disease in our cats.

First, I'll give you the link to a very helpful website which you'll be able to do lots of research on. Every aspect of care is covered in it and many of us consider it the "bible" for information of CKD

Tanya's Comprehensive Guide to Feline Chronic Kidney Disease - Everything You Need to Know to Help Your Cat

There is also a link in it to a group you can join dedicated to people with cats that have this disease that is extremely active and helpful.

Getting your cat to eat is your primary focus right now. If your cat is only in the early stages of the disease there is lots of help out there and he can live a very good amount of time with proper care. But, again, he needs to eat so my suggestion is to go out and buy a bunch of 3 ounce cans or pouches of various foods he's never had before and try them until you hit on some that he will eat. I'm assuming the vet gave you some kind of prescription diet? Most cats will refuse these as they are known to be pretty crummy. Plus, they are quite low in protein; the though process being that cats with CKD should eat lower protein diets because it's easier on the kidneys, however, older cats such as yours, need protein to maintain their muscle tone and energy so the current thought from others is higher protein might be a better way to go.

This would be up to you but, many of us have gone the higher protein route but tried to find those with as little phosphorus in them as possible which is another thing to be careful with - Tanya's site will explain this in detail, and I'm sure others here with much more experience then I will eventually chime in to do the same.

Unfortunately yes, getting a cat to eat enthusiastically with kidney disease can be challenging at times but this is usually due to them having nausea. Did the vet prescribe something for that? In my experience, giving 1/4 of a tablet of Cerenia for about 5 days and then stopping it would work really well to halt our CkD cat's sick stomach and he start eating again fairly well.

There could be other reasons he's not interested in his food too which should be ruled out and I'd assume the vet has done all testing necessary. We found out for instance, ours had developed an allergy to poultry later in life, and once we pulled it most of the vomiting stopped other than the bile type from being sick to his stomach from the disease itself.

My second question is has the vet mentioned SubQ fluids for him yet? Eventually, he will need this and it certainly is something that started sooner than later will be extremely helpful in keeping the kidneys working better.

Last, do you trust your vet? If not, find another. I can't stress how important it is to be confident in the medical expertise of the people you bring your pets to. As I already said, our boy had exceptional care by a wonderful team who really had his and our best interests in mind every step of the way and kept us fully informed too. Cats in the early stages can be treated very effectively, you just need to get on top of it. It is not a death sentence although, I know it feels like one when you first hear of it - we kind of freaked out at the beginning and felt totally overwhelmed but, as time went on it became easier and more manageable. When we found out, we thought our boy would be gone within a year but he was with us for many years thereafter. So, don't give up home - just take charge.

Thank you so much!! Yes they did mention Sub q fluids although I haven't gone back yet to look into that. It's been now 3 weeks since he's been home and I've been trying to get him to eat with different foods. They did give us some power medicine for his nausea I believe... but there is no way I can get that under his food... he won't eat the food as it is.. if I put that in there, he certainly won't eat any. I will look into Cerenia, thank you!

Regarding the vet, yes I trust them completely.

I'm going to go ahead and read your link and see what more information I find from there. Thank you for posting.

pigfinn said:

Thank you so much!! Yes they did mention Sub q fluids although I haven't gone back yet to look into that. It's been now 3 weeks since he's been home and I've been trying to get him to eat with different foods. They did give us some power medicine for his nausea I believe... but there is no way I can get that under his food... he won't eat the food as it is.. if I put that in there, he certainly won't eat any. I will look into Cerenia, thank you!

Regarding the vet, yes I trust them completely.

I'm going to go ahead and read your link and see what more information I find from there. Thank you for posting.

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Ask about pills. The Cerenia once cut into 1/4's is SO tiny and easily hidden - does he like treats still? You can push them into pill pockets (most cats like them), or if he likes some kind of human foods? We used to hide Casper's in a little wad of cream cheese - he never turned it down. Or I'd roll it into a small slice of deli ham.

FYI try feeding plain Gerber baby food to him to get him to eat if all else fails. The kind with no other ingredients - "Stage 2" I believe it's called. It comes in chicken, beef, turkey and ham flavors. It's cat crack. Anytime my cats were ill and wouldn't eat it has always been a mainstay in the house. Or, cook up some plain boneless skinless chicken breast or ground beef and see if he'll eat that. Again, ours never turned down mom's cooking no matter how much they didn't want to eat their canned food.

All 3 of my babies passed away from kidney disease. It was terrifying when they were diagnosed but the one who only had kidney disease lived over a year with it and my 2 boys also had thyroid and pancreas issues so I believe they lived about a year after diagnosis.

We ended up eventually having to do sub q fluids on all 3 of them. Our vet taught us how and saved us a ton of money and didn’t have to take them into the vet. Super scary at first but after the 2nd or 3rd time you see how much they perk up and feel better and it becomes much easier.

Our vet always recommended us feeding them a meat based baby food when they wouldn’t eat or offer chicken and rice. We’d always mix in some water with that as fluids are extremely important for kidney disease. Sometimes getting them to eat something like that will perk them up enough to get eating their regular food on their own if your cat has gone a while without eating. Or you could pour the baby food on the food pellets and might eat it that way.
Good luck! Hope your kitty eats and feels better soon!

When you go back to the vet, I would ask about a bag of Sub-Q fluids. Your kitty may not need them long term just yet, but when my boy had CKD, before he needed the fluids daily, a round of fluids daily for a week or so did the trick to flush him out, hydrate him and get his nausea under control and eating.
Another thing to consider, is his mouth health. CKD kitties are more prone to mouth infections so I would talk to the vet about doing a thorough mouth exam to see if there is any possibility that an abscess or something that could be contributing to him not eating. Again, we had to give our boy antibiotics several times to due recurring oral abscesses. He was too old to undergo any dental work, so our only option was the meds. After a few days on the antibiotics, he felt well enough to start eating again because the pain had lessened.

Here is a link to a site that provides you with the phosphorus and protein content of wet foods.

https://catinfo.org/docs/CatFoodProteinFatCarbPhosphorusChart.pdf

I'm not sure if this was mentioned yet, but I would highly recommend getting your cat to eat more wet food and lose the dry. Although, I did leave dry food out for mine when I was out of the house and overnight, because I wanted him to be able to eat as much as he could, wet food is SO much better for CKD kitties.