Recently my 14 year old Yuna, had a crash to what appears to be Chronic Renal disease.
Her Kidneys were infected (according to the vet), and she had 90.00 mg/dL BUN, 11.30 mg/dL PHOS but fortunately only 2.10 mg/dL CRE which is supposed to be right at the edge of acceptable, though a bunch of other stuff were very low/high.
For the record, before I took her to the vet, the only obvious symptoms was frequent drinking and urination, and lethargy, weight loss would also apply but that was happening over a long period of time, to what I thought was unrelated reasons (may still in part be) and she was also dehydrated and I couldn't tell.
She never refused to eat (boiled chicken, and raw ground beef, she stopped eating kibble a little while ago, because of her teeth or so I thought) and her feces were for the most part, solid.
That was back on the 11th, I have no idea how better her blood work (costs about $85 a pop) is now, she been to the vet for IV and shots pretty much every day since.
She had her ups and downs during that period, and though she was given prescription therapeutic renal diet, with very low phosphorus, which did not refuse to eat at first (both wet and dry), it resulted in her having a very bad case of diarrhea which caused her to get dehydrated yet again. She recovered form that and now she refuses to eat it again, though she has no problem mowing down the stuff I used to feed her (which are probably pretty high on phosphorus) I only gave her a small quantity of her old food yesterday, but today I will give her more, as the vet also agreed that her eating at all, is more important than managing her phosphorus levels, at least until she completely stabilizes.
One thing that troubles me, but the vet had no comment on was that the color of her feces, since she stopped eating the renal stuff, is of a really dark brown (though not black), which worries me in case it means intestinal bleeding (probably from ulcers) or liver problems, could also possibly be from her stomach creating too much acid? As it happens with cats in this state.
I was also given a food supplement to give her, which seemed a bit suspect and may in part be responsible for her not handling the renal food well (I did not give it to her yesterday and probably won't today) called SOFCANIS Felin (French made apparently) that says it has 3mg of phosphorus inside and its main ingredient is some herb called Lespedeza Capitata.
Also the only Phosphorus binder that's easily accessible to me is Maalox, which I will start using in place of her renal diet, if she keeps refusing to eat it (and it doesn't cause her diarrhea if she does). I will try to find something without magnesium in the meantime.
Anyway, I have found this incredible (though overwhelming) resource for CKD but I was looking for personal advice or testimonials of people having their cats go through this or with similar symptoms with mine. I have spend a little over $300 between vet visits and cab fares, if she keeps needing vet trips I'm going to run out of funds, there's also no guarantee that she'll survive this even in the short term (Vet isn't very hopeful, but they never are) so any help would be appreciated.
Her Kidneys were infected (according to the vet), and she had 90.00 mg/dL BUN, 11.30 mg/dL PHOS but fortunately only 2.10 mg/dL CRE which is supposed to be right at the edge of acceptable, though a bunch of other stuff were very low/high.
For the record, before I took her to the vet, the only obvious symptoms was frequent drinking and urination, and lethargy, weight loss would also apply but that was happening over a long period of time, to what I thought was unrelated reasons (may still in part be) and she was also dehydrated and I couldn't tell.
She never refused to eat (boiled chicken, and raw ground beef, she stopped eating kibble a little while ago, because of her teeth or so I thought) and her feces were for the most part, solid.
That was back on the 11th, I have no idea how better her blood work (costs about $85 a pop) is now, she been to the vet for IV and shots pretty much every day since.
She had her ups and downs during that period, and though she was given prescription therapeutic renal diet, with very low phosphorus, which did not refuse to eat at first (both wet and dry), it resulted in her having a very bad case of diarrhea which caused her to get dehydrated yet again. She recovered form that and now she refuses to eat it again, though she has no problem mowing down the stuff I used to feed her (which are probably pretty high on phosphorus) I only gave her a small quantity of her old food yesterday, but today I will give her more, as the vet also agreed that her eating at all, is more important than managing her phosphorus levels, at least until she completely stabilizes.
One thing that troubles me, but the vet had no comment on was that the color of her feces, since she stopped eating the renal stuff, is of a really dark brown (though not black), which worries me in case it means intestinal bleeding (probably from ulcers) or liver problems, could also possibly be from her stomach creating too much acid? As it happens with cats in this state.
I was also given a food supplement to give her, which seemed a bit suspect and may in part be responsible for her not handling the renal food well (I did not give it to her yesterday and probably won't today) called SOFCANIS Felin (French made apparently) that says it has 3mg of phosphorus inside and its main ingredient is some herb called Lespedeza Capitata.
Also the only Phosphorus binder that's easily accessible to me is Maalox, which I will start using in place of her renal diet, if she keeps refusing to eat it (and it doesn't cause her diarrhea if she does). I will try to find something without magnesium in the meantime.
Anyway, I have found this incredible (though overwhelming) resource for CKD but I was looking for personal advice or testimonials of people having their cats go through this or with similar symptoms with mine. I have spend a little over $300 between vet visits and cab fares, if she keeps needing vet trips I'm going to run out of funds, there's also no guarantee that she'll survive this even in the short term (Vet isn't very hopeful, but they never are) so any help would be appreciated.
