Heeelllppp Low Phosphorus Foods? Sensitive Stomach?

[charliexoxo]

I’m overwhelmed here

My cat Charlie (10-11yd male) tested for high protein in his urine. The doc suspected kidney disease so we went ahead and tested for the creatinine ratio. He recommended a prescription diet then retracted that idea to wait on testing. The second test the doc felt was normal and didn’t think I should be concerned. We redid the test a few months later and he still had high protein in his urine and doc wasn’t concerned with the secondary test results. I ended up switching his diet anyways hoping to be precautionary. I started giving him wellness signature core. He’s developed diarrhea from the food but otherwise still healthy. I brought him to the vet for the diarrhea the vet was quick to offer another prescription cat food hills ID. Charlie started coughing and vomiting. The vomiting progressed and I rushed him back. We did xrays and bloodwork to make sure he didn’t ingest something. The results all came back fine. I took him off the Hills ID out of suspicion and gave the him the wellness again. The vomiting and coughing stopped rather immediately. His stool is getting soft again. I feel I should switch the food to solve the diarrhea since the vet shrugs at why it’s happening. I’m just lost as to what to feed him. He seems to have a sensitive stomach, make it’s all the chemicals and by products and grain and fillers in the prescription food or the lack of protein in the wellness? I don’t want to aggravate his kidneys either but he doesn’t necessarily need “kidney-food” yet, but what should I be feeding him? All these sites say what to and what not to do but don’t leave links to actual recommendations

Any one have any suggestions of brands I can order off chewy? That are relatively healthy and won’t hurt his kidneys or tummy?

I feed him wet only

I attached the first test results. I didn’t receive the second ones. And I posted a phot of the wellness canned food. Should I just add pumpkin? Is it not enough fiber or protein?

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi!
Gracious sakes, you and your kitty have been through it!

Here's one database that might help regarding undesirable additives ;

Pet Food Guide

And here's a post from another thread that may be useful to you as well, that has two links for low phosphorus cat food information;

Cannot Afford Urinary Care Food, Looking For Alternatives

....here's the database from the cat info site

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

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

I have always heard that Wellness Core can be too rich for some cats and thus can cause diarrhea for those cats. This may the issue for Charlie. So...I have a couple questions for you. You mentioned that he had high protein in his urine, but I'm not seeing that in the results you posted. I DO, however, see where his SDMA is just a little high. We're going thru the exact same thing here with one of our cats, and he's due for a 6 month re-check next week. NO high protein in his urine though.

So, what was he eating prior to you switching him to the Wellness, and did he ever have any "issues" on that old food? Just wondering to try to compare ingredients and nutritional values.

Did your Vet ever mention the use of Semintra for his Proteinurea (high protein in urine)? It's a new drug approved by the FDA for use in cats for proteinurea.

Did they check his blood pressure. Sometimes it's high BP that causes proteinura, and it goes hand in hand with kidney disease also. The Semintra work both on proteinurea AND high BP!

As far as food, have you seen this food chart? Tanya's Comprehensive Guide to Feline Chronic Kidney Disease- Canned Food Data USA Besides the cat that I currently have with a raised SDMA, I've had three kidney cats in the past and used the above website as my "go to" for pretty much anything kidney related, including whenever I needed to switch foods. I always looked for foods with LOW phosphorus (under 1%), moderale protein & fats, LOW carbs, and HIGH calories. Didn't always work, meaning they didn't always eat what I wanted them to, but I tried my best. I think if your Charlie has a sensitive tummy, you definitely want to look for Low carb, and I'm not sure that the Wellness Core necessarily fits the bill. They have both Tapioca and Potato Starch in them, which can cause issues.

 

[charliexoxo]

I use to feed him KOHA for a while, and something inbetween im blanking on. the only issues before that was a weight issue and I think I switched because of the high fat or calories. I landed on wellness signature because it seemed to have a lower protein/ fat/ phosphorus. I could be reading into it wrong too. Im not sure if im jumping the gun on focusing on kidney related foods or not. I don't recall hearing anything about Semintra. The high protein was a test before the one attached, I did not have my own copy of those results. I don't think his blood pressure was checked or I don't remember- it didn't stand out? Thank you for providing the chart, I still find if overwhelming could the diarrhea be from not enough protein? Im thinking of trying limited ingredient Merrick- any thoughts? thank you so much for taking the time for responding

 

[Furballsmom]

I think Merrick cat foods are decent, that brand is one of the few outside of fancy feast that my boy and I both like (he likes the pouch gravy of the rabbit in particular)

 

[lisahe]

When we had a senior cat with many health issues, including bad kidney numbers -- the vet wanted to put her on prescription kidney food -- one of the brands that kept popping up in online recommendations was Weruva. If you check their site (or the table on Tanya's site) you'll see that many of their foods are pretty low in phosphorus. We were lucky that our cat liked some of their foods lowest in phosphorus. I made choices for our cat based on "dry matter" phosphorus figures, trying to stay as low as possible, preferably at or under 1%.

As an example: here's the page for Weruva's new BFF pate foods. If you look at the "chicken cans" or "chicken pouches," you'll see that all the foods are below 1%, making them candidates. They're a bit higher in carbs than I'd want to feed all the time -- mrsgreenjeens is so right about trying to keep the carbs low -- but they're still not too bad. I'd be most concerned, too, about avoiding ingredients like potato, tapioca, and peas, and these particular Weruva foods don't have those. Our cats love these canned BFF pates, which is why I chose this page. They (and our previous cat, who was so sick) also like a lot of the Cats in the Kitchen foods, which also tend to be low in phosphorus and don't have potato.

Since you mentioned the Merrick limited ingredient food, I'll also note that it does have peas, and I'd watch out for that in a cat with a history of diarrhea -- I remember another Cat Site member or two mentioning not too long ago that their cats had difficulty with peas. (The legume effect!) Our cats (who also have sensitive guts) used to love Merrick LID until they added the peas!

Good luck with finding some new foods for Charlie!

 

[kittyluv387]

If you feed a high protein diet slightly elevated numbers aren’t abnormal. Wellness signature is high in carbs so that is why your cat may have gotten diarrhea. And yeah prescription foods are crap. Since your cat is technically a senior you can be cautious and feed high protein but lower phosphorus foods. Wellness is higher in phosphorus too.

 

[lisahe]

I didn't notice until I read kittyluv387's post that Charlie had been eating Wellness Signature Core... which has both potato starch and tapioca starch, at least in the chicken/turkey food I checked. Both those ingredients are very carby and potato bothers some cats, including one of ours. Reactions to potato aren't especially common but there have been other Cat Site members who've mentioned that their cats had digestive problems from potato! We avoid it in any quantity.

 

[charliexoxo]

I went a got a couple of the weruva Bff play chicken, he eats it (slowly) and I’m I’ll check if his stool improves. Thanks for the recc and I’m open to others as well

Thank you everyone!

 

[lisahe]

I went a got a couple of the weruva Bff play chicken, he eats it (slowly) and I’m I’ll check if his stool improves. Thanks for the recc and I’m open to others as well

Thank you everyone!

I hope that works for him! Our cats really like those foods. (By coincidence, the lamb/chicken was on the menu last night!)

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Thank you for providing the chart, I still find if overwhelming could the diarrhea be from not enough protein? Im thinking of trying limited ingredient Merrick- any thoughts? thank you so much for taking the time for responding

The food charts can definitely be overwhelming. What I did since my cats definitely had kidney disease was to create an excel spreadsheet and move all the info from the chart on the spreadsheet. That way I could sort it any way I wanted. For instance, if I wanted to search by the NAME of a food, I could easily find it, since the charts are in order of the amount of phosphorus in the food. And I always shopped with a magnifying glass handy so I could easily read all the ingredients on the label .

No,I don't think his diarrhea would be caused by a lack of protein in the Wellness. 8% protein as shown on the can is not out of the normal range for many brands.

IF you can determine that Charlie doesn't have an issue with peas, then Merrick Ltd might be a decent food to give him, since it's advertised for sensitive stomachs, . Here is a thread that gives the phosphorus levels per protein used: Phosphorous Levels For Merrick's Limited Ingredient Canned Food