Help! Yesterday My 13/14 Year Old Cat Was Diagnosed With Kidney Failure. She Won't Eat The New Diet

[burrgandy]

Help, Yesterday my 13/14 year old cat was diagnosed with failing kidneys. The vet sent me home with a variety of different cans of perscription foods. So far, ever can I've tried, she hates. She also sent us home on an appetite stimulant. I give it to her in the Greenies pill pouches. She loves those! There was no guidence on getting Sash (my cat) to eat this new food. No dry food and none of her old food. I don't think she is drinking water. I know going to the vet was traumatic, hearing dogs, going under anethesia. Sash was given a year to live if she does well. It's my job to do everything I can for her. She is my best friend. She has been with me when my little boy died.I never thought I would spend over $600 to give a pet their best chance at life. She won't tolerate me doing sub q fluids, she gets mad if I pet her wrong. I'm so scared and not sure how to get her eating. She sees the canned food and gets excited, until she smells and tastes it... Help!!!!

 

[maggiedemi]

I would ask the vet if it would be okay to give her regular canned food. So sorry you're going through this!

 

[babiesmom5]

I really feel for you and understand the dilemma you are in with the prescription food.

I have a 17 year old girl with CKD (stage 2) and also IBD

My vet too prescribed the renal food. I tried every variety out there, believe me. She ate, at best, a few bites/licks of a freshly opened can, then rejected the rest. She began to lose weight, and worse, the high carbohydrate, low protein content of the prescription food led to a 3-day stay in the ER for Pancreatitis!

My Internal Medicine vet recommended that I go back to her original (non-prescription) canned food. He said to give her whatever she will eat. The main thing is to keep her eating...and keep her hydrated!

So this is what we have done. In addition, she gets a small amount of appetite stimulant every 72 hours plus fluids once a week. She has gained back the weight lost, and even gained a bit more. She is stable and doing well.

I realize there is a "trade off" here...she may not live as long as she would with prescription food. I accept that. But at least she has quality of life for whatever time she does have, and that is most important to me.

You might want to discuss with your vet about letting your cat eat whatever (canned) food she will eat. Maybe you could take your cat in to the vet to have them do the fluids as needed.

 

[denice]

I just found out that one of my cats has CKD, fortunately she is eating one of the renal foods. The biggest problem is phosphorous levels in food. Tanya's Comprehensive Guide to Feline Chronic Kidney Disease- Canned Food Data USA is a list of foods that include the phosphorous levels in different foods. There is a lot of other good info on that site. You can also use phosphorous binders that will help.

 

[chris gadbois]

I lost my boy Phoenix a few years ago to Kidney Disease. PLEASE refer to your vet first, but eating is the most important thing. If they stop eating it downs downhill quickly from there.

NO MORE DRY FOOD, for one. Then I would take her favorite wet food and mix it 2 parts to 1 part the new Kidney friendly foods. Slowly taper the mix until he/she no longer notices. I think your vet would agree that eating the wrong food is still better than no food at all.

There is nothing you can do to stop this disease, you can just hope to slow it down.

(At the end of my boy's days I was opening 6 different cans for every meal. He was alert, affectionate, playful and hungry, but he just couldn't eat. Tuna was the only thing he would eat, which is horrible for kidney cats.)

I'm sorry about your baby. Enjoy the time you two have left together. thinking about my boy Phoenix is making me sad. Here's my old boy (orange n white Norwegian Forest Cat)View attachment 249180 View attachment 249180

 

[stephanietx]

Feed her what she'll eat. Wet food is ideal as it has higher water content. Even the classic Fancy Feast is okay if she'll eat it. Most Rx food isn't really all that great. You need a food low in phosphorus. Check out Tanya's site for some great info on food: Tanya's Comprehensive Guide to Feline Chronic Kidney Disease - Everything You Need to Know to Help Your Cat .

 

[chris gadbois]

Someone else has also compiled a list of (pretty much) every canned cat food on the market. She broke them down in Protein, Fat and Carbs and also how much Phosphorus per 100 cal. This list can be really helpful.

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

 

[burrgandy]

You all are so nice to help me out . I'm overwhelmed. Trying to get her to like water like she used to again too is an issue. I'm on a fixed income . Adding extra water to her food is a starting point. She is drinking some. I've put another water dish in my living room and changing the water 3 or 4 times a day, in a stainless steal bowl. Even if she doesn't touch it. A long time ago I gave her boiled chicken. She didn't like it. I know it's bad for her kidneys now. I saw boiled chicken broth , plain, might entice her to drink? Any thoughts? I'm in tears. I can't afford to keep taking her to the vet if it's going to cost $600. I will make payments. I guess, baby steps? This morning she has ate more in a short time than she has in the same period of time, all week. Ive taken a screenshot of the baby food at that Tanya's site. I'm so isolated and alone. Thank you all.

 

[denice]

Believe me you are not alone with CKD. One of my cats was just diagnosed. There are many CKD cats here, unfortunately it happens to a lot of older cats.

 

[chris gadbois]

You want wet cat foods that are low in PHOSPHORUS and low in carbs for Kidney cats. ****more protein from animals (livers, hearts, gizzards, etc) and not so much from plants (peas, potatoes, etc)

Here's a great list of Protein, Fat, Carb and Phosphorus contents in most every cat food.... The first 3 pages have some great reading before it starts breaking down the actual foods
https://catinfo.org/docs/CatFoodProteinFatCarbPhosphorusChart.pdf

 

[jen]

Our 20 year old is in very early kidney failure, the vet seemed oddly not very concerned. I will not be seeing that vet again... Anyway, she ate dry food her whole life and WILL NOT eat canned Of course the vet prescribed the Hills prescription kidney which is low in Phosphorus like it should be but is also much too low in Protein so I don't want to feed that to her anyway. Trying to get her on canned, but she is stuck in her 20 year old ways and it is a no go so far.

I think it is ok to try things like tuna juice (water not oil) and no salt chicken or beef broth, at this point, we just want to get as much liquid and lowest phosphorous into the cats as possible. Based on what I know (at my old clinic one of my main responsibilities was to give the kidney failure cats their fluids once or twice a week) eventually I am pretty sure fluids are necessary and I have had cats come in 2 times a week for it. So something to plan ahead for.

 

[PeteF10]

My cat was diagnosed with kidney disease a year ago, and immediately put on Sub-Q fluids that I administer at home. If I could recommend one thing, and that's if you have a board certified internal medicine specialist in your area, take your cat to him. My regular vet referred me to a specialist when he discovered that my cat’s kidney values were out of wack. My cat has done very well for about 10.5 months on daily Sub-Q fluids, and his kidney values (BUN and Creatinine) have remained well within the normal range with this treatment. We have fed him any food he will eat because he won’t eat the special food. Unfortunately my little guy now has lymphoma, but his kidneys are values are still normal.

 

[burrgandy]

I am so grateful for all of Everyone's support. My cat is begging to eat and drink after a week of not doing so. She has been urinating and seems to have some energy back. Now she seems constipated. That's what I thought was wrong with her originally, only she hasn't poo'd yet, so I don't think it's her kidneys. Now, I'm not sure if I should buy Miralax for her, or let her be constipated and hopefully she will continue to increase her appetite and water intake and her pacing will sort it out without extra help? I'm baby stepping her appetite, because this morning and all day, she would not eat. I went to the vets office and the sold me a dry kidney food along with a few cans of wet kidney food. It gave her some normalcy.

 

[burrgandy]

Believe me you are not alone with CKD. One of my cats was just diagnosed. There are many CKD cats here, unfortunately it happens to a lot of older cats.

What causes it? It's more than unfair! I wish your cat didn't have it.

 

[molly92]

CKD is super common in cats. Why there are such huge numbers of kidney disease cats is unproven, but there seems to be evidence linking kidney disease to fish based diets, dry foods, and over vaccination. While you can't change a cat's history of exposure, you can limit these in the future. The only vaccinations an older cat will need is maybe a rabies if required by law, and in that case do the 3 year version instead of the 1 year. All other boosters should be avoided for a kidney disease cat. Fish should be avoided too unless that is absolutely the only way to get your cat to eat, and as much wet food as possible is so important as well! (this is generally good for all cats of any health status, but especially kidney disease cats!)

I have yet to hear of a cat who actually liked the prescription kidney food, and it doesn't even have good ingredients anyway. It's so important that they eat, so forget the prescription if that's not working and find something they like. Getting them to eat, whatever food it is, should be the first priority, and then you can tinker around with flavors on the low phosphorus lists to see if they'll eat one of those, because lower phosphorus will slow down the progression of the disease. (But again, that's no good if they won't eat it! And they'll get sicker faster if they're not eating enough.)

How long a cat lives after diagnosis is not an exact science at all, so you may have years left.

My personal experience so far: my kidney cat, now 16, has been through many diets since she was taken in by the shelter and diagnosed a year ago. She didn't like the prescription food in her foster home, so her foster fed her Fancy Feast and Friskies. I started feeding her Wellness and Weruva that were on the low phosphorus lists when I got her around march, and then this summer I switched to Primal because she adored the raw. This is when my vet noticed her kidney numbers were doing well, so I've kept with the raw, although I switched brands to Rad Cat because it has much lower phosphorus. (The caveat is she's hyperthyroid, which suppresses kidney numbers, so I won't know for sure how she's doing until after the hyperthyroidism is treated in a few weeks.) She hasn't needed sub-q fluids at all with me yet. She does drink a lot. I have a fountain that she visits frequently, her food is raw so it's hydrated, and I usually give her a generous helping of bone broth or goat's milk because she loves those too.

 

[molly92]

I am so grateful for all of Everyone's support. My cat is begging to eat and drink after a week of not doing so. She has been urinating and seems to have some energy back. Now she seems constipated. That's what I thought was wrong with her originally, only she hasn't poo'd yet, so I don't think it's her kidneys. Now, I'm not sure if I should buy Miralax for her, or let her be constipated and hopefully she will continue to increase her appetite and water intake and her pacing will sort it out without extra help? I'm baby stepping her appetite, because this morning and all day, she would not eat. I went to the vets office and the sold me a dry kidney food along with a few cans of wet kidney food. It gave her some normalcy.

If she hasn't eaten much for a while, it's normal that she wouldn't have a bowel movement yet. Miralax is usually pretty safe, so maybe you can ask your vet if you can to add 1/8 teaspoon to her food if you think she might be constipated. They've already examined her so they should be able to give you that advice over the phone. I've had a lot of stress dealing with constipation and it is so much better to get ahead of it before it gets bad rather than try to deal with it when it's gone on for too long!

 

[tandl]

I highly recommend the private group you can join via the link someone posted about the Tanya's CKD site. The info on that site is amazing, so read through it all and then join the group and start reading the posts. Truly some incredibly experienced CKD parents on there.

My 15 year old cat was diagnosed with CKD last December. He absolutely refused the prescription diets. And despite me trying just about every wet food they make, he never agreed to cooperate. Ultimately, I did my best, but finally came to the conclusion that at this stage of his life, and facing this disease, if he wanted to eat crappy dry food, I'd stop fighting. Plenty of people end up adding a phosphorus binder to their cats food that can help. We never ended up doing that because his levels actually didn't change too much before he died -- he ended up passing away just a few weeks ago from intestinal lymphoma that was only diagnosed 3 weeks before his passing.

We did do sub q fluids though, and I highly recommend that you continue attempting that as it will become absolutely vital. My cat wasn't a fan of me doing it for awhile, but we ended up finding a happy medium. I used small gauge needles that were most comfortable for him. We gave treats and brushed him while doing it. I purchased an EZ Harness, developed specifically for giving sub q fluids to cat --EZ. I.V. Harness, but by the time it came he had settled down enough.

On the CKD private group you will find a ton more tips for sub q fluid administration.

 

[stephanietx]

It's very common for CKD kitties to become constipated. You can try adding plain canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling) to wet food 2x a day. If she won't eat the pumpkin, you can try slipper elm bark or ask the vet for Lactulose. You can also give Miralax, but talk to your doctor first. Sometimes a good probiotic will help.

 

[burrgandy]

Sash has vomitted twice this week. It seemed to be food, not hair balls. It's a process trying to get her used to a new diet. Should I worry? She is drinking a lot of water (happy dance) eating the dry perscription food along with the dry perscription food that I put water in for her. She is eating low phosphorus canned food, if I added Friskies Mixed Grill to it. She had her first Poo since all of this started. Ms. Bionic nose has radar for stuff she doesn't like. I would LOVE to add pumpkin too her food! I'm going to order more food and see where it takes us. Some time ago, she would vomit, and it never worried me. Now, every whisker flinch I panic! I'm trying to calm down and enjoy her. I'm sure I'm worried for nothing. Thanyou so much everyone for your support. You have no idea how much your support means to me.

 

[sivyaleah]

I also urge you to read Tanya's site.
Those prescription diets are not good for older cats with CKD - not enough protein by a long shot. Best to find as low phosphorus canned food as possible. Our older one was diagnosed I guess about a year ago now? We give him whatever he'll eat, making sure he gets food into him is our upmost concern since the disease can make them nauseous. We haven't even been following the low phosphorus personally as he has become SO picky. We just make sure to give the highest quality proteins we can find that he'll consistently eat.
So far, he's doing fairly ok with this routine.
FYI drinking a LOT of water is part of the disease. They are always thirsty, and then it gets lost as they urinate which typically is in much larger quantities than a healthy cat. Keeping fresh filtered water around is vital. Eventually all cats with CKD will need SubQ fluids to hydrate them in a way that does not put a major strain on their body. It goes right where it's needed and helps keep the kidneys functioning to remove excess waste. SubQ will almost always make the cat feel quite a bit better and help with throwing up.