Potassium deficiency.

[washu]

Edea was throwing up daily for 3 days so I took him to the vet. They ran a blood panel and it came back that his potassium was low. The vet also ran a test to check his thyroid since he lost a bit of weight. The thyroid came back normal. So the vet took a look at my raw diet recipe and believes it is low in potassium and recommended I add Balance IT to the food. She also gave me a printout about why raw diet is a bad idea. I did some research on the Balance IT supplement and found it is not meant for raw diet. For now I have switched all the cats back to canned food until I can find a better recipe for raw.

The recipe I've been using is from http://www.catinfo.org/ . I stopped putting in lite salt about a year ago because I use ground whole chicken, duck, or rabbit. I was worried about too much iodine. The meat I use is from My Pet Carnivore and they've emailed me that they only remove the intestines and feathers/fur/hides. Is the recipe be unbalanced? Should I add a potassium supplement or anything else to it?

 

[sophie1]

Thank you for posting this!!

Can you tell us how low the potassium is (actual # and normal range) and whether potassium supplementation solved your cat's problem?  How old is your cat?  Was there any sign of renal dysfunction?

I also don't add the lite salt to whole animal grinds, but if the animals are bled out before grinding they might indeed be low in potassium.  

 

[washu]

He is 11+ years old. His potassium was 3.2. The vet said normal range is 3.8-5.2. The vet said that his renal function is normal. She sent us home with a gel potassium supplement called Renal K+ (Potassium Gluconate). She also sent us with famotidine for nausea. He hasn't thrown up again and his appetite improved a lot. We have a follow up appointment in 10 days to recheck.

I'm not sure if the raw diet is even deficient. My other 3 cats seem just fine and the 6 month old kitten just had blood work when he was neutered last month.

 

[sophie1]

Red herring, I suspect.  The low K may even have been due to the vomiting, rather than a cause of it.   And it's not actually all that low.

Hope your cat stays well!

 

[missmimz]

It seems kind of suspect that it would be the raw food if none of your other cats are experiencing the low potassium levels. I agree with the other comment mentioning that the low levels are probably from the vomiting. this site mentions that sometimes cats will run low potassium levels when they've been vomiting a lot. Did your vet say anything about doing a repeat test in a few months? 

 

[washu]

He is going to be rechecked in a week.

A couple of my other cats have been protesting the canned diet so I made a batch of raw. Edea ate his food very slowly then threw up within 1 hour of eating. I waited a couple hours and tried some canned food and he gobbled it up and has kept it down.

None of my other cats are having this reaction. I guess I'm going to just keep him on canned diet for now.