Renal failure and limping

Hannah518

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Hello! My vet suspects my 13 year old white and orange kitty, Taki has early signs of renal failure. Increased thirst and urination, eating a bit less. His bloodwork didn’t indicate a major change in his diet needed to happen yet.

He’s overweight (always hovered between 16-18 and has lost some muscle mass according to the vet as well. He was just there about a month ago. Yesterday I noticed his hind leg giving out subtly.

We got a new kitty 6 weeks ago and successfully have introduced them. It took about 5 weeks. I kept them separate and the used separate litter boxes for this time because my new kitty was being treated for worms. We have to retest both stool early next week to confirm both are good. We since moved the past few days and they have shared a litter box for half a week. No sign of worms.

He has been climbing more because of all the moving boxes and still jumps from distances. I’m wondering if he landed wrong. I’ll be keeping an eye on him for sure and try and let him rest before stressing him out with a vet just yet.

Would this relate to renal failure and the loss of muscle perhaps?
He eats metabolic and canned fancy feast/metabolic canned. Probably 200-225 calories a day.
Thank you!
 

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Hannah518

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Senior panel bloodwork. He has been losing muscle noticeably. I’m not sure the numbers on the sdma. Been trying to give him high protein for now because my vet wasn’t concerned yet about renal disease as she was his muscle loss. It almost like he twisted something.
 

FeebysOwner

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Hi. I don't know about any correlation between limping and renal issues, but I suspect not unless Taki was in renal failure and was weak because of it - which sounds to be far from his case at this point. Feeby (15+ yo) has lost some muscle mass in recent years, but my vet thinks it is part of the normal aging process, along with her poor activity level. Does your vet think Taki's is happening for a different reason, since they seemed concerned about it? Has Taki's activity level decreased in recent years - excluding the more current box climbing/jumping?

Feeby's senior bloodwork, so far, has been good - so no indicators of any issues there that would explain her loss of muscle mass - I take it that is the same for Taki's blood panel results? Feeby also had x-rays awhile ago that confirmed some arthritis, after she started limping. So, I began to give her Glyco Flex Plus for arthritis. Within a few weeks of taking it the limping stopped and has not returned. So, maybe Taki has some arthritis and the extra jumping/climbing he's been doing set it off a bit? You could ask your vet about this aspect.

The calorie count that Taki is eating seems a bit low for a cat his weight. Does he still weigh as much as you noted above? Feeby is barely maintaining her weight (~15 pounds) on 250 or so calories a day, which comes out to about 16 calories per pound of body weight. The ballpark average for an adult cat is 20-25 calories per pound of weight, but I imagine due to her inactivity level she doesn't need quite as many calories. For Taki to keep his weight at lets say 17 pounds on 225 pounds a day, his maintenance level would be by far lower than Feeby's - at 13 calories per pound.

Not helping you much, just some things to think about that sadly don't even really address your initial questions.
 
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Hannah518

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Thank you! Yeah his appetite has decreased a bit in the past six months. I’d like for him to eat more. He also used to compete for food with his brother so he ate out of spite and packed on pounds and vomited from eating fast. He doesn’t do it with the new kitty because she has her own food. So he eats only when he’s hungry and vomits no more. So that’s good lol.

I’ve been trying to switch him to wet food completely but he never finishes it. He never has even in his young years It was up and down when my other cat had cancer because he tends to avoid eating during stress. He has lost a bit of weight in The past couple months. He is less active as a senior for sure but he never really loved playing like my other cats. Just had bloodwork and it’s still okay. I’m suspecting some arthritis. Especially since he went from not moving much to moving a lot when we moved exploring and jumping.
I know renal is supposed to be low protein, but I want him to get the protein for muscle.
 

FeebysOwner

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How often do you try to feed him? I have to give Feeby at least 4 meals a day to get her to eat enough. She is a grazer from her old 'dry food only' days, and so her canned food never gets eaten in one sitting. I also leave her food out for multiple hours to help with her grazing style.
 
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Hannah518

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Yeah I have to feed him 4-5 times and put it in front of him a lot. Sometimes he needs to be reminded. Then he’s like “oh yeah I’m hungry” lol. I’ll try and up his calories. I give him the lil soup treats between meals too for some added calories or to entice him.

My vet emailed me back and suspects arthritis because his bloodwork indicated early renal to the point she didn’t think his diet needed to be changed yet. Whew. He’s been using his lil
legs a lot. I’ll ask about that supplement.
 
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