CRF and diet

My 6 yr. old kitty was diagnosed about a month ago with CRF. Her BUN was 65. I don't remember the rest of the numbers and I'm not home right now, but I did post them on the Sticky CRF thread. Dusty was also anemic and the vet said to give her B complex. I bought some liquid, but I really don't know how much to give her. I believe the bottle (human dosage) is 1ml or cc 3x a day. Dusty is a 6 lb. cat, so I've given her about .25 ml. once or twice a week. She is also on calcitriol, .25 2x a week.

Now here's my real problem. She is a very picky eater. She is supposed to have kidney diet food, but I've tried several brands and she won't touch it. She will only eat two kinds of food, Fancy Feast (only a couple of flavors) or Innova Evo (dry). She is so fussy that even the FF she won't touch if it has been sitting out more than 30 min.

Dusty is the best thing that ever happened to us. She adopted us as a stray, and she is just so affectionate, it breaks my heart that she may not have a long life. On the other hand, she can't afford to lose any more weight and no food = no cat. She does like raw chicken liver, but I don't know if that is good for her with the protein/potassium levels.

What do I do?

I've tried two different flavors of K/D canned and also Royal Canin Dry.

No luck with any of those.

Treatment of Chronic Renal Failure

MY opinion

If your cat is not in final stages, this is not want you want to do. You do not want to put your cat on the
Vets low protein diet. There are simply so many better options out there than to hand the poor cat a low amount of poor quality protein - which often results in a poor appetite and muscle wasting since the body is now robbing its own muscle mass to feed itself a decent quality and amount of protein.
. There are new thoughts on this and the thinking is it is not the amount of protein but the quality of protein that matters.
The Merck veterinary manual [www.merckvetmanual.com] says that cats need "4 g of protein of high biologic value per kg body wt/day". That's about 7 calories from protein per pound body weight per day. If a cat isn't a good eater and consumes, say, 20 calories per pound per day, then 7/20 = 35% of calories can safely be from protein. It must be high quality protein, which means meat, fish, milk, and eggs, and not grain or soy.

I am under the assumption that you have been feeding mostly dry foods. Many use a vegetable based protein instead of animal and that is part of the problem.. Your cat needs protein as it is a carnivore and cutting down on it will lead to other health issues and may cause faster degeneration.
You want to cut down on phosphorous

The best way to do this is with a raw diet which you can make yourself or buy. (Making yourself is better) link provided at the bottom
If you are unwilling to do that then something like the non fish flavors of Wellness or Merrick with NO grains are good alternatives. Wysong is also a good canned choice. This list gives a breakdown. Remember you want low phosphorous
http://www.geocities.com/jmpeerson/CanFoodOld.html

You should be giving sub-Q fluids as needed.


You also will want to look into phosphorous binders. Something like aluminum hydroxide
Ask your vet or look into calcitrol


You may want to talk to the vet about having injectable Pepcid AC on hand or you can buy it in pill form (ac not plain pepcid) and give 1/4 tab for stomach upset which happens a lot in crf cats due to acid in the stomach.
I hope this stuff helps, here are many links for you

Please join the yahoo crf group. I cannot imagine finding a better vet then having 1000 people who are dealing with the same thing

Making cat food
http://www.catinfo.org/makingcatfood.htm
other links. Read, read, read!!!!
http://www.felineoutreach.org/Educat...=KidneyDisease
http://www.marvistavet.com/html/kidn..._to_begin.html
http://www.felinecrf.org/
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/F...ec=group&slk=3
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/F...ec=group&slk=5

About that vets diet. This report is for dogs but applies to cats
http://mousabilities.com/nutrition/c...protein_RD.pdf
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Opera/21...