Our 16 year old kitty is in renal failure and is very picky with food. She gets her sub fluids at the vet twice a week. She won't eat the prescription diets and( I don't blame her ,loaded with junk.) Does any body have any advice on what to feed her?
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Kitty in renal failure needs help!!!
- Thread starter gladys
- Start Date
How advanced is her illness? Have you considered giving sub q fluids at home? At a certain point in the illness cats will do better with daily fluids. I assume he's on a low protein diet? If he won't eat it then he isn't getting its benefit, so you could discuss with your vet mixing it partly with a food he likes better as a compromise.
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- #3
Hi!!! and thanx for answering my post. Our cat Cozzi gets sub fluids 2x a week. her kidneys are stable . She takes a small dose of meds for blood pressure, and also gets Renal K gel two times a day, and it seems to be helping her. They havent said anything about daily fluids, and that her weight is stabilizing.She does come out to eat but seems to be looking for other foods to eat. She wont touch the kd food, and all they sa y is to look for a food that is lower in protein and phosphorus. I went to petfood express where i buy most of the cat food and a friend that works there recommended natures variety homestyle,but she did not care for this food, although she still likes the natures variety rabbit from time to time. I also syringe feed her if I feel she doesnt eat enough. She gets very bored from the foods she was eating before. I dont know what to feed her .
My 'kidney kitties' liked Fancy Feast. Here's some info on that: http://www.felinecrf.org/which_foods.htm#fancy_feast
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- #5
I understand, that's why I included the link. My kitties got to the point where I'd rather have them eat what they liked than not eat at all. I hope your kitty likes the new food!
I've heard of at least one good experience with Dave's Restricted Diet if you can find it locally or buy it online:
http://davespetfood.com/catalog/for-cats/can-for-cats/restricted-diet/
Something I wrote recently in another thread about kidney issues was my thinking on food would be, in roughly this order of importance:
1. Something she will EAT vs continuing to not eat, even if it's not real cat food (I used some meat baby food at times)
2. Cat food
3. Preferably wet food
Could easily swap 2/3
3.5 (or maybe earlier) enough total intake to be sustainable (keeping weight up)
4. Maybe low in phosphorus
That last one is where the renal diet comes in. I'm sure some may disagree with my ranking, and that's fine. I certainly don't have all the answers! This is just my conclusion so far based on what I've experienced and what I've read from others.
My understanding is that the renal food is low in phosphorus. But even this is somewhat controversial in that we don't know that keeping a cat on lower phosphorus foods really helps any more than ignoring the phosphorus content. Certainly wet food is better than dry, and any food is better than none if you're having trouble.
It doesn't sound like your cat is currently in so much crisis that you will need to resort to the top of this list at the moment, but if your cat gets stuck in a non-eating way it will be very important to keep her intake up some way or another, regardless of whether it is low phosphorus renal formula or not. The lack of nutrition will send her downhill faster than the food being higher in phosphorus, I have to think.
I remember digging for lower phosphorus options that were high in calories and found a few. It helps if they are fairly calorie dense too when your cat is not eating as much as usual. Here's a good chart these days looks like: http://www.felinecrf.org/canned_food_usa.htm One that sticks out in my head that I hunted down a few times is a certain flavor of Castor & Pollux Organix, which has phosphorus down in the 0.6 range as well as over 200 calories in a 5.5oz can.
1. Something she will EAT vs continuing to not eat, even if it's not real cat food (I used some meat baby food at times)
2. Cat food
3. Preferably wet food
Could easily swap 2/3
3.5 (or maybe earlier) enough total intake to be sustainable (keeping weight up)
4. Maybe low in phosphorus
That last one is where the renal diet comes in. I'm sure some may disagree with my ranking, and that's fine. I certainly don't have all the answers! This is just my conclusion so far based on what I've experienced and what I've read from others.
My understanding is that the renal food is low in phosphorus. But even this is somewhat controversial in that we don't know that keeping a cat on lower phosphorus foods really helps any more than ignoring the phosphorus content. Certainly wet food is better than dry, and any food is better than none if you're having trouble.
It doesn't sound like your cat is currently in so much crisis that you will need to resort to the top of this list at the moment, but if your cat gets stuck in a non-eating way it will be very important to keep her intake up some way or another, regardless of whether it is low phosphorus renal formula or not. The lack of nutrition will send her downhill faster than the food being higher in phosphorus, I have to think.
I remember digging for lower phosphorus options that were high in calories and found a few. It helps if they are fairly calorie dense too when your cat is not eating as much as usual. Here's a good chart these days looks like: http://www.felinecrf.org/canned_food_usa.htm One that sticks out in my head that I hunted down a few times is a certain flavor of Castor & Pollux Organix, which has phosphorus down in the 0.6 range as well as over 200 calories in a 5.5oz can.
You can talk to your vet about phosphorus binders added to his diet (See http://www.zzcat.com/CRF/supplies/binders.htm#epakitin) and as other s have said, he has to eat. You just do the best you can....
You didn't say whether it's the Canned or Dry that she won't eat, and whether she is used to eating canned or dry. Since you have already been provided with great advice and links above, I am only providing this one additional link for DRY food in order of phosphorus in it, just in case: http://www.felinecrf.org/dry_food_usa.htm. Of course, WET food is the best for kidney cats....that's why she needs sub-q fluids in the first place, to keep her well hydrated. But not all cats will eat wet food, and if she's not already eating it, now may not be a good time to try to transition her.
The new way of thinking on the low protein is that maybe low protein isn't such a good idea. That's why kidney cats get so darned skinny...they NEED protein. All cats need protein. I have a kidney cat (my third one) and when my last one got kidney disease I actually tried to convert him to a raw diet because I wanted to give him lots of high protein while keeping the phosphorus low. My Vet actually concurred
Only you know what the current test results are saying, if everything is within normal ranges, but the lack of appetite is worrisome. The better their condition, the better they feel, the better their appetite.
I'm doing sub-q every day now and it's so much easier than it seems. It's a really unnerving prospect at first, but if you dive right in with a take-no-prisoners attitude, things work out just fine. I had a bit of a rough day today, I'm off my game, what can I say, and even when things go wrong it still isn't a disaster. Sometimes there's a leak and you have to stop and restart the procedure, sometimes you poke through the skin and have to redo, sometimes you stab yourself and have to stop gushing blood everywhere before proceeding...but it goes right more often than it goes wrong. I've accidentally gotten air under her skin, and while it's a very strange and disconcerting thing to have happen, it isn't life-threatening. Sub-q is kind of fool-proof.
Even if you decide to continue having it done at the vet's, let them teach you how to do it and gradually take over for the tech. It's how I began. First, I put in the needle, next session I attached the needle and inserted it, the next session was attaching the needle, inserting it and opening/closing the line. The techs are very patient and good teachers, I've found.
Epakitin is doing wonderful things for Rory's CRF related elevated phos, so I wholeheartedly recommend it as a binder. It's given twice daily, so you don't have to worry about adding it to every meal. I add it to a little bit of Gerber 2nd Foods (chicken, turkey, or ham) and she gets it immediately preceding mealtime.
I also recommend mirtazapine for appetite and nausea. Not every cat tolerates it as well as Rory, but for her it's a real miracle worker. She takes it every other day (usually rx'ed at an every third day dose, but the half life is shorter in some cats). She is vibrant, playful, happy as a clam, she even yells for food! She was the polar opposite pre-mirt. Her appetite still isn't 100% normal, but she's put on weight pretty quickly and is getting close to her pre-illness weight.
I didn't see an acid reducer mentioned. Is your kitty on Pepcid or Zantac? Most CRF kitties have acidic stomach, and this is a major cause of appetite suppression.
I'm doing sub-q every day now and it's so much easier than it seems. It's a really unnerving prospect at first, but if you dive right in with a take-no-prisoners attitude, things work out just fine. I had a bit of a rough day today, I'm off my game, what can I say, and even when things go wrong it still isn't a disaster. Sometimes there's a leak and you have to stop and restart the procedure, sometimes you poke through the skin and have to redo, sometimes you stab yourself and have to stop gushing blood everywhere before proceeding...but it goes right more often than it goes wrong. I've accidentally gotten air under her skin, and while it's a very strange and disconcerting thing to have happen, it isn't life-threatening. Sub-q is kind of fool-proof.
Even if you decide to continue having it done at the vet's, let them teach you how to do it and gradually take over for the tech. It's how I began. First, I put in the needle, next session I attached the needle and inserted it, the next session was attaching the needle, inserting it and opening/closing the line. The techs are very patient and good teachers, I've found.
Epakitin is doing wonderful things for Rory's CRF related elevated phos, so I wholeheartedly recommend it as a binder. It's given twice daily, so you don't have to worry about adding it to every meal. I add it to a little bit of Gerber 2nd Foods (chicken, turkey, or ham) and she gets it immediately preceding mealtime.
I also recommend mirtazapine for appetite and nausea. Not every cat tolerates it as well as Rory, but for her it's a real miracle worker. She takes it every other day (usually rx'ed at an every third day dose, but the half life is shorter in some cats). She is vibrant, playful, happy as a clam, she even yells for food! She was the polar opposite pre-mirt. Her appetite still isn't 100% normal, but she's put on weight pretty quickly and is getting close to her pre-illness weight.
I didn't see an acid reducer mentioned. Is your kitty on Pepcid or Zantac? Most CRF kitties have acidic stomach, and this is a major cause of appetite suppression.
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Hills makes a new kind of canned k/d called tuna stew and chicken stew. My one CKD cat really liked the tuna stew and it was the only kidney diet he would eat.
