2 year old cat with poss kidney disease

Hey everyone! Yesterday I took my kitty to the vet and they did routine bloodwork on him. Today the vet called me and said his BUN and Creatinine levels are alittle above normal. I am very worried bc he is so young to have kidney failure. Has anyone else had a similar issue with a young kitty? Also the vet recommend putting Oliver on Royal canin renal support. I would like suggestion on this food? Thanks in advance.

Awww I have a little Oliver...

Kidney disease can definitely happen in younger cats. Another member lost her young cat to it not to long ago. But, good to cover bases. Did the vet do a urinalysis by chance? And if so, do you know if it was dilute or concentrated? Urine Specific Gravity can tell you that (I forget if it's high or low when diluted). Diluted urine is another indicator of CKD. Do you happen to know what the levels of BUN and creatinine were?

Another thing to consider - if he was dehydrated when they did the tests, it could give a false positive.

Was this diagnosis given based only on one set of blood work? Usually such a diagnosis is given after multiple tests with elevated levels. I lost count of how many blood tests my Sara had in 2015 (seriously, I have, lol). They noticed certain things with her blood and urine since a year go, and said she possibly had kidney disease, but there was no definitive diagnosis until December.

I personally would ask to have another set of blood work done maybe in another month. Do you feed your kitty dry or wet as a rule? If dry, I would try feeding wet just to get more water into him, which can help if he's dehydrated.

Donutte said:

Awww I have a little Oliver...

Kidney disease can definitely happen in younger cats. Another member lost her young cat to it not to long ago. But, good to cover bases. Did the vet do a urinalysis by chance? And if so, do you know if it was dilute or concentrated? Urine Specific Gravity can tell you that (I forget if it's high or low when diluted). Diluted urine is another indicator of CKD. Do you happen to know what the levels of BUN and creatinine were?

Another thing to consider - if he was dehydrated when they did the tests, it could give a false positive.

Was this diagnosis given based only on one set of blood work? Usually such a diagnosis is given after multiple tests with elevated levels. I lost count of how many blood tests my Sara had in 2015 (seriously, I have, lol). They noticed certain things with her blood and urine since a year go, and said she possibly had kidney disease, but there was no definitive diagnosis until December.

I personally would ask to have another set of blood work done maybe in another month. Do you feed your kitty dry or wet as a rule? If dry, I would try feeding wet just to get more water into him, which can help if he's dehydrated.

Click to expand...

Last year back in May I took him into the vet bc he was drinking and peeing more then usual. They did blood work and only his creatinine level was up by 1 point. They told me it could have just been dehydrated so they treated it as a UTI. When he was 1 they also did blood work and those were normal. Yesterday labs were BUN 38 and Creatinine 2.8 the vet did take his urine and she said it's mid range diluted not fully diluted so it's too early to say if it's kidney disease. She told me that it would be best to change his diet and get a Ultrasound and blood pressure done to determine further what could be causing the issue. The odd part about all of this is that he is acting very normal. He has alway been a very active boy and still is and still loves to eat alot. I am just upset bc he is my first cat and I truly don't want him to be sick... What kind of food do you feed your kitty's? Oliver eats mostly wet food natures variety I leave dry out only for the night so he can snack on it.

When it comes to kidney diets, there are two main things that they look at - phosphorus and protein content. It used to be that kidney cats were put on low-protein diets, but more recent studies have shown it's not so much the protein, but the phosphorus, that is what makes the disease progress faster, and what makes the kitty feel worse.

Unfortunately, the prescription diets are low in both phosphorus and in protein. Low phos is fine for a 2 year old, but low protein probably isn't the best for him. Early kidney disease does not really warrant low protein either, it's more needed in later stages. I will tell you what I do, but keep in mind my cat is almost 14 years old, so you may want to talk with your vet to get his/her take on it. Also keep in mind - the best diet for your cat is the one he will eat. And if he won't eat a prescription kidney diet, then you can't feed him that. There are other options in that case.

Anyway, I feed Hills k/d to my Sara. I have the 5.5 oz cans of the chicken pate, as well as the 3 oz cans of the vegetable and tuna stew (because she loves that). During the week, I feed the big can. 1/6 of the can in the morning with a little bit of kibble (Science Diet, and it's low in phos also), and in the afternoon give her another 1/6 of the can. I also add kibble if she didn't have a mid-day treat, but if she did, then I don't add the kibble. At night, I feel my babies what I call the "community food" (it's what they all eat - I have five cats). I try hard to keep that one in the "not too high phos" range, 1% is ideal for the community food. Some are a little higher though, and others a little lower. On the weekend, same deal, except she gets half a little can in the morning with kibble, and the other half in the afternoon.

With my vet, he said as long as she's getting at least 50% of her diet as kidney diet, he's fine. The kibble isn't k/d but it's only 0.6% phos, so close enough as far as we're concerned. Now your kitty's number are actually a bit higher than Sara's, so your vet may not feel that way.

Let me put together a list of foods that might be good for your kitty (low phos but not too-low protein) and see if your vet would be ok with those. Again, if you cat doesn't want to eat a renal diet, you can NOT force him to. If that is the case, your vet may want to put him on phosphorus binders. Not sure what his phos levels are. Did you have those by chance? And did they test SDMA also by any chance?

I took out all foods that were above 1% phosphorus and below 40% protein. Usually with kidney cats you want to stay at least below 0.7% if possible. Hill's k/d pate, for reference, is 0.4%. This list is all commercial wet cat food, not dry and not prescription. It's sorted in order of lowest to highest phos%.

Thank you so much for the information I will defiantly talk to my vet about it. His phosphorus level was 5.7 (which is within normal ranges) and protein was a tad high 9.0 (normal range: 5.7-8.9). I currently give him Nature's Variety Instinct Rabbit and Pride- Chicken and Salmon. I tried to check the phosphorus and protein levels on those cans but I feel like I don't understand them. Would you be able to go on nature's variety website and look into them for me? I just want to see if the food has high phosphorus and protein. 

Nature's Variety isn't on Tanya's website, which is where I got the food on the list I gave you (Tanya's site is pretty much the feline CKD bible). Ha, of course, the rabbit one is one of the NV foods that does not have information on another list I have (from this website http://www.catinfo.org/docs/SortableCatFoodChartCatinfo.org2-22-13.htm). I don't see chicken and salmon on this list, so maybe it didn't exist when it was put together.

Labels for cat food can be VERY difficult to read. When looking up any food, you want to try to look up dry matter analysis if it's available. The information I gave you was DMA. Most provide guaranteed analysis, which is just a list of minimum and maximum levels. More often than not, carbs and phosphorus are not included with a guaranteed analysis.

If I were to go by the other Nature's Variety foods, the rabbit is probably over 1% phosphorus. Same for the chicken and salmon.

Thanks for all your help. I well look into all the websites you recommended

Looks like they do give phosphorus with their guaranteed analysis, 0.2%. If I go by the calculator I use, that translates to roughly 0.9% DMA. I am not sure that is 100% correct though, plus it's also a minimum guaranteed value, so can be higher than that. Almost every other rabbit cat food on the site I gave you has VERY high phosphorus also.

I can't even find Chicken and Salmon on the NV website.

I also wanted to add something else here...

I think it's great that your vet did another set of blood work on him, even with a routine checkup for a young cat. Kidney disease doesn't usually have symptoms until they are pretty far along. Appetite doesn't get affected usually until creatinine gets up to 5. How long would he take to get to 5, no idea. But since the blood work was done you were able to catch something before it was even bothering your cat, and can be a bit more proactive now with it instead of reactive. Believe me, that is a VERY good situation to be in. You don't want to be finding out about this because he suddenly stops eating. That is really very difficult. 

Yes I am happy that we caught it early bc that way we can be proactive. Thank you for all your info.