Inflammation of the kidneys?

Mukkia said:

I have heard of that before. I think it is iris, because I snapped another picture with the lamp on. I zoomed in on this picture, and took a screenshot. He does have some yeast growing in his ears, I am treating it with Mometamax 15g. Maybe that could be it? It would not explain the different directions, though.

I will most definitely mention this to the doctor. I will see if I can send him the picture.

On a great note; Mukkia has not thrown up once since Saturday morning! :-D He was playing a little this morning . He even had his tail fluffed up!

Here is a better view.

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If you can take some more photos, from different directions and in different light, then that would be helpful to send to your Vet. Noting the time, when it happens, as well.

The ear problem of yeast, or the ear meds could very well be causing some side effects...so yes, another great question to ask your Vet.

How long has Mukkia been on the ear meds? Was it around the same time he was off balance, and not eating, or before, or after.

Ear problems do cause balance problems, so hopefully when Mukkia's ear yeast is gone, he goes back to his normal self.

If you find that his eyes are not getting better, or you find they are the same, or worse...then I would definitely take him back in to your Vet, asap.

Medication side effects always worry me, and there may be other type of ear meds that cause less of those.

Make sure the Vet checks his teeth, as well.

Playing sounds excellent! He must be feeling better.

Mukkia said:

All of Mukkia's blood work was normal. He said some of the values are on the high end of normal, but still good for his age. He was extremely happy with the results.

Now, as for the "knobby", he said when he examined Mukkia one kidney felt abnormal, meaning lumpy. Sometimes this is due to scar tissue. However, tomorrow morning we are going to schedule a day to have an ultrasound performed on his abdomen. He said this would show inside the kidneys, as well as everything in the abdomen. We're looking for anything abnormal and tumors.

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(Ooops, I posted before your update.   )

That is fantastic news about Mukkia's bloodwork.

(Ask for a copy, tomorrow, and just say you want it for your own records. It's good to have, and that way, if you have any questions about anything, you can ask your vet on the next visit.)

An ultrasound sounds really good.

And I think your vet is right...our Senior cats are really able to deal with a lot of things in their golden years.

Hi how is Mukkia doing? did you get the ultrasound results ?

Zed Xyzed said:

Hi how is Mukkia doing? did you get the ultrasound results ?

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He is doing ok. We had to reschedule the ultrasound. I will know by the end of today when the new date will be. I did grab a copy of his urinalysis. I'm going to post it on here in just a minute. The doctor said the ultrasound is ultimately what will give us the most answers as to what is going on. He would not elaborate too much on the UA, so I'm not sure what to gather from these values?

Any input?

Here is the b/w.

Can someone please look at the urinalysis report and explain their opinion? The soonest the ultrasound can be done is on 09/07 @ 11:00. I just want some kind of an idea as to what it means.

Mukkia said:

He is doing ok. We had to reschedule the ultrasound. I will know by the end of today when the new date will be. I did grab a copy of his urinalysis. I'm going to post it on here in just a minute. The doctor said the ultrasound is ultimately what will give us the most answers as to what is going on. He would not elaborate too much on the UA, so I'm not sure what to gather from these values?

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Mukkia said:

Can someone please look at the urinalysis report and explain their opinion? The soonest the ultrasound can be done is on 09/07 @ 11:00. I just want some kind of an idea as to what it means.

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Hi @Mukkia....none of us are vets here, so our opinions are only based on similar experiences or reading. And each of our experiences are very unique, ...different for each cat.

I've never had to deal with a cat with suspected microalbuminuria, but these articles might help explain it.

http://www.2ndchance.info/dxme-Microalbumin.htm

http://www.vcahospitals.com/main/pe...-stage-testing-for-kidney-disease-in-cats/356

http://www.felinecrf.org/early_detection.htm

(One interesting thing that I read, from the first article, is that it mentioned that 'severe skin or ear infections' can 'result in high MA readings'...so perhaps when Mukkia's ear infection clears up, so will his urine results.)

Your Vet sounds very good, in that he is trying to pin-point the cause of ALL his findings by running various tests, and getting an overall picture of Mukkia's health.

The urinalysis also says that there may be false-positives, so likely in the future it will be run again.(one of the articles said that elderly pets, and people, tend to be positive, too.)

Hopefully, the Ultrasound will be able to give your Vet more information as to how Mukkia's renal system is doing, as well as other abdominal organs, you mentioned in your previous post.

Remember, too, that some of these tests are like 'snapshots' of how our cats are doing at the time, especially bloodwork and urine, so I figure that your Vet is just trying to rule out issues, and get ahead of any that might be causing early symptoms.

(I also like the fact that new tests, such as SDMA from 2015, is now available to catch kidney disease earlier than before.)

How is Mukkia doing with his ear, and how is he doing overall with his eating, pooping, peeing, and energy levels?

Has the inflammation around his eye gone down?

Part of me, wonders if possible scar tissue or 'knobby kidneys' is from his previously having crystals in his urine?

I also think, that the food you are feeding him must be helping him in his overall health.

I hope Mukkia is doing well. Give him a few scritches under the chin, or cheeks for me.

Sorry for the delay=been away a day or so dealing with other stuff...

ok i looked at the tests...heres my uneducated guesses..

the urine test looks like there COULD be infection. Blood or proteins-same thing-in the urine usually indicate a urine infection. the specific gravity is lower than it should be. cats usually make concentrated urine. so that is usually at 1.040 and up. his is 1.01 so its lower. I would recommend sub fluids and adding wet food to his diet. Although the food is helping the crystals-when they get to be as old as your kitty-they tend to get dehydrated faster. Now the blood work shows excellent kidney values. 

I would ask the vet to get another urine next week=and culture it for a bacteria. unfortunately many times there is no bacteria when blood shows up. its what we call idiopathic cystitis meaning unknown irritation of the bladder. the blood could be from the lining of the bladder getting irritated.

Or it could be a kidney infection. Often with kidney infections  you will notice smaller pee balls and going in and out of the box. laying down sleeping more than usual. my vet treated my pumpkin face with a shot of antibiotics then sent us home with wet food and pain meds. kidney infections hurt. Just remember cats are masters of hiding pain.

you can call them and ask about this blood in the urine and see if they want to do antibiotics and sub fluids. I don't remember if they sent you home with subdfluids earlier this year. Often its only needed 2 times or so=usually 100ml to 150 ml every 24 to 48 hours to help flush the bladder. the key is up the fluids. we need to flush that garbage out.

the concerning thing to me is the not concentrating the urine. make sure they do a good ultrasound around the kidneys. Even if they do find something-as long as he is eating and sleeping well things should plug along as well as can be.

I had a sick cat in July who had issues with cancer=we didn't know. but one thing we did notice is she had early renal issues with higher values of her kidneys and less concentrating of her urine. we did what we could for her. she got a raging bladder infection and instead of going in and out of the box she just held her pee for 24 hours-which was when i took her in the vets on a Saturday. if this happens you usually can see that pain in their face. I doubt this is what is going on with your cat but wanted to let you know what I noticed after the fact. She had a tumor around the kidney one one side but it wasn't your typical tumor-it was described to me like an orange with sections pulled apart. We didn't pursue treatment. She at that point was too sick-she was much sicker than your kitty. she was not eating for over 2 weeks now. lots of issues. luckily they allowed me to do sub fluids at home and thats pretty much what kept her alive until i got the ultrasound. I should have done that asap but I pushed it off. I knew what it was but figured if I dont know about it then its not true...also she had been to the vet 5 times in 2 weeks and no one knew about the tumor. i ended up taking her to another state to another vet for a second opinion. it was a bittersweet day. I only hope you guys can figure out whats going on before it gets to this point.

For now-push liquids. wet food. more water. some cats love drinking out of a cup instead of a bowl. one of my girls loves drinking water out of a syringe. she really is a nut.  

Also the vomiting-they can have you give pepcid=you will need empty gel caps=this is very bitter tasting. you don't want to crush and put in food. NO!! then if that doesn't work-my cat was on Cerenia every day during her illness because she too was having foamy puke. the Cerenia really helped. I ended up ordering injection type meds due to unable to pill. I was not able to pill the pepcid so they got me transdermal cream in ear=don't do it. was totally useless. That whole order ticks me off to think of how much money I spent and all the bullcrap. And my poor cat didn't get the care she needed..so I was giving her fluids and 2 injections every night. At least I was able to keep her comfortable. At that point she only ate kibble out of my hand. She used to eat fancy feast with water added to it like a slurry and when she got sick she refused all wet foods. even with the appetite stimulants and cerenia/pepcid. 

Any changes in eating or sleeping then you may have something brewing. Floey stopped doing her normal routine in June but we didnt see anything until July. Then they just said she had a virus and she limped along with eating until she stopped byJuly 17ish. But sounds to me like your baby still eating and drinking.

Sorry so long..just can't believe so many changes in my life this past 2 months. Send your Mukkia some pets and hugs/kisses.

cat nap Very good articles! Thank you very much! Hopefully, it is something as simple as the yeast infection in his ears. He is still doing OK. He has three doses of the Mometamax left. His ears are not appearing as though they are bothering him anymore. He has just been kind of LAX, so to speak. Still not much of an appetite, but still eating enough! :-)
The excess drinking,and large volumes of urine is the same. This morning he woke me up to top of the water bowl in the kitchen. He has two. He drank enough water this morning that my old fashion coffee pot made 4 cups of coffee while he drank!

I am not sure about the "knobby" being old because this doctor has been very thorough with Mukkia, but Mukkia has never been this thin either, so maybe the lack of fat/ muscle allowed the kidney to be felt. I will ask; I think that is a good theory.
His eyes looks perfect, maybe the yeast infection in the ear was causing some irritation inflammation to the eye?

Mukkia said:

@cat napVery good articles! Thank you very much! Hopefully, it is something as simple as the yeast infection in his ears. He is still doing OK. He has three doses of the Mometamax left. His ears are not appearing as though they are bothering him anymore. He has just been kind of LAX, so to speak. Still not much of an appetite, but still eating enough! :-)
The excess drinking,and large volumes of urine is the same. This morning he woke me up to top of the water bowl in the kitchen. He has two. He drank enough water this morning that my old fashion coffee pot made 4 cups of coffee while he drank!

I am not sure about the "knobby" being old because this doctor has been very thorough with Mukkia, but Mukkia has never been this thin either, so maybe the lack of fat/ muscle allowed the kidney to be felt. I will ask; I think that is a good theory.
His eyes looks perfect, maybe the yeast infection in the ear was causing some irritation inflammation to the eye?

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@Mukkia ...I also hope that it is simple and easily treatable, and that the yeast infection goes away fast.

Honestly, when you first posted, and the excess drinking and large volumes of urine make me always think of kidney disease, but Mukkia kidney values are good, and the only things that seem close to high are the minerals...calcium, magnesium, sodium. 

I have also read about cats with one smaller kidney, or damaged kidney, where the other kidney takes over and does most of the filtering...(I just cannot remember where I read it.)...so I am also hoping that if this were the case with Mukkia, then he is able to balance his system quite well.

Mukkia, does look thin, but I'm not sure if anything like Nutrical, would help him, and not bother his system.

It is so difficult to get a senior cat to eat more, or gain weight, if their systems are not able to absorb nutrients or filter out waste, properly.

(I tried enticing my rainbow cat, with Fortiflora, and crumbling dry food on his wet food, but it was not always successful. He only liked eating the Hills K/D if it were first opened and at room temperature, so warming the food sometimes helped. He preferred the dry Hill's k/d kibble, but he did lose weight on it. I wish our cats were the type to eat any type of food, but unfortunately my rainbow cat Spotty was very particular about his food, too. Trying to entice them to eat different kinds of food, but foods that would be okay with the type of illness they had, was difficult.)

I have to say Mukkia sounds adorable, to wake you up...so that you can top up the water bowl in the kitchen.

Sure, waking up a human is not so good, but the reason is very understandable. He just likes fresh water, I guess.

And maybe he likes to see his water bowl full. You might have to add some more water bowls, if he constantly wakes you up.

Sometimes, I think they just wake us up, because they know they can, and they are just cute enough to get away with it.        

Good Luck next week for his ultrasound.

Originally Posted by foxxycat  
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Any changes in eating or sleeping then you may have something brewing. Floey stopped doing her normal routine in June but we didnt see anything until July. Then they just said she had a virus and she limped along with eating until she stopped byJuly 17ish. But sounds to me like your baby still eating and drinking.

Sorry so long..just can't believe so many changes in my life this past 2 months. Send your Mukkia some pets and hugs/kisses.

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All excellent advice @foxxycat.

Sending you positive vibes of Peace for your loss of Floey. No matter if our cats are ill or pass away, they never fail to touch our hearts for the better.

I think they make us stronger.    

Mukkia laying on me last night. He LOVES that blanket! [emoji]128571[/emoji]

One more. He is too cute.

he is such a handsome guy

Zed Xyzed said:

he is such a handsome guy

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Thank you, zed xyzed .

I just found out that Mukkia's doctor said that it would be the best interest for Mukkia to have a biopsy of his kidney done during ultrasound. He said I could decline this if I want to, but it will determine what is going on with Mukkia. I don't know what to do. Does anyone have any experience with kidney biopsy?

Nix my last post; I am not going to let them do it. The risk outweighs the benefit.

When is Mukkia going to have the tests done?

Zed Xyzed said:

When is Mukkia going to have the tests done?

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zed xyzed , tomorrow morning, but I don't know if I am going to do it. I am afraid of making the wrong decision. I thought it was today until I realized that tomorrow is not the 7th. My wires are not connecting in my brain due to stress. I want what is best for him; not me.