Kidney Disease

[daddyincr]

I am glad Darwin is good. btw, I really like the name Darwin

originally i got the cat for my son as i always had dogs, never cats. me and darwin fell in love with each other. my son chose the name. he's an athiest, so there you go.

 

[daddyincr]

Dry and wet percentages aren't compared like that. You have to convert them both to "dry matter basis" before you make the comparison.
To do this you find the moisture content of a food. Most canned foods are around 78% moisture. So say you have a canned food with 78% moisture, listing 10 % protein. You take the 10 % and divide it by the dry percentage, which is 22 % (100-78=22), which makes the canned food 45 % protein, which is a decent amount.
Dry foods are usually about 10% moisture (or less) If you are feeding a dry food with only 28% protein (which is way too low for a cat) and the dry percentage is 90% (100-10=90) the dry matter percentage for the dry food is 31 %.
So now you can compare them on a dry matter basis
canned 45% protein
dry 31% protein
The quality of the protein matters too. Canned food is more likely to have meat protein, which the cat can actually use, as opposed to protein from grains, which just get pooped out.

Wow!!! great info!!!!. we don't get many choices here. for example our choices here are: friskies, chicken soup, innova, blue bistro, science diet,  wet and dry. that's it!!!!

 

[otto]

Wow!!! great info!!!!. we don't get many choices here. for example our choices here are: friskies, chicken soup, innova, blue bistro, science diet,  wet and dry. that's it!!!!

Feed only the wet and you'll be on the right track,.

 

[daddyincr]

luckily my children love the wet. however, they like the dry also. so i play a game with them and it reinforces their predatory

instincts. we go to the kitchen and i sit on the floor with the dry food. i throw one to darwin and one to brienna (named after the

female warrior from game of thrones). they love it. they chase it. crouch and attack. darwin is a great athlete. sometimes he catches

in mid air with both front paws. great fun for all three of us.
 

 

[otto]

luckily my children love the wet. however, they like the dry also. so i play a game with them and it reinforces their predatory
instincts. we go to the kitchen and i sit on the floor with the dry food. i throw one to darwin and one to brienna (named after the
female warrior from game of thrones). they love it. they chase it. crouch and attack. darwin is a great athlete. sometimes he catches
in mid air with both front paws. great fun for all three of us.

 

That is called Chase The Kibble Game at my house. I REALLY miss playing it with them, and I know they miss it too. However, I will not give them kibble any more, even for Games.

 

[hopscotch]

Hi Silvia, I'm new here on this forum, but I have experience treating a cat for chronic kidney disease as well as giving another one food suppliments to avoid the onset of the disease.  The cat I had with chronic kidney disease was a Siamese and she was also named Cookie.  She was diagnosed with the disease at the age of 7 and passed away at the age of 9, though the reason is a bit complicated and had to do with pancreatitis and an enlarged liver (an ultrasound was done that showed this).  I adopted her at the age of one and no nothing about her background, so it's possible the reason she got kidney disease was genetic.  Her blood work up to the very end showed that the suppliments were very supportive to her kidneys though and the vet said to me that he thought she would have gone on for many more years if the other issues hadn't happened.  As a result, I have a lot of faith in treating chronic kidney disease with supportive food suppliments and sub-Q fluids.

Anyway, the food suppliments, which were recommended by her vet, were 1 refrigerated Azodil capsule, 1 scoop of Epakitin and a very small pinch of Potassium Citrate twice a day, once at each meal time.  She didn't like wet food, so I mixed it with a bit of water and gave it to her orally with a small syringe.  Apparently, Azodil is a probiotic that does some of the kidney enzyme work in the digestive process so it eases the load on the kidneys.  

I have been putting this same mixture in my 12 year old cat's wet food for the last two years to hopefully prevent the onset of age-related kidney failure.  She is a more robust cat, but it can't help to give her some supportive suppliments.  Currently, her kidneys are in really great shape.  I had to have an ultrasound done about a month ago for mild pancreatitis and they said her kidneys looked in great shape, looking nice and big, and her blood work was good, too.  

In addition to the suppliments, I did have to give Cookie sub-Q fluids in her scruff area.  It's best to talk to your vet about how to judge how much to give and when to do it.  I found that I had to do it more often as the disease progressed, but Cookie adapted to it quite well.  The scruff "pinch" test was a good one to check if the she was becoming dehydrated.  You can tell by how quickly the "pinch" disappears.

 

[catvet]

I beg you all, to please not take it upon yourself to override what your veterinarian is telling you. Unless you, yourself have been through the tremendous torture and successful completion of vet school and passing boards, you really should not be giving medical advice. Sure, your vet can make a mistake(or even be lousy all together), but overall, when in doubt, ALWAYS get a second opinion from a VETERINARIAN  (or 3rd and 4th opinion) before reading forums such as this and taking them as the gospel truth. 

You all sound like loving cat parents, so I urge you to please stop using the internet as your go to. Both acute and chronic kidney disease is extremely pathophysiologically complex, not to mention the cause is often unknown and can be attributed to a hundred different causes. 

 

[Anne]

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