Young-ish cat with kidney disease

ferretone

I did a search on the forum of cat kidney disease, and didn't come up with anything useful, so made a new thread. If mods see something more appropriate, would be delighted to have thread merged, obviously.

Anyway, the cat in question was trapped as a feral in a large colony around 5 1/2 years ago, at around a year old. She came to me a few months later, as an emergency 2nd foster home, as the first said they could not keep her a day longer, as the new pedigree kitten didn't like her.

After she came here, she spent almost 6 weeks hiding under the floorboards, as she is extremely averse to change. So when shortly after she'd settled in, a family expressed interest in adopting her, I explained her problems to the rescue I was fostering her for, and offered that they could either rehome her to the family with the difficulties that was likely to entail, or leave her with us permanently, the rescue chose the latter.

Once she came out of her shell, she attached herself very strongly to me: she's still awfully shy, but whenever she can have me to herself she comes and snuggles up to me if she possibly can. But any new situation has always been extremely stressful for her, including if people come and stay for a visit. I am blessed in that I have a wonderful neighbour who looks after the cats if we are away, and to whom Siamsa has bonded to as well.

But when Siamsa has been stressed in the past, she has tended to develop struvite crystals in her urine, so I have been forced to feed her veterinary food to treat and prevent this, which I hate, as it is awful food in other ways. And if I don't feed it and she gets a hint of stress, she gets them again.

Anyway, the upshot has been, over the past few weeks she has gradually become ill and gone very nearly off her food. The poor thing weighs only 2.65 kg now :eek: I got her bloods done, which confirmed what I suspected: she now has kidney disease.

We've been giving her the meds for a couple days. After the first one, she seemed to rally a bit, and ate nearly a whole pouch of the Hills k/d. But then she vomited on our sheets, and reverted to only eating a tiny bit again. I'm hoping over the coming days she'll start to feel better and will want to eat again, but I'm afraid she is just sick and tired of the crappy prescription food anyway.

Would anyone know how to make decent food for her that would conform to a kidney disease diet? I don't blame her not wanting to eat that crap, but need to find a way to get the weight back on her, without damaging her kidneys any further.

Any tips would be so much appreciated!

Irish Stones

ferretone wrote: »

Would anyone know how to make decent food for her that would conform to a kidney disease diet? I don't blame her not wanting to eat that crap, but need to find a way to get the weight back on her, without damaging her kidneys any further.

Any tips would be so much appreciated!

I'm sorry for your cat.
How bad are her kidneys? Do you have the value of the blood test report?
What medicines did you give her?
In this kind of disease some medicine have to be taken for the whole life of the cat.
I give my cat a pill every night and twice a week I give her hypodermic injections of saline solution to keep her hydratated.

My cat suffers from kidney disease since 2007 and I've feeding her Royal Canin Renal dry and wet. The wet comes in two or three different flavours. My cat used to like Tuna.
She never liked Hill's K/D.
After a period of treatment in a clinic for a different problem we started feeding her a new kind of food, both dry and wet, that the doctors of that clinic adviced us.
The name is Trovet Renal and Oxalate. The wet comes in small tins, Lamb or Chicken. My cats prefers Chickenn and she likes it very much. The dry food is very much appreciated.
You can find it on the internet
http://www.petplanet.co.uk/product.asp?dept_id=924&pf_id=54110
It seems that the wer food is not available in the English market, though.
I just bought 100 tins two days ago and yesterday they delivered to me
http://www.petnet.it/Prodotto/00137940/Trovet-Trovet-Renal-&-Oxalate-RD-Pollo/
Have a try.

mymo

Zooplus do some kidney diet food, when I had a cat with these issues a few years back, he loved one called katovitt or something, I added some warm water to make it soupy and keep his fluids up.
There are a few to choose from, so take a look.

ferretone

Thanks guys. I'm thinking really it's the sore mouth from the kidney failure, why she is so loath to eat much, so hoping this will improve if the meds get her to stabilise. I need to get the name of the meds still, as the vet wasn't there when we picked them up.

I think I will get the clinic to get her the R/C food instead though. I'd noticed before that they do tend to be more palatable than the Hills ones. To be honest, I've never really known any animal to like any kind of Hills much. R/C isn't much better nutritionally, but it does seem to be more palatable, which is what I need just now