Cat and early chronic kidney disease

Zapperzy

Looking for some opinions in general if anyone has experience with the above.

I've got a 5 year old cat just diagnosed with this, urinalysis showed dilute urine, creatinine 165 and sdma came back 14 so vet thinks about a stage 1 but wants to repeat sdma in a few weeks. She started off with blood in her urine, put on a half dose of metacam, went through cycles of metacam for 5/6 days appeared fine so took her off it day or two later back to blood in urine so back on metacam for 5/6 days. This went on for about 3 weeks before I brought her back with a urine sample, that's when it was twigged she had dilute urine.

She's off metacam and starting antibiotics today to treat the blood in urine issue. I'm looking for ways of limiting the progress of ckd through change of diet. I'm literally overloaded with information, some of it conflicting, on best times to reduce protein etc. Is it too early to start phosphorus binders at this stage, can it do her any harm?

The vets are great, going in later to talk to them about all this, but want to do my own research as well. Obviously a bit shocked at getting a diagnosis of this at only 5, she's barely out of kittenhood :-(

SillyMangoX

I don’t have anything helpful to say, but I’m really sorry to hear that fingers crossed it’ll all come right with a change of diet. Towards the end of Dudes problems, we started him on the hills c/d to change the ph of his urine and he took really well to that food. I know it’s not the best quality, but I do find the prescription diets are very effective. It might be a good stop gap til you’re happy with all the research.

Alun

We're going through this now with our cat, although she is going on 16 now. First signs we had were when she had some blood tests done in connection with a bout of cystitis, with some blood in her urine, which showed elevated creatinine and urea levels. At the same time she was diagnosed with arthritis mainly in her back legs.

So, currently she's on Fortekor for her kidneys which as I understand it is usually prescribed for cardiac conditions, but it also has the effect of increasing blood supply to the kidneys which is supposed to help increase their effectiveness. It seems to be working as well, because she was in the vets a couple of days ago for a dental problem removing two teeth which involved an anaesthetic, always a bit of a risk but especially so for cats with kidney disease, so they ran some bloods prior to this as a precaution, and discovered her urea was lowered to just below the normal limit, but her creatinine had dropped to well within normal limits.

Otherwise she's currently just on normal food, along with Gabapentin (a painkiller) and Arthriaid (a food supplement) for her arthritis, and Cystaid (another food supplement) for her bladder. Also currently on a course of Betamox (antibiotic) after her dental treatment, so all in all quite a challenge getting them all into her.

On that note according to our vet, Metacam is not recommended for cats with kidney disease, as they can't process it properly, and they won't use it in those cases. There's also quite a bit of controversy in the US about the use of Metacam in cats at all, suggesting it could even cause renal problems in otherwise healthy cats, although our vet seemed to think these claims weren't valid.

Graces7

So sorry OP

I had a cat a while ago with blood in her urine. The vet prescribed anti-bs and it cleared up well. Then he sold me a bag of dry food that was supposed to prevent further infection,

She immediately started peeing blood again so I went back to wet food and raw chicken and never any more trouble

I was living deep rural so no blood tests etc and, like you, I was scared I would lose her but she is 13 now.

So please so not lose hope.

Irish Stones

Hi @Zapperzy,
I'm sorry for you kitty and understand that having a diagnosis of CKD on a 5 years old cat can be shocking!
My cat was diagnosed with CKD at the age of 5 years and few months. I noticed that she was drinking a bit too much, so I called the vet to get a bit of info. The vet told me that because it was July it might have been the hot weather, but the unquenchable thirst went on even in a cooler weather, and all the tests confirmed she had an early stage of CKD.
She was put on a renal diet (Royal Canin Renal both wet and dry, later switched to Trovet Renal and Oxalate both wet and dry), on Fortekor (half a pill daily) and sub-Q injections of Ringer's Lactate every other day.
On my side I also added some vitamins B every morning, and probiotics.
I also tried with phosphorus binders, but the taste of them was awful and my cat always refused to eat anything that had such stuff in her food.
I was able to manage her CKD and keep it borderline (or even within the normal range) for 11 years, until my sweet kitty surrendered to a cancer...
If you need any more info, let me know. Best of luck to your kitty.

Jaymacc

Just seeing this now. Wondering how you all got on since? Our cat has CKD since she was 3 and only spotted it when she started to refuse water and required 24 hours of fluids at the vets. She is now 7 and needs an injection of fluids each night to top up the fluids she gets from her wet food.