Anyone have experience with cat kidney problems?

[love1999]

Our kitty has been determined to have impaired kidney function based on his blood tests.  Anyone been through this?  If so, how long did your cat live with the kidney issues?  Vet wants us to switch to Hill's K/D food (we had been feeding California Naturals).  If he doesn't tolerate it (we have not had good experience with Science Diet in the past) are there any other high quality foods that are OK for cats with kidney issues?  He is our kid and I want to do whatever I can to keep him happy and healthy for as long as possible.

[mmp]

Sorry to hear this. My experience is with dogs. Do yourself and cat a favor------research doing a home cooked diet. It truly saved my dog's life. Had I stuck with Hill' k/d, I think he would be gone by now.

Both my bet and kidney specialist can't believe the improvement in my dog.

[katietornado]

Yeah seriously...do not feed your cat Hill's KD. Look at the freaking ingredients: www.hillspet.com/products/pd-feline-kd-feline-renal-health-dry.html There's literally not even any meat in there.

Our one cat has a urinary condition that flares up due to environmental factors (food, stress, etc). We started feeding him raw, and that has made all the difference in the world. Not a single flareup since we started raw last year, and he is healthier than ever. He was having flareups every month or so, requiring heavy sedation and narcotics to relieve the pain. No more.

We feed this stuff: www.primalpetfoods.com/product/detail/c/7/id/10

[msmerymac]

Yes, my cat was diagnosed with Stage III kidney failure in November 2011 and lived about a year and a half. I've known cats who live 6+ year after diagnosis, though. Unfortunately, there's just no telling when/if they will crash or how it will progress.

The issue with kidney cats is that you have to treat the symptoms caused by the kidney problems. My Samson had hypertension, hypercalcemia, and stomach issues. Is your cat on any medications right now? They often have to weigh the benefit of the medication with the damage they can do to the kidneys. For that reason, my vet also discontinued vaccinations. Many kidney cats don't eat well, due to indigestion/a high amount of acid in their stomach, so if your kitty doesn't eat the K/D and is more comfortable with a high quality diet, continue to feed it! There is also a lot of debate about whether the low protein diet is effective, or if you should go with grain free/raw/high quality food. Unfortunately, for a while, the only thing Samson would reliably eat was Fancy Feast (aka kitty crack). You may have to switch food at some point or experiment. We also ended up having to syringe feed him twice a day in order to maintain his weight. It really wasn't that big of a deal - we just mixed pate food with a little water, put it in a 20ml syringe, and gave him the food a little at a time, letting him swallow completely. I read that many kidney cats actually waste away and end up losing so much weight they can't recover their health, so it was really important to me to make sure Sam kept up his weight - plus not eating can lead to fatty liver disease (which I dealt with in another cat). Eventually, we also had to give him subcutaneous fluids (sticking a needle attached to an IV bag into his back to hydrate him). At first it was every 3 days, then every day for the last few months.

I highly recommend this site to tell you everything you could ever want to know about feline chronic renal failure: www.felinecrf.org/

Good luck to you guys! Please send me a message if you have any questions.

[klingklang77]

Yes, I had a cat with kidney failure. He lived a few years comfortably. We switched the food to science diet r/d (i think-- it was 15 years ago) and gave him fluids 2-3 times a week at home. Fluids are an IV that we did -- I'm not sure if this is something you can do at home as my sister was a vet tech so she was able to do this at home.

If you do decide to do your own cat food, make sure you add Taurine. We gave the food the vet suggested bc it was a long time ago before organic, etc.