Chronic Feline Kidney Diease - What to Expect?

[TequilaMockingbird]

In July 2016 I took my now 17 year old female Manx cat to the vet because of weight loss and severe arthritis. They did some blood work and found that she had kidney disease. She’s now on a special diet but she is still losing weight and drinks water like crazy.

For any of you with experience, what should I expect over the next 1-2 years as far as outward symptoms and behavior? I’m thinking that 12-18 months is the most she probably has left. I’m giving her Adequan shots (vet prescribed) for the arthritis so that has improved some. But she is still showing some weight loss, though you can’t feel protruding bones or anything when you put your hands on her. But she doesn’t have much fat left and all her muscle is gone so it’s only a matter of time until she becomes boney. It’s shocking how light she feels when I pick her up.

Is she eventually going to end up a bag of bones? What does advanced kidney disease look like?

I’m asking because I’m trying to figure out when I should call it a day for her and euthanize. I don’t want to wait until she is a walking skeleton. I want to give her a good life while it’s still worth living but not past that.

Bonus pictures of the cat in question:
2008 Moving Day
2008 Belly
Kitten hug in 2015

[csaper58]

I think Rackonteur has a cat with this.

www.chronofhorse.com/forum/member.php?124964-Rackoneur

So sorry your beautiful kitty is going thru this, I think part of the issue is the renal diet is less appetizing and they eat less, so adding a little flavor can help.

Then feed more often, and small meals.

Gerber chicken baby food plus water to make a gravy, and the water from UNSALTED canned tuna have been reco’ed.

Good Luck!!!

[Rain]

I would not write her off just yet! My kitty was diagnosed with CKD at age 13 and she’s now 18+. I’ve adjusted her food a couple times over the years.

What sort of special diet do you have her on? I’m sure some people will disagree, but I’m not convinced the vet prescribed diets are necessarily the best. Will your cat willingly eat it? (mine would not, which is one of the reasons why I gave up on prescription foods)

Mine gets a high fat, low protein, low phosphorous wet food. Originally I had her on the ProPlan “urinary tract” special diet wet food, but she lost weight on it.

[csaper58]

Agree with Rain the renal diet is only works if they eat it, and they must eat to live.

Also, drinking more = peeing more so you might add another litter box.

[keh]

http://www.felinecrf.org

This is an excellent site with tons of useful information.

I just euthanized my cat this week…she had a multitude of problems; diabetes, kidney failure & I suspect pancreatitis did her in.

Yes, she was a walking skeleton when she passed. Less than 5 pounds. But she still got around well, still climbed to her perch & (I hope) still had a quality of life. She purred & loved to be scrstched. I managed her pain & ended her pain when she stopped eating…she had done this a couple of times & it was obvious she wasn’t going to rally again.

I’m not going to lie, she wasn’t pretty to look at…but she was loved & gave love right til the end. You will know when it’s time. Go for quality…looks are superficial.

[Muffin]

Keh, I’m sorry about your kitty. I’ll hug mine extra tight tonight in honor of her.

[Simkie]

The CRF site is an excellent one, but do stay away from their message board. LOTS of people taking their kitties way too far :no:

My kitty Juliet was diagnosed with CRF at tenish and lived until 17. She was largely stable on a high quality wet food, with occasional sub q fluids at times of stress, until the last year or so of her life. That last year was when she lost the most function, and quickly. She was on daily fluids, which she tolerated well, as well as a host of medications to manage her appetite and nausea. We were discussing darbepoetin for her anemia and keeping an eye on her red count.

When we had a day of unmanaged nausea, I made the call to have her euthanised at home a few days later. She did bounce back and we regained control the next day, but as her person I felt the responsibility to let her go when she was feeling good since I knew the trajectory. I had an excellent, honest relationship with my vet and we both felt that quality of life was really well maintained.

It is REALLY easy to lose site of the tiny little incremental losses in function and quality of life, so I highly recommend keeping a notebook or videoing your kitty every now and then so you can look back and just check in to current state.

[Rackonteur]

[QUOTE=csaper58;8999324]
I think Rackonteur has a cat with this.

www.chronofhorse.com/forum/member.php?124964-Rackoneur

So sorry your beautiful kitty is going thru this, I think part of the issue is the renal diet is less appetizing and they eat less, so adding a little flavor can help.

Then feed more often, and small meals.

Gerber chicken baby food plus water to make a gravy, and the water from UNSALTED canned tuna have been reco’ed.

Good Luck!!![/QUOTE]

Yes, you’re right, csaper.

My 18yo turned out to have hyperthyroidism as well as kidney disease. She is on methimazole for thyroid, as well as prescription kidney food. She started putting on good weight, and her fur is in better shape too. She is now going on 19 and going strong!

Jingles to you and your Manx, TequilaMockingbird! I love Manxes and have always wanted to meet one in purrson!

[TequilaMockingbird]

She’s getting Royal Canin Urinary S/O. I also have a male cat with struvite crystals so even though I have 4 cats, all of them eat the S/O. It’s easier that way and is safe for my healthy cats per my vet.

She’s good about always eating it but she never eats much at one sitting. They’re all fed 4 times a day. She vomits maybe once or twice a month.

Before the kidney disease and struvite diagnosis, I was feeding them Blue Buffalo Wilderness. My vet told me to stop using it as the high protein could make struvite crystals worse.

Plus my male cat has glaucoma in one eye so I have to put in special drops. Luckily he is the easiest cat in the world to give medication to.

[Rackonteur]

It’s convenient when they all eat the same food, but please keep an eye on your other kitties’ weight. My vet said it would be fine to feed both of mine kidney-care prescription dry food (they eat different canned foods) and my 12yo started gaining a LOT! So I quit feeding that dry food and put her back on regular dry food, and occasionally I mix in a little of the kidney-care dry, but my 18yo almost never nibbles on dry food anymore. Kidney-care dry food has a LOT more calories than regular dry food! Sometimes different flavors of kidney-care dry food have varying calorie/fat content, but they’re all a lot more fattening than regular dry food.

[Callista17]

Very sorry op

[shiloh]

I’m so sorry to hear about your kitty. It’s hard to watch them go thru that.

Is she on fluid therapy? Will she eat anything else? Have you had her checked for hyperthyroid? When my cats got that ill from this disease I fed them whatever they would eat. Both my vet and I did not care what they ate so long as they ate.

I have had several cats that got this disease and I was able to get all of them to live much longer than had been projected by my vets. I was very vigilant about their well-being. I hope you can do that with your kitteh. Good luck.

If you do get told kitty needs to be on fluid therapy I can direct you to places to find needles for relatively cheap and how to get fluids fairly cheaply as well. You can PM me.

Give kitty a kiss for me.

[vxf111]

I currently have 2 CRF cats, both in very early stages according to bloodwork. One is doing super (and he’s previously had EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN) the other is not.

You may have to experiment with diets to get them to eat it. I’ve had amazingly better luck with Hi-Tor Neo wetfood than ANY of the prescription diets-- and Hi-Tor is cheaper. It’s a soft texture, stinky, and the cats just seems far more interested in it. You can get it at chewy.com. If you want to try just a can or two before committing to a case, I am happy to mail you a couple cans at cost if you pay for it. Just PM me.

[vxf111]

I also lost a cat to kidney failure many years ago. She had several comorbidities. I wish I had gotten her on a kidney diet sooner, I think it would have made a difference. I do encourage you to look into them, even if it means separating the cats for feeding. At the time I also had a different cat who had to eat urinary formula food, so I separated the cats at feeding time.

[2tempe]

I lost a cat to renal failure about 4 months ago. She was also hyperthyroid; put her on the meds in July and they helped that situation, but she was also at the point where she needed sub-q fluids in early August. Vet tried to do it, and it was a sight from a horror movie - my girl did not find the idea amusing: eek:. She was on kidney diet but her kidney #'s deteriorated very quickly by early Sept. She stopped eating 3 days later, and we made the call to let her go.

We did notice over the last maybe 4 weeks that she was less active, less interactive with her people, and seemed to be getting weaker particularly in the last week.

I would recommend repeating bloodwork periodically mostly so you know where you and she stand. If it was done in July, I’d have some run soon. Depending on the results, then again in maybe 6 months.

It truly sucks when they get older, you have my sympathy.

[Rain]

[QUOTE=vxf111;9000752]
You may have to experiment with diets to get them to eat it. I’ve had amazingly better luck with Hi-Tor Neo wetfood than ANY of the prescription diets-- and Hi-Tor is cheaper. It’s a soft texture, stinky, and the cats just seems far more interested in it. You can get it at chewy.com. [/QUOTE]

I second this. My CKD kitty seems to like the Hi Tor Neo as well. It’s relatively low in phosphorous and carbs. I also have her on a dietary supplement (Epakitin).

[CindyCRNA]

My 21 year old kitty had CRF. We fed her what she would eat which was Fancy Feast, especially beef feast. Pooter would not touch prescription food. OP, do you have your kitties labs? What is the creatinine? Pooter was on 1/10th of a cc of Adequan every 4 days for arthritis which is nice for renal cats. We tried Procrit at the end as her hemoglobin was low but it was a little too late.

[Peggy]

I have a cat with this. She was diagnosed a number of years ago, at least five. She had previously (2005) been treated with radioactive iodine for hyperthyroidism.

She’s not on any meds for the kidneys specifically but does get amlodipine for (related?) high blood pressure. She gets the dry kidney food, but would not eat either brand of wet food that I was offered, at least not all that well. Then she had an episode 4-5 years ago that turned out to be arthritis related. I decided that the low protein in the kidney diet, coupled with the fact that she didn’t eat much of it, had compromised her muscles to the point that they weren’t holding the bones well enough to support them and this was somehow exacerbating the arthritis (OK, I teach chemistry, not anatomy). So I started feeding her whatever wet food she would eat that seemed reasonable. At one point it was Fancy Feast original. That, along with adding Trixsyn, seemed to help.

So we went along like this for a few years, checking her and doing blood work annually, and there weren’t too many changes.

She is now 20 and has declined in the last few months. She has lost weight and the blood pressure is higher, but still WNL. She seems to have a good quality of life, though. Had a vet appointment today and while checking her teeth, the vet noted some sort of growth. likely a squamous cell carcinoma. No way to be sure without biopsy and that would be awfully hard on her and not change the course of events. The point of this being that it’s probably not going to be the kidney issues that are her undoing.