Ms A took Jon Jon to the vet, who confirmed that JJ has kidney problems. The vet prescribed Hills Prescriptive Diet k/d which may help to prolong JJ's life by a year. :-(
I have no experience with cat's kidney problems....is this how it is? Is there anything else JJ can eat?
Ever since I started giving her Solid Gold, JJ has been running to me with enthusiasm everytime she sees me, but now it looks like I can't give her her current favourite food.
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Poor thing.
See if you can find good information here.
http://www.felinecrf.com/
I find it chokeful with information from cat owners who had experienced CRF firsthand.
Does JJ has acute or chronic kidney failure? My 17 year old queen is suffering from Chronic Kidney Failure (CRF) since October and she is slowly progressing well.
Some cats can recover from acute kidney failure. CRF cats can have long quality life when proper diet is given. Their kidney can function even at low condition say 20%.
Cats with kidney failure needs to go on a low protein diet. These are the alternative wet food you can give JJ. Merrick's Grammie Pot, Natural Balance Venison & Pea, Iams Turkey & Gilbets and Friskies's Ocean fish. For dry kibblets, you can choose sci diet Senior, Natural Balance Venison Formula, Royal Canin Renal formula, Hill's KD. Royal is a prescription diet available in vet. You can mix them with his favourite food.
Ideally, home cooked food is best because it is less work for the cat's kidneys. What I do my queen is feed her 5 days of home cooked food and 2 days of can food. This is to balance some nutritions. My home cooked food recipe is a mixture of steam chicken, salmon, cod fish and other fresh fish fillet like snapper. If JJ does not need to be force feed, you can try this method. Add Vitamin B complex and cod liver oil (1 capsule) to the food. If he needs to be force feed, boil some porridge and blend the meat together. Add the supplements. Very important cos cats in this condition will lost their muscle, fats and bone density easily. Home cooked food does not have these in the diet. If JJ is on commercial food, you don;t have to give him the supplements because it is already provided.If JJ walks wobbly with his hind legs, ask your vet for potassium chloride because of loss of potassium which is common in this condition.
You can also boil parsley and drained the water for JJ to drink. This is to clear the toxin from his kidneys. If his diet is commercial dry & wet food, try to give him 2 times monthly.
It is not the end for cats with kidney problem. I am already overloaded with information by my research on this condition. There are so many pro & cons but I have found a suitable way to nurse my queen.
There was a community tom cat who had both FIV and CRF. He lived for 2 years before he passed away last month. And there are some who live for as long as 5 years.
Diet is important. Watch out for dehyration. Wet food diet is ideal as it is water based and the kidney works less to clear the toxin in them.
My queen condition was quite bad and I thought I have lost her. There are so many symptoms that can be very worrying. I learnt how to deal with them. Slowly, these symptoms are improving.
It is ok to give them what they crave for at times.
Above all, need patience and commitment with plenty of love and encouragement. Good luck!
Dear kxbc and moglee, thanks for sharing the info. I'll check out the link.
Moglee, I appreciate your trouble of typing out the whole chunk of info! So the gist seems to be a low protein diet? No wonder, as I did notice that the canned Hills Prescriptive Diet has a very low percentage of protein, like around 5% (which I thought was too low for a normal cat).
I'm not sure if JJ has acute or chronic kidney failure...will have to check with my neighbour Ms A (after I translate the medical terms into Chinese!). It's good to know that home-cooked food is suitable, as it will be easy to steam some chicken or fish for JJ, but it means I'll have to prepare 2 portions each time for both JJ and his pal, Sugar as well. ;)
Thanks, again.
Remember to add Vit B Complex, cod liver oil (1 capsule), alternate with salmon oil to your home cooked food. Home cooked food nutrients is not enough for cats. You can buy Vetzyme Vit B conditioning tablets. Don;t buy it mixed with Zinc and cranberry cos its not suitable and don't buy multivitamins. Vit A, D and E can worsen the condition. You can buy cod liver oil in capsule, not in emulsion from pharmacy. Salmon oil is available in pet shop. Add more chicken meat to the diet, few pcs of other fish meat.
JJ's appearance may deterioate fast. She will look very sluggish, skinny,wobbly and weak.
There is some things to watch out for. Since JJ is not a home cat, I think you can't monitor her behaviour. Start from the diet and hopefully, she can have the strength to pull through more years. Give a lot of sayang sayang to her.
You may get confuse with what is found in the internet. Two persons can say different things. You need to understand JJ's condition before you decide any approach.
Oh dear.
I'm very sorry to hear about this. Sorry also that I haven't got any experience with this condition so can't be of much help.
*hugs* to you, Ms A and JJ.
Moglee, thanks again for the details and for saving me the trouble of ploughing through the mass of information on the net.
I think JJ would probably be given Hills Prescriptive diet mostly, but I'll try to supplement her diet with some home-cooked snack in between her main meals (morning and night). She's looking quite slim already. She is generally quite boh chap, but lately seems to be more appreciative when we stroke her.
Catdonna, thanks for the hugs. Hope all's well on your home front. :)
Auntie P,
Our Bam Bam is an acute kidney failure cat - our experience with him is described here. Basically, what Moglee said seems to hold true. It is very important to find out if JJ is acute or chronic before proceeding.
Also, please note k/d smells awful and may turn JJ's appetite off. You may need to look around for an alternative. Bams picked out k/d even when we gave him a mixture fo ti and other stuff. With our vet's support (who believed it best that the food given is what the renal failrue cat will eat), we tried a few things before settling on pure Natural Balance for him. Since then, his blood test results show his condition holding steady where before it was sliding.
Our pet-stuff supplier also told us of a client whose renal failure cat refused k/d outright and had trouble accepting other foods. This lady's winning combo, after endless experiments, was Avoderm dry and Natural Balance venison and pea wet food. The cat made a miraculous recovery and stumped the vet who gave it a death sentence after it refused k/d. If you like, I can provide my supplier's contact and you can find out the details from her.
Thanks, calsifer. I'll certainly go read about Bam Bam.
I'm not sure how to ask my neighbour whether it's acute or chronic as she's from the mandarin-speaking school and communication can sometimes be a problem. Controlling JJ's diet is also a major issue as she can be fed little snacks several times a day by cat-friendly residents who pass by.
My neighbour is feeding JJ k/d morning and night but I'm not sure how JJ is taking it, esp when she can get snacks (mostly the Friskies type of junk food) from passing residents. I'm hoping that by feeding JJ and Sugar a small snack in between their main meals, hopefully, both will decline or eat less of the junk food given by others.
BTW, aren't Avoderm and Natural Balance (dry) quite high in protein content - are they still suitable for renal patients?
Hi Auntie P,
It seems the conventional thought is that renal failure cats should have less protein.
NB and Avoderm's protein levels are quite within normal standards, but a bit high for renal failure cats.
With Bams'situation, we are convinced that it may not be the main factor we should be worrying about for renal failure cats. Also, when we talked to the vet, he also felt that protein is not the main concern. It may be the other stuff: levels of potassium, sodium, and phosphorus. Having said that, if you compare k/d's levels of these things with NB and Avoderm, Avoderm 's levels of these things seem to be better for renal failure cats than NB.
Before we went on NB, we were giving Bams Pinnacle, which is the premium version of Avoderm. His test results actually dipped. Before Pinnacle, he was on pure k/d (before his kidneys went out, we were on Avoderm - not to say Avoderm is bad, Bams was 8 when his kidneys failed and we've been on Science Diet, yes, the makers of k/d, for almost all his life. Avoderm was a recent change, only a month or two, and kidney problems are long-term culmulative).
We couldn't get him to eat his k/d at all, and since his results dipped on Pinnacle, we looked around for another possibility. And so we decided to go on NB. His results got better, to his k/d days levels and have been holding steady ever since.
So ultimately, we think for renal failure cats, there are 2 important things: follow the medicine dosage meticulously (Bams' on half a fortekor pill nightly, for life), and ensure that cat gets good nutrition. Our vet also say that for renal failure cats, the impact of diet, as in having to stick to special formulas, is only 10%. We don't like k/d because it is shameful that a special diet food is made of by-product and fillers. Same for all Science Diet and Waltham (the only other special diet formula available in Singapore). The fact that Bams is doing good on NB (and that other cat on the Avoderm and NB cocktail), which does not have by-products or fillers, despite it being a normal formula, does say something about it too.
Sorry for the long post. Hope you find helpful info here!
All our decisions on food for Bams are based on info found on a website someone already mentioned: http://www.felinecrf.org/
Thanks so much, calsifer. I get a better picture now.
I was at the pet store yesterday, reading the food package labels, and I realise most do not list down most of the mineral content,e.g. sodium. The store asst recommended an organic brand (Advanced or something), but I didn't buy it as it was made from meat by-products and had corn/rice fillers as the 2nd main ingredient. I bought some NB venison & pea canned food, and hopefully, JJ will take to it, as he won't eat k/d wet food now...very fussy cat!
Yup, actually ALL Science Diet formulas, special or normal, are filled with by-products and corn fillers too.
Avoderm is at least by-products free and it is in the same price range as Science Diet. Maybe you'd like to consider switching your cats over?
Thanks for the recommendation, Calsifer. Actually, I've never bought Hill's SD previously. Besides the usual Acana (cheaper) for community cats, I usually buy Solid Gold or Royal Canine as treats or to boost their health/appetite. K/D was recommended by the vet to my neighbour for Jon Jon (who is now getting tired of it!). I'm trying the Hill's Light on Sugar as it has the least percentage of fat.
Avoderm and NB...if I remember correctly, there was something in the ingredient list which I didn't like. I think NB has mostly by-products.
Aunty P,
I believe you must have mistaken NB, Natural Balance for something else, probably Nature's Balance, which is a totally separate and different brand, and MUCH inferior to Natural Balance. Most people I talk to make the same mistake. Nature's Balance, like Science Diet , has mostly by-products and fillers.
NB - Natural Balance does NOT have by-products nor fillers. That is the reason we use it, plus the fact that it is on PETA's cruelty-free pet food list. Neither does Avoderm has by-products. We would not have considered neither brand if they were by-products filled.
Natural Balance is recommended by those crf ref sites as one of the viable alternatives for k/d precisely because it is a good quality food that does not have by-products or fillers.
Hope this clarifies.
Addendum: The proof is in the ingredients list. Compare Arcana, Royal Canin, Nature's Balance, Science Diet. They will look similar - corn gluten, corn fillers, by-products in the 1st five ingredients.
Natural Balance, and Avoderm does not. They compare with Innova, Eagle Pack, and Merrick (which will launch dry food formulas only in 2007) - all good quality brands.In fact, if you're feeding Arcana/Royal Canin/Science diet, I'll say that Avoderm would be a step up. Similar price, but by-product free. I can say this because we feed our homeless cats the same kibble as our home cats - we've tried Royal Canin, and were on Science Diet for the longest time before that, did not try Arcana as there was something in the ingredients we didn't like - so we can say what we say because we've observed the results first-hand.
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