r/RenalCats

My 5 year old male cat was diagnosed with kidney failure in April. The vet said he had less than 30% kidney function with both combined, and he required a 4 day stay at the vet for continuous IV fluids and medications. His labs were extremely high, but he was sent home with my fiance and I to do Azodyl meds and SUBQ fluids (100ml x3/week). At first, he was managing the routine pretty well and his labs actually went almost all the way back to normal, just a couple points above normal. His vet recommended continuing the routine but changing the fluids to x2/week. We had done so, but he started becoming more distant and more difficult when it came to administering fluids, and also just nauseous/vomiting and drooling all the time. So, I took him in to get labs done again to see what was going on, and his labs went all the way back to where they were when this entire thing started. Our vet said that it was time to have a difficult conversation and see where we wanted to proceed. After a long and thoughtful conversation with my fiance, we decided to schedule to euthanize our little guy tomorrow on Monday. Our vet said that it was okay to DC everything we’ve been doing and to enjoy the last days that we have with him.

My problem is, now that we’ve discontinued everything and have been giving him his normal treats and food, he’s completely back to normal. He’s cuddly, active, eating and drinking! No nausea or drooling. I’m completely torn. I have read that cats have a “last rally” and that it’s better to put them down on a good day rather than a bad day, for both him and us. I guess I’m just wondering if this is normal, or if we should get our hopes up that our cat is back, and cancel the appointment. Any advice ?

I’ve had him since I was 18 and we’ve gone through so many things together, and he’s always been a relatively healthy cat. I’m heartbroken to let him go but I also can’t watch him deteriorate in front of me, I don’t want him to die with pain or stress or suffer.
Please be gentle, my mental health is already in the shitter😓

I think she's done. I wanna write so much but now I'm just crying and in a lack of words...

I regret so much thinking that my girl's weight loss was due to age.

She used to be really round and started shrinking a lil and I thought okay, she's around 12... must be cause she's getting old.

Sad part is that I already lost a cat to ckd in 2017, I should've known...

Only found out about the CKD cause she crashed...

Already really bad at stage 4.

Should've taken her to the vet before... should've have taken better care of her...

Been able to manage her well being for 3 months, but yesterday and today she's just... idk, she doesn't seem there.

We went for blood test yesterday, the results haven't got back yet...

But she's just still, drooling a lil bit... I won't even give her meds today cause I don't want to stress her.

She lost 600g in the last month, since last vet visit.

I don't wanna say goodbye but I don't want her to suffer either.

Why do they have to go through this??

I know that all things must die, and to it... it needs a cause, but why?

Why do they need to suffer? Why do we?

She was hiding under the bed, I put her on top.. she complained a lil... warmed a gel bag and put a blanky around her...

I think that's what I can do for the moment till the vet get back to me...

They don't work on Sundays, but I think she's gonna tell me blood test results...

I keep remembering when she arrived... my heart aches.

Edit: vet said that I should have a good day with her today... talk to her... "release" her... if needed, she'll come tomorrow for the assisted rainbow crossing... Her blood work is just, well... with the pardon of the expression... a true shit.

Should I be concerned?

Vet said 100ML Twice a week, this was my first time administering at home. I accidentally spilled some out before the needle went in and he also moved away and the needle came out and a bunch spilled all over him. I looked up at the bag and it was already 200ml lighter.

He doesn’t have any heart issues. He seems fine he gobbled up his churu reward and is obviously a bit puffy. How worried should I be? There’s no change in breathing or anything I just feel terrible about it

My 16 yr old cat just recently diagnosed with “early stage 2” kidney disease. Vet prescribed kidney diet and 100ml subq fluids 3x week. He hates getting the fluids but we are managing. I’ll be honest some days I can only get about 50ml in. He is about 8.6 lbs. So I’m reading and learning and I see that fluids can be dangerous if he has heart disease. He has a diagnosed heart condition which has been well managed with transdermal atenolol 2x a day. My vet never mentioned any kind of caution about the heart. Should I be giving him fluids?
Also I’m seeing a lot about “crashing” and Pepcid. Can someone tell me what to watch for with crashing? And is Pepcid something I should have on hand? He doesn’t vomit often or regularly, but he is a very picky eater and only nibbles at his kidney diet. Even when I mix it with 2/3 of his old regular food. I started giving him transdermal Mirataz to help with appetite, but I just gave him his subq fluids and now I’m panicking about his heart.

Hi All,

My boy is 17 and was diagnosed with CKD about 5 years ago. His levels have remained pretty steady after switching him to Hills K/D. At his last checkup the vet noticed he was bloated and along with some intermittent episodes of vomiting, she suspects he may have IBD.

Lately the vomiting has gotten more persistent and he often clearly doesn't feel well. He occasionally will have some looser stool but it's usually more on the harder side, consistent with kidney disease.

I started him on the Royal Canin probiotic that has 2.5 billion CFUs of S. boulardii. I thought it was helping but he's started to vomit more frequently again. Are there any other probiotic treatments that you've used to help support IBD in a renal cat?

He also gets quite a number of other supplements, including cobalequin (B12), imuquin, and dasuquin.

HI everyone. I am traveling with my 15 year old cat with late stage 2 CKD. How long can I realistically expect him to hold his urine? Total travel time from point A to B is around 6 hours, as long as there is no delay for the plane. For reference he uses the litter box around every 2-3 hours. This is a one way trip as we are moving full time to Florida. Thanks!

I am very sad I found this sub today and not months before.

In December, my cat started to lose weight. We tracked, and we did blood tests, ultrasound, and urine tests. On ultrasound, I saw her kidneys and the vet told me that would be normal if she would be 15+ years old.

She is a former street cat from another country where my husband worked. When I visited him, she was one of the cats I castrated from those street cats there. Four years later, we took her home, as my husband stopped working there, and she and another cat were not seeming to survive there but fit for a transport by airplane and no danger for my cats as not with any disease.

Fast forward, she lives 3.5 years with me , my husband, and 4 other cats (2 from the same country as she comes).

When she lost weight, the vets seemed not very impressed. One of my cats from here has a chronical disease and almost died twice. My vets reacted totally differently with him.

So I got pronefra and tried renal food with her, but her weight declined. We did another blood test, and the numbers were not super, but ok, no explanation why she is just 2.3kg (from about 3.8kg). She ate, she drank. We sent a urine sample and/or blood sample to the US as in Texas there is the only lab doing this measuring of proteine, and the results were bad.

The vets told me to give her food she likes no matter what, she needs to gain weight. And pronefra. I have another medication but was told to only give her, if she eats much. She gained and lost a few grams and was around 2.3 to 2.6 kg.

She stopped eating 10 days before today. We gave her mirtazapine, pronefra twice a day, and a lots of cheese. On Monday, we took her in, subcutaneous infusion, cerenia, and started twice a day sucralose, bupaq(morphine), and once a day this Med with on at the beginning, she started peeing on cushions and losing control of walking. But she ate Monday evening, Tuesday cheese, and a little creamy treatment.

Thursday, she got an infusion at the vet, and also cerenia. She had Monday and Thursday about 1.85 kg. Saturday we gave last bupaq and no cerenia, but the infusion at the vet. She had 1.75kg after peeing in the box. Her blood results on Monday were bad, my vets are shocked what happened in this few weeks.

I go outside with her for hours, she enjoys it very much and she has more control back on walking without bupaq. She's a bit weak as she didn't really eat since Wednesday.

She drinks a lot, we will start infusion at home today as she Is stressed from the car.

She started to vomit. As I changed litter box with a tissue she goes back on the litter box. She comes to me, she takes very little amount of soup or cream from herself. When we are outside, about 4 to 5 hrs a day, she lies in the sun, wanders around, drinks, ...

Without the vomiting and without being so incredibly thin you would not really see she is sick. But sure, she doesn't play anymore, is a bit more quiet, but far from apathetic.

I was sure my vet will tell me yesterday to put her to sleep but didn't. My husband thinks, we need to put her to sleep tomorrow. I also think this and then she jumps on my bed or eats a little tiny bit and purrs... and I'm not sure anymore.

So what would you do today and tomorrow?

I thought:

- giving her subcutaneous NaCl daily

- giving her soup by the syringe ?

- stay outside with her twice a day

- help her clean herself a bit as she does it bit it seems to be a bit exhausting

I was not ready to put her to sleep yesterday and the vet saw still life quality.

I am afraid of doing it but I will decide if I need to. But she is only about 7 or 8 years old. Every day I thought she won't survive this night and early in the morning she jumps on my face with headbumps and wakes me up. Last Saturday I screamed at her because she jumped on my laptop, everything seemed so not urgent.

She declined in a week.

I know she needs to eat and start immediately or she has no chance and no quality of life. I know this since last weekend. What would you do, force feed to see if she gets a little better? What would be your sign to bring her to the vet the last time? What shall I do or not do on her last days/hours if no miracle is happening (I know i had twice a miracle with my other cat, I am not having a third)...?

Hello everyone, I posted here the other day for advice on starting SubQ and you all have been helpful. We officially did our first 100ml Dose two days ago at the vet. I do notice it made a difference.

My boy is 19 and 6 lbs. The Vet suggested 2x a week. Is anyone else on this regimen? I’ve searched this sub and the majority seems to be doing it daily. Just curious on anyone else’s experience when adjusting to SubQ

I've got a 16 year old cat with some water issues and stage 1 CKD.

In May, she spent 3 weeks with my parents while I was traveling. When I brought her home, she would no longer drink from her water gravity bowl. I think maybe because it was old and plastic and hard to clean. So I set out another bowl to keep filled for her and she was drinking from that. Then one day I picked her up and set her on the bathroom counter for funsies, which turned out to be a mistake since she rediscovered the bathroom sink and likes to drink the water from that over anything else.

In the middle of that argument with her, I took her to the vet for a senior cat check and bloodwork. The vet said she was dehydrated (I think due to our ongoing argument over water source) and that her urine was dilute, so she suspected kidney disease. We left from that appointment planning to talk more after her test results came in and I was told to work on her hydration.

So after that I gave in to her demands for sink water until a fountain I ordered arrived. She seems to like it and will use it, and her usual bowl, but will still demand sink water - often quite loudly and early in the morning too. I was also giving her some wet food with extra water in the evenings and she was eating that, so I felt pretty comfortable with where we were at with her.

Had a call with the vet on Monday and her lab results were all really good, normal values except for one slightly elevated, and the urinalysis so she's got a diagnosis of stage 1 CKD. We discussed switching her diet and adding some HydraCare for hydration. I got that new food on Wednesday and have been slowly mixing it in to her usual kibble. And also supplying some small amounts of wet food in the evening.

She won't touch the HydraCare btw. She seemed good on the food mix for 2 days, and also with using the fountain, but now for the last 2 days she's regressed and keeps waking me very early with cries for sink water and is barely eating her food (though she does eat), though she is also drinking from both her fountain and her water dish. She won't even touch wet food, but she will eat a little Churu or Weruva wet treats. I've scaled back on the food mixing in the meantime to just get her to eat her usual food normally again before we continue with the transition. I'm hoping it's a bit of a phase we can work through and she's just being stubborn on the sink water issue, otherwise I'll check in with the vet next week, but I'm not sure how to push back and get her to just use the supplied water and stop begging for the sink. But if anyone has suggestions on how to wean her off the sink and to her fountain, that would be great!

Edit - I seem to have stimulated some appetite this afternoon by giving her a catnip toy and playing with her for a few minutes.

I would really appreciate honest advice, not just to try to make me feel better.

Our 12 year female cat was diagnosed with stage 1ish (possibly early stage 2) CKD in May of this year. Her creatinine was 173 umol/L. We started her on renal support wet food and she was doing well.

About five days ago, she started throwing up a few times and barely eating. We took her in two nights ago and her creatinine was 1080 umol/L and BUN was >49.98 umol/L. The vets were shocked and said she was in late-stage kidney failure. Back in May, her creatinine was only 175 umol/L.

The plan was to keep her hospitalized with IV fluids and daily blood work. We were hoping she would stabilize and we could take her home with daily SubQ fluids.

24 hours later, they performed blood work again and said the creatinine was still increasing and her potassium kept increasing as well, meaning the kidneys could not filter it out. They were worried about her heart with the potassium increasing. However, she did eat a couple bites and was still peeing. They told me she is suffering and don’t believe she will get better. We decided about 36 hours into her hospitalization to put her to sleep.

BACKSTORY:

This all started last Friday, about a week ago. My sister brought over two 8 month old cats for about 5 hours for a ”play date”. My cat has met these two cats twice before. They would stress her out whenever they’d get too close and she would hiss at them. She spent most of those five hours on her cat tree. After they left, she ate a late dinner of wet food around 11 pm. Sometime in the early morning, she threw up all the food. Every since throwing up, she kept losing her appetite more and more until her eventual hospitalization.

Could this five hour visit have been the trigger for her kidneys to fail? Maybe if she didn’t drink that day from stress due to the kittens? I just don’t get how this happened and the vets have no idea. Her blood work and urinalysis did not show any signs of infection.

Any advice is appreciated.

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Looking for advice! I have two cats both turn 17 this summer and im pretty sure the female has kidney disease and will be taking her to the vet on monday. She has seizures that can sometimes be brought on by stress so we keep vet visits to a minimum. She has bad teeth and she was seen about a year ago for her teeth but was not able to have treatment because of the seizures. She is not medicated for the seizures because she only has 1-2 a year. She started refusing dry food so we started feeding more wet food. She does eat too quickly and will throw up about 2-3 times a week. She started loosing weight so I thought it was related to the refusal to eat dry kibble, teeth issues and/or the random puking. She also hides under the bed after eating which now i think is related. We went on a three day trip and my sister forgot to refill their waters and one of the water bowls is the dogs bowl so its huge. The big water bowl and one of the small ones were empty (the water bowl beside their food was still half full because they dont like that one) and I immediately realized its her drinking all the water. Her appetite is normal and i have not seen her drinking more water than normal but i did notice more pee in the litter box over the past month. I am so upset I didnt catch this sooner. Im worried about her treatment options and if its even worth it with how old she is and how easily she gets stressed. She made it this long with her seizures and im terrified.

Hi, my cat has been diagnosed with ckd and the vet gave azovast but how do I give it? I heard that you shouldn't open it up. Im so stressed cuz i spent ALOT of money on it only for my baby cuz it is not available in my country and amazon also doesn't ship it directly to my country and now i dont even know how to give and only now i came to know that there is a paste of it but there's literally no way i can get it shipped to my country or even if i do it would take atleast a month or so(thats what i have been told) :(( please help me out

Hello everyone. It is with a heavy heart that I write this post. My cat (11) was diagnosed with kidney failure a week ago (I don't know which stage, but an advanced one). He stopped eating and started vomiting, that's when I took him to the vet. He got medication and they did a lab test. His creatinine (6,9 mg/dl) and urea (246 mg/dl) were really high. Also his liver was showing some signs of impairment (GOT: 87 u/L, GPT: 261 u/L). They also told us that because of those high levels he probably has a stomach ulcer. They recommended hospitalization with fluids and medication. He did 36 hours in total. He seems better but he's still very skinny. On top of that, I don't know if it's the renal failure or the stress (it's very traumatic for him), but sometimes after going to the vet he shows signs of neurological impairment, his pupils get big, he stops controlling his nails, starts walking backwards and just gets very erratic. Today we went to the vet for the second lab test. His results got a little better (urea: 174, creatinine: 6), but not enough, and some things that were okay last time now got worse. He has anemia, which he didn't have before. They told us that he needs a second round of fluids and the hormone that his kidney is not producing, which is causing the anemia. But they also said that his chances were slim and I had to decide if I wanted to continue with the treatment. At first I said yes, of course. But after thinking about it, even if everything works out, what kind of life will he have afterwards? Is it possible for him to be okay again? He will go through more traumatizing and painful things for what, a couple of week more? Or is it possible for him to live longer? I don't know. I just know that he's my baby and I love him with all my heart and I don't want to cause him unjustified suffering. I would really appreciate some advice, if you know something about this disease, if you lived something similar, please let me know. I don't know what to do. My life is ending. He is the sweetest boy and doesn't deserve any of this.

Update: I added his test results, the higher level ones are the labs before the treatment. They are in spanish.

Before

After

My baby

My 15 year old who had stage 3 just got new blood test results and they have rapidly declined in 3 weeks time. Her BUN went from 19 to 30 and her creatinine went from 330 to 444. She is on mirataz. Blood test is also showing inflammation. She eats drinks and behaves normally.. still greets at the door and follows me everywhere.

The vet said she doesn’t have long. She told me about symptoms to watch for. I’ve decided we would do at home euthanasia when the time comes. I just don’t know when that is realistically going to be based on these values and the quick progression? She has lost a tiny amount of weight in the last two weeks.

I know we all struggle with this decision. I don’t want her to be uncomfortable but I also want to enjoy life while she is comfortable and don’t want to euthanize her prematurely — and of course I also don’t want to let her go. Pain and discomfort are a flat out no for me.

A very upset cat mom 🐈‍⬛

I think my cat may have CKD, he just turned 16. His only real symptom, based on what I can tell, is vomiting about 1-2x a week, which is mainly just liquid, and weight loss. Water consumption seems to have decreased in recent weeks, but that may be due to me rotating his wet food and adding more water. He still pees at a normal frequency (although at times he used to pee a LOT, just in the past year or two). Solid waste, his coat, energy, all seem kinda fine for his age, all kinda fluctuate. He definitely eats less dry food, but I think that's b/c it's the brand I got. He's always been picky about dry food.

As a side note, the pattern I've noticed is he has only ever vomited when I feed him Delectables bisques, accidentally neglected to feed him wet food for a day, or has a full cat box. I have heard an empty stomach, bad cat box, etc can also cause liquid vomiting. I've been sure to avoid the bisque, feed him wet food 1-2x daily, and keep his box clean. He vomited mainly liquid this morning, and I realize his boxes weren't too clean (not terribly saturated either, but definitely "dirty"). But I am still thinking it is CKD.

Anyway, I'm not quite ready to pay a vet $300-500 to tell me he has CKD. I'd rather kind of test things out myself first. I read hybrid diets of renal food and non-renal food rotated/combined can be fine for both CKD cats and healthy cats, but it depends on the ratio, how it's mixed in, etc. And I'm not sure I wanna go that route yet either.

I have found some non-renal wet food that has no phosphorus (and no added sodium for some) and has added potassium, fairly high on the ingredient list. However, they still seem high in protein for the size. These are Kindfull brand pates and Fancy Feast Layered Delights. He loves the Fancy Feast (which has no added sodium) and I add water when I serve it to him. I can't quite remember how much he likes Kindfull (it's been out of rotation for a couple weeks maybe?), but he eats at least some of it when I give it to him.

My question is, is "hybrid" food like this, which isn't designed for renal cats, but just happens to have some added benefits for renal cats, but also still has negatives like high protein a good starter as a test for a pseudo-therapeutic diet? Are there other brands/foods out there like this? I have an inkling that if he is officially diagnosed w/ CKD, he will not like renal diet foods, so I'm trying to find a middle ground of something I know he likes. Thank you!