Kidney Disease in Cats - What is it & How Do I Know?
My cat is getting on a bit now.
He has had a really healthy good life but of late he has started to drink a lot more water.
He seemed under the weather with no energy, started to loose his appetite and then stated being sick.
So as his loving and caring owner, somebody he has trusted and devoted his time to me, I decided that I needed to take him to the vets and get him checked out.
I just knew he wasn't himself.
Although I was worried because he was getting on a little now, he had reached the age of 14 which I understand is getting quite old for a cat, I didn't want to think that his time was short.
The vet was great, gave him a good health check,listening to his heart, taking his temperature and said we need to run some blood tests.
He said, taking into consideration of the cat's age, it was possible that he had a problem with his kidneys, maybe kidney disease or failure.
Of course, I was upset, I didn't really know what that meant to the cat or me, but let the vet take the blood to get tested.
A couple of days later, we went back to the vet for the results and yes, the vet was right, my cat had the start of kidney failure.
What is kidney failure I asked? What can be done to make my cat better? Is he going to be ok? What's the future? So the vet explained to me what kidney failure was.
It is quite common he said in older cats, their kidney's just seem to wear and don't work as well.
The kidneys function is to remove waste products from the blood and they excrete this through their urine.
In many cats when suffering from kidney failure, produce more urine however the kidneys have not removed the waste products from the blood and eliminated from the cats system.
So what can be done to my cat to treat him for this.
The first thing is that damaged non kidney's whether through disease or just old age, will never return to normal but they usually will have enough functional kidney tissue to make it worthwhile treating, but nobody will know for how long but can be several years.
First the vet will need to flush out the kidneys by giving large quantities of intravenous fluids which should help stimulate the kidney cells to start functioning again.
Then I needed to put him on a special low protein diet.
The low protein diet seem to permit the kidneys to work less and therefore this helps them last for longer.
Also low protein diets assist in keeping the phosphate level low and the build up of acid which will make the cat feel better.
It may be that he will also need a potassium supplement if the amount of potassium he is losing in his urine is excessive.
Depending on how your cat reacts to the treatment, there may be other complications and drugs required and may also need extra fluids given under the skin at home, to ensure the kidneys are kept flush.
With all this information and guidance, we went home, started the special diet and pills and now by cat is doing well.
He has stopped being lethargic, started eating again and enjoying his food and not being sick and back to his good old self.
I am keeping a watchful eye on him.
Now all I can do is enjoy our time together.
He has had a really healthy good life but of late he has started to drink a lot more water.
He seemed under the weather with no energy, started to loose his appetite and then stated being sick.
So as his loving and caring owner, somebody he has trusted and devoted his time to me, I decided that I needed to take him to the vets and get him checked out.
I just knew he wasn't himself.
Although I was worried because he was getting on a little now, he had reached the age of 14 which I understand is getting quite old for a cat, I didn't want to think that his time was short.
The vet was great, gave him a good health check,listening to his heart, taking his temperature and said we need to run some blood tests.
He said, taking into consideration of the cat's age, it was possible that he had a problem with his kidneys, maybe kidney disease or failure.
Of course, I was upset, I didn't really know what that meant to the cat or me, but let the vet take the blood to get tested.
A couple of days later, we went back to the vet for the results and yes, the vet was right, my cat had the start of kidney failure.
What is kidney failure I asked? What can be done to make my cat better? Is he going to be ok? What's the future? So the vet explained to me what kidney failure was.
It is quite common he said in older cats, their kidney's just seem to wear and don't work as well.
The kidneys function is to remove waste products from the blood and they excrete this through their urine.
In many cats when suffering from kidney failure, produce more urine however the kidneys have not removed the waste products from the blood and eliminated from the cats system.
So what can be done to my cat to treat him for this.
The first thing is that damaged non kidney's whether through disease or just old age, will never return to normal but they usually will have enough functional kidney tissue to make it worthwhile treating, but nobody will know for how long but can be several years.
First the vet will need to flush out the kidneys by giving large quantities of intravenous fluids which should help stimulate the kidney cells to start functioning again.
Then I needed to put him on a special low protein diet.
The low protein diet seem to permit the kidneys to work less and therefore this helps them last for longer.
Also low protein diets assist in keeping the phosphate level low and the build up of acid which will make the cat feel better.
It may be that he will also need a potassium supplement if the amount of potassium he is losing in his urine is excessive.
Depending on how your cat reacts to the treatment, there may be other complications and drugs required and may also need extra fluids given under the skin at home, to ensure the kidneys are kept flush.
With all this information and guidance, we went home, started the special diet and pills and now by cat is doing well.
He has stopped being lethargic, started eating again and enjoying his food and not being sick and back to his good old self.
I am keeping a watchful eye on him.
Now all I can do is enjoy our time together.
