Raw diet for cat with Chronic Kidney Disease?

[RachelFromTheBlackLagoon]

I have a 7 year old indoor cat who's being treated for trauma-induced CKD. He's maintaining very well and you'd never know he was "ill". His last bloodwork was done a little over a week ago and his kidney values were almost normal again. My vet gave us the OK to decrease his subQ fluids from 7 days a week to 3 days a week (YAY!). The vet also prescribed him Hill's k/d several weeks ago, which he likes and eats, but there's got to be a healthier diet for him than that garbage that'll still maintain good kidney function. I can't find a whole lot of info on raw diets for kidney cats. Could anybody point me in the right direction? I'm switching all of the other cats and dogs to prey model raw.

 

[2cool4you]

The problem with Raw diets for cats is that they are high in protein and phosphorus which is hard on the kidneys. My cat was diagnosed with it in December and he was 16. He recently died but not because of his kidneys, he got asthma that was untreatable. If your cat will eat the KD that's awesome because mine never did and I had to order a different food, HI-Tor Neo canned food for him. May I also recommend that you get Azodyl. My cat's kidneys were really bad by the time he was diagnosed but the Azodyl really helped and he bounced back. You can order it on Amazon, just make sure you choose a shipper that uses a cold pack because you have to keep it refrigerated. It's a probiotic that's designed to help digest proteins and phosphorus and other toxins and make it pass through the bowels and not the kidneys.

I'd stay on the vet recommended if possible and off the raw diets.
A good resource is http://www.felinecrf.com/

good luck

 

[Katy]

Week before last one of my house cats was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. I've had this with a couple of cats in the past, but they were in their teens when it started. Bittie is just 5. Right now the vets have her on a certain type of antacid once a day and it has really helped her. They explained to me why this would help....but I'm not sure I can explain it very well.

I'll have to look into Azodyl and run it by them.

 

[2cool4you]

Another good supplement is Epakitin and Renal K.
It's made by Vetoquinal the same people that made Azodyl. My vet recommended it and it really worked for my cat. His kidney functions remained stable for 6 months using those. Sad that asthma brought him down because he was beating the kidney disease.

 

[patandchickens]

What if you were to keep him on the k/d for at least 6 months to a year, with periodic bloodwork (yeah I know that is not super cheap), to get a baseline of how his body recovers from the acute kidney failure.

Then if you really want to try a raw diet (although this is difficult in a situation where you need to keep protein down and where the body may be losing some minerals etc at different rates than a healthy cat would...) you could try it and do some more bloodwork to monitor the situation and you would know whether his kidneys are doing ok with it or not.

The problem with switching right now is that it takes at least several months for the body to sort of 'reach a new normal' after an acute kidney episode, so you would have no basis for comparison.

I am totally, totally not a fan of all the wheatfield-and-chemistry-lab stuff in Hills or other comparable brands, BUT I gotta tell you, their k/d dry food kept my first cat alive and really quite healthy for a little over 4 years after a kidney crisis leading to diagnosis of polycystic kidneys -- when the vet (a good vet, cat specialist, who'd seen a good number of cases of this) had guessed she'd probably only have a few months to live. So I think it's worth entertaining the possibility that IN SOME CASES, this sort of food can provide benefits that outweigh the downsides.

JMHO, best of luck to you both,

Pat

 

[RachelFromTheBlackLagoon]

That's not a bad idea. Thanks!