15 year old cat with kidney failure - diet?

I'm sorry the kitty didn't make it. Kidney failure is a tough thing to overcome when they get older. Prevention is the key and diet has a lot to do with that. 15 years is a good long life for a kitty though. I know they can live longer, but 15 isn't bad.

Again, sorry to hear that.

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There is hope. Years ago our family cats had an infection that caused us to have no option but to have the kidney removed. He lived 7 healthy years after this. At the age of 13 he began to have mild failure in his remaining kidney. All other tests were fine but he became so skinny it was scarey! After talking about many options we decided to go with a daily saline IV. He stayed at the vet for a few days while the vet gave him the daily IV and ran tests. The saline forced the kidney to work harder and therefore function better. It was like he was a new cat and we were able to take him home to continue the treatments. We only continued this for a little less than a year before he began to get sick again but we were told that other cats treated the same way, but had 2 kidneys, had lived that way for years. It wasn't hard to give him the IV either. The needle went just under the skin on the back of his neck where the saline would pool up under the skin and slowly absorb throughout the day. We were easily able to give it to him at home. Good Luck! I know how hard it is to see your kitty get sick!

Yes diet can play a role. But this is a very complicated issue and there are different schools of thoughts among vets about what is right. It partly depends how far advanced it is. and if the cat just now crashed and was just diagnosed & is on an IV at the vet, you don't totally know the answer to that... have to see how he is able to respond.

The older way of treating it was to put a cat on a low protein diet as soon as diagnosed. But the vets at our cat only clinic no longer recommend this except for the end stage. Such a diet can cause its own serious problems like anemia, muscle wasting and worsened inappetence. A cat basically will burn protein at a steady rate, and if they don't get enough they start breaking down their own body tissue... and then the kidneys will have to deal with that protein anyway! Sometimes the problems may get blamed on the disease itself when they are really being exacerbated by the cat not getting enough dietary protein.

So in the past 10-15 yrs or so there's been a change in thought. Some vets think that it is more important to focus on the phosphorus and the quality of the protein.

1. They've suggested that the reason the reduced protein diets have sometimes shown good results is more because they also had lower phosphorus, which is hard on the kidneys.

You can use PHOSPHORUS BINDERS added to the cat's food, to make it sort of bypass the kidneys so they don't have to cope with it.

2. They're saying to focus on the quality of the protein not just quantity. In other words, still feed a moderately high amount of protein ( maybe a bit lower than for a healthy cat, but not so low as the "prescription" diets like k/d.).... but feed high quality easily digestible protein like cat food made from muscle meat from poultry or rabbit.

I would cut out the tuna unless you get to a point that you can't get him to eat anything else.

It's too bad he won't eat canned food since that helps them to get more moisture. You could add some tuna water to the water bowl - that's OK, it's not like eating a can of tuna. and it is so important to get water into them. Try putting several water bowls around the house.

And one of the things that REALLY helps is to give subcutaneous ( "sub-q') fluids at home. It's not hard to learn, the vet can teach your sister to do it, and there are now plenty of videos and tutorials online.... and it makes the cats feel SO much better. It can really give them a lot more time of feeling OK.

There are a couple good websites with tons of info, that have been around a long time, and have almost the same URL.

http://www.felinecrf.org/

http://www.felinecrf.com/

. and each of these has a Yahoo discussion group associated with it. You can read about both of them on their group pages:

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/tanyas-crf-supp...

groups.yahoo.com/group/Feline-CRF-Support/

I strongly recommend that your sister or you join one of those Yahoo groups where you can talk to people with a lot of experience and knowledge. You can have much more of an ongoing discussion than you can on an Answers site like this.

Good luck... Some cats live for many months or even quite a few years with this disease. I hope it will go well for your sisters cat.

Feline diet for Kidney Problems: This recipe makes 6 days of food for 1 cat-

1/4 lb (1 1/2 cups) ground chicken with skin, or turkey

4 cups cooked white rice, enriched (not instant rice)

4 eggs

2 tblspns safflower, soy, or corn oil

3 teaspoons 'Animal Essentials Calcium' (1000 mg Calcium & 2 mg Phosphorus) or 2 teaspoons of eggshell powder0

1/4 teaspoon iodized salt

1 teaspoon parsley (a natural diuretic, optional)

5000 IU vitamin A

2000 mg vitamin C (1/2 tspn sodium ascorbate)

Taurine and other cat vitamins (about 5 days worth-add at least 250 mg taurine to this recipe about.

50-mg level B complex (or 5-10 mg per day)

Mix everything together in a large bowl. Serve raw if the cat will accept it, otherwise mix all BUT the vitamins together, bake about 20 minutes at 300 degrees. Wait until it cools to mix in vitamins. The cat may have a poor appetite, so feed in small amounts frequently if he won't eat a full meal. Give plenty of fresh, pure water (bottle water). You can encourage drinking by giving meat or fish broth (warm) once or twice a day.

EDIT: So sorry to hear about the kitty. :-(This recipe is good to keep cats healthy- except the amount of vitamins can be removed and replaced with a daily supplement.

My cat has kidney failure too, we feed her wet food because eventually they will start to throw up the dry food, I think it has something to do with a lack of chewing but i don't know for sure. If the cat is refusing wet food try wetting his dry food down with chicken broth or lock him in a room with the food eventually he will eat it.

Heal Kidney Disease Forever :

http://www.naturallygo.com/

As a pet owner, when I need information about that pet, I ask my Vet.

There is more than administering shots and neutering there.