*This is just our experience, and shouldn’t be taken for medical advice.*
Shivers is doing very well, considering her kidney issues. Actually, she’s doing well for a 13 year old, and fantastic for a 13 year old cat with chronic renal disease (CRD). She still plays pranks on the other cats, chases toys, and curls up in our laps looking smug. Not much has changed on the outside. Functionally, the only changes we’ve noticed is that she drinks and urinates more. She’s skinny, but she always has been.
It’s been difficult to keep any weight on her from day one, when I adopted her 11 years ago. Silly thing. We weigh her every week or so, since that’s an easy way to gauge health. I did a little happy dance last week when she gained 4 ounces. Since the majority of cat owners (including me!) won’t notice a weight change until it’s a 20% loss (or gain) a scale is a smart investment. It takes 3 minutes to do and can help catch many illnesses early on. No brainer.
The first thing we did when we found out she had kidney issues was to put her on an all-canned food diet. It helps keep her hydrated, which is a huge issue for cats with CRD. They just can’t drink enough water to keep their kidneys going. By preference, she’d also be getting subcutaneous fluids to help out with that. The vast majority of cats tolerate it surprisingly well.
When we had our cat supply shop in Eagle two years ago, we had some wonderful owners come in (*waves to Connie*) with a cat going through kidney issues. It spurred us to dig in and do our research. Travis really hit the books, and read every current study he could get his hands on. He continues to stay current. Actually, it’s starting to look like an obsession, but in a good way. We also asked many questions of our vets. Then we made a hard decision. It was the right decision for us, but may not be for everyone.
We decided not to put Shivers on the Science Diet prescription K/D food. Our reasons were varied, but they boiled down to this: We didn’t think she had more than a few weeks left, at best. So we tried to choose quality over quantity.
Shivers’ kidney values were awful. We promised her she could have anything she wanted, provided it wasn’t harmful. She’s taken us at our word and is now utterly, unreasonably spoiled. Her favorite canned food is Avoderm Select Cuts (“chunks in gravy,” not the pate’, naturally). She likes the chicken version. As I said, she’s always been hard to keep any weight on so trying to switch her other to another food would have been disastrous.
Science Diet K/D has the lowest phosphorous content of any canned food out there. It’s not protein that hurts a cat’s kidneys – it’s phosphorous. I kid you not. The original 1940s studies done by Dr. Mark Morris were conducted on dogs. The results were then generalized to cats. Cats are obligate carnivores and dogs aren’t. This means that cats must eat meat to be healthy. They can’t process corn, wheat, or soy in order to get protein. It has to be meat. In addition, dogs have a lower protein requirement than cats. Dogs can do just fine on a food that is lower protein. Without protein (from meat), cats will suffer muscle wasting, as well as a multitude of other health issues.
Studies in the 1980s started pointing to phosphorous as a vital culprit for kidney issues. However, it’s hard to get cat food that’s both low phosphorous and higher protein. They tend to go together.
K/D is a good choice in terms of phosphorous, but it’s not so hot in the protein department. Again, since we didn’t think we had very long, we chose a lower phosphorous but sufficiently high protein canned food so her last weeks wouldn’t be made uncomfortable by muscle loss and general body aches. We were lucky because Avoderm fit the bill, completely by chance. We are so grateful to have had the chance to run a retail shop, for which we did much of this research so we were ready when our cat started to have issues of her own.
Of course, we made this decision about diet last June. Eight months ago. I know! We’re as shocked as you are. As I type this, Shivers is sitting next to my left elbow, looking pleased with herself.
Shivers still has a good body composition and hasn’t slowed down a bit. The only sign in terms of her behavior is that she’s more demanding about getting snuggled. If not for her excessive drinking, we might doubt her diagnosis.
In the end, none of us know how long we have, or how long others have with us. We’ve lucked out. In trying for quality over quantity, we got both. This kind of thing almost never happens. Travis and I think Shivers will stick around as long as she wants to, and then will let us know it’s time.
Until then, she gets anything she wants. Mostly.
Sources:
Cat Nutrition: http://www.catnutrition.org/index.php
Feline Nutrition: http://www.catinfo.org/commercialcannedfoods.htm
Hodgkins, Elizabeth M, D.V.M. Your Cat. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2007.
Morris Animal Foundation: http://www.morrisanimalfoundation.org/about-maf/history/
Food Tables:
Katkarma Food Data Tables: http://webpages.charter.net/katkarma/canned.htm
UK Food Data Tables: http://www.felinecrf.org/tinned_food.htm
If you’re having trouble finding canned foods, check out H3 Pet foods, Bark’n'Purr, Northwest Pets, and, of course, Amazon.
I’m going to compost the feathers rather than throw them out. I have no idea how long it takes to compost feathers. Guess I’ll find out?
When we gave her fluids at the clinic yesterday, she didn’t even fuss, which has me more worried than anything else going on. This is the cat that’s so needle-sensitive that we have to give her a mild sedative just to vaccinate her. Otherwise someone is going to get bit. She didn’t fuss when the doctor drew blood for tests, either. We could have hospitalized her. It was an option. No one is at the clinic at night, though, and she’d have been alone. Also, with her little needle-phobia it would have been near impossible to keep her on IV fluids anyway. In her case subcutaneous fluids are the best option, and we can give those at home. If she were four years old, or even just ten or twelve, we might have given hospitalization more thought. But this isn’t her first bout with kidney issues, and she’s fourteen. She’s lived on borrowed time for years. We’ve been very lucky.
