? 18/8 - Gremlin - AMPS 166, +5 70, PMPS 124, +3 122 - CKD food question

Yesterday

Definitely an upset belly overnight (see yesterday's post). He did eat about half of his breakfast and should be back in less than an hour for more so I think he's feeling better this morning.
I wonder if it was the raw chicken thigh he had yesterday that made him feel unwell.
See how he goes today.

 

I'm glad Grem is feeling better today. Surf safely Grem.

 

Is fish bad for CKD?

 

I've just got an email from my vet regarding Grem's food. This is what she wrote...

"I have spoken to some diabetic vets about our Gremlin who now has kidney disease. They agree that diet is a really important aspect of management for both of these conditions as we had discussed. Our current recommendation is that he start on a high quality canned senior cat food. They tend to be a bit lower in carbs and slightly lower in protein. With regular monitoring, we need to know when his renal disease worsens so we can change him over to a kidney diet before it gets too bad.

Cats with kidney disease have much longer happier lives when they are fed the kidney diets (low protein, low sodium, low phosphorous mainly)."

Thoughts?

 

Current thought is good quality protein, low phosphorus, and of course low carbs will help, at least in the early stages of CKD. Here is Tanya's page on what to feed. Most of the "prescription" kidney diets are high in carbs.

 

I agree with what Wendy has said.
Sheba had early stage CKD and I fed her a high protein, low carb, low phosphorus diet and her blood work was stable until she died of an unrelated cause.
Cooked egg white is high in protein and low in phosphorus. I gave it to Sheba every day mashed in with her other food. If Gremlin is picky he may not like it. Start off with tiny amounts.

A low protein diet can result in loss of muscle mass. As far as I am aware there is no need to go to a low protein diet in the early stages of CKD

 

I've looked at Tanya's page, thank you.
I don't want to follow my vet's recommendation. I'm having enough trouble getting Gremlin to eat anything even remotely new! And I don't want to stuff up his diabetes as well. Plus he may have cancer so shouldn't he just be happy while he can?

Is fish high in phosphorus and bad for CKD?

I'm not sure how to respond to the vet. She has been great letting me do my own thing with his diabetes but I'm not sure how far I can push it. She is the vet after all.

 

k/d is 84 Phosphorus but it's 27 carbs! And that's the chicken one that he probably wouldn't eat. I think almost all senior diets are too high in carbs too.

 

Yes they are high in carbs!
I think fish is reasonably high in phosphorus. It is not recommended to feed cats too much fish anyway. What fish were you thinking of? I guess at the end of the day you are trying to get Gremlin to eat anything.

I agree with you about the food. Those prescription foods are not greatly liked by cats at the best of times. And giving low protein diet early in CKD disease is old thinking. I’d just say to the vet you are thinking about it at the moment. Or you could buy one can then say he won't eat it...she can't argue with that! Don’t do anything you are not comfortable with. Remember you are paying the bills and you get to decide!

 

Fish based tends to be high in phosphorus. Gizmo only gets about 1-1/2 teaspoons/day of a fish based food. I mix one of his meds into it and he will always eat it but I avoid it for regular feedings.

 

My Gizmo (non-diabetic) is in early stages of CKD. My vet recommended a high quality protein diet and keeping the phos as low as possible. He was also diagnosed with IBD. He's eating a mostly raw diet. His SDMA dropped back to normal range. She also prescribed calcitriol. At least according to Tanya's materials, calcitriol isn't routinely prescribed. Apparently, if you're trained at Ohio State, it's commonly prescribed. (It's vitamin D.) I honestly don't know if it's helping or not since Gizmo's kidney values have been good but we changed diet at the same time.

 

Hope Gremlin feels better

 

As I expected. From the vet...

"I totally understand your frustration with getting cats to eat new foods! It can be a real challenge. His new food doesn’t necessarily have to be Hills but most of the supermarket brands such as dine etc are quite poor quality meaning they have low quality protein. We want the carbs to be low to help control the diabetes, however, my main focus is maintaining Grems kidney function. Combining the two - lower carb, lower but high quality protein is what we need.

Although diabetes is a nasty condition, renal disease is unfortunately the one more threatening to Grem in terms of a long healthy life. So a balance would be ideal. The home cooked diet looks just too high in protein to be safe for kidneys long term.

Although the forums etc can be useful, and I don’t doubt there are lots of other cat owners out there who have cats with both conditions, as a vet we look for evidence based science (backed by research) to base our recommendations on. Speaking to a veterinary nutritionist would give you the most useful information.

Let me know if I can be of any more help! Hopefully we can find a solution to both his dietary requirements that he will actually eat!! "

 

If you've missed Davidson's thread the other day he too is in the VERY early stages of CKD and the majority of foods on Tanya's list are either not available (at least in Canada), no longer available or have way too high carb content for our FD kitties.

Nutro wet food seems to be workable, I phoned them.......there is also Royal Canin that I have since called and rec'd their details.

Nutro Senior Soft Loaf Chicken, 2% carbs, 0.37 grams phosphorous per 100 grams or 3.3 grams per 1000 calories
Nutro Adult Duck pate 1.9% carbs, 0.23 grams phosphorous per 100 grams or 1.92 grams per 1000 calories
Royal Canin Adult Loaf 12+, 1.16 mg/1000 kcal phosphorous - didn't have carb count
** These foods were the cheapest (still 3x price of FF) but almost half the price of others

I bought the Nutro and Davidson had no problem transitioning to it 100% (no FF) and even Harley likes it as he steals it from Davidson as I guess it smells much better then FF

I ordered Renakare 2 potassium supplement to increase Davidsn's levels, and also ordered a phosphorous binder to help drop those levels. Both were available from Thriving Pets.

My reading revealed not to give too much fish and if so salmon is the lowest in phosphorous.

 

I can't deal with this! I'm spending every cent I have on my cats and my fourteen year old son wants to kill himself. I can't think straight.

Re: Fish foods - He used to hate fish, now he eats it and often won't eat non fish foods. He still likes the Dine trays that aren't fish. I feed him what he'll eat these days. This is hard. His belly is so upset, he farts are just about suffocating me and my son! I'm at my wits end.

 

Hi @Shawna & Davidson ,
I did miss that but I'm in Australia and I've never heard of Nutro. I know that Royal Canin is high in carbs though.

I'm not sure what food exactly my vet is thinking... But it seems to me she just wants to feed for the CKD (which is EARLY stage or so I was told) and that means sacrificing his diabetes. That's more work for me when I already have enough on my plate.

 

Laura......The Nutro is actually made by the same company as Royal Canin. I will be getting the carb content from the RC food next week, they are checking........but they thought it was lower in carbs then many of the other types they make.

Here is Dr. Lisa's link: https://catinfo.org/docs/CatFoodProteinFatCarbPhosphorusChart.pdf or this: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/shortcut-shopping-list-all-8-or-less-updated.117688/

And Tanya's : https://www.felinecrf.org/diet_and_nutrition.htm scroll thru her tabs as it's really informative and lists the phosphorous content first. You may find something from Down Under that works. There are many Vet purchased foods that work, but expensive and many are HC type so you need to check. Perhaps phone the RC company and ask them about the Nutro as perhaps a different name down there?

Yup - we all have tons of work and research to do, and hopefully some of that is provided here (it is) and many are here to help us all.

 

Laura you have a lot on your plate. That makes it really hard.

Not sure if you’ve tried Weruva cats in the kitchen from Petbarn but they are high protein, low carb and mostly low phosphorus... you can check in their website ... and would be suitable if Gremlin will eat them and you can afford them. They are a bit dearer than some others but pretty good if you buy in lots of 10 I think it is.

 

Our PetBarn only stocks one flavour in low phosphorus that Grem will eat. The Cats In The Kitchen flavours that are low phosphorus, he's refusing to eat now even though he's eaten them previously. But it doesn't change that the vet thinks those foods are crap and wants him on one of their horrible vet foods. I doubt he'll eat it anyway. Moat of the time he'll starve himself before eating even a tiny bit of something he doesn't like.

Shawna, thank you, I've already been through pretty much all of those links. I've researched and studied. But it won't change my vet's mind and doesn't help me to get Grem to eat the right foods unfortunately.

And if he does have cancer, then all of this is probably a major waste of time and stress and worry. Should I pay the money for the X-ray to see if any of his organs are enlarged? Is that common in cats with cancer? I wish I could think straight. I feel like I'm getting dumber daily from anxiety and stress.

 

It simply is not true that the prescription diets have better quality foods in them than many of the better over the counter canned foods........you just need to read the ingredient list to see that.

IMHO I think with everything you have going on in your life at the moment, you need to just feed him what ever he will eat. All that indecision is extremely stressful and exhausting for you. Step back from it all for a week and give yourself a break. You might feel better able to cope with what to do after that.