Hello from Simon, need advice

Hello-

This is my first post in the group although I joined quite a while ago. My pretty boy Simon (16 yrs.) was diagnosed with DM in January of 2017. He was in remission by the end of February, but had elevated blood sugar levels again by May and has been on insulin since then. (Not well controlled at all, but I'll create another post about that)

My 17 year old calico girl has elevated kidney values so I'm going to have to start feeding her a renal diet. They all (I have another male cat with no health issues) eat Hill's MD dry food and Fancy Feast classic pate' wet food. Can anyone give me advice on how to manage my CKD girl and my DM boy at the same time?

They have always had dry food available 24/7 and I don't want Simon to not have food at night if he has a hypoglycemic episode. (Not to mention the break in their routine of 17 yrs., 16 yrs., and 7 years.)

My vet checked with Hill's veterinarian(s) and they recommended feeding the kidney diet to all of them. My brain just doesn't like that idea...... I can't see how that could NOT be detrimental to Simon, loading him up on carbs, restricting protein, and just increasing his insulin to deal with it. I'd appreciate any help/advice anyone can offer.

(Hopefully, this is in the right place)


Thanks!

 

Hi sorry to hear about Simon and your calico diagnose, unfortunately a lot of vets think that they have to give preference to CKD and let diabetes be, but actually uncontrolled diabetes could damage the kidneys too not to mention other problems we know it can cause so you have to address both issues.

What stage is your CKD cat? How high are his phosphorus levels? This is important regarding the diet since you do not need to give renal diet unless he's very advanced.

I totally get it , since I have two CKD cats besides Babu who started with just the diabetes but has CKD now too and 3 year old girl what I did and it has worked pretty well until now is I changed everyone to a diabetic (low carb) and CKD appropriate food, but and this is a big BUT by CKD appropriate I mean low phosphorus diet NOT a prescription renal diet because most if not all (I'm not sure at least all the ones I have available) renal diets are not appropriate for diabetics and you certainly do not want to give your 7 year old otherwise healthy a CKD low protein diet, so finding a non prescription low carb low phosphorus diet will benefit both your CKD and your diabetic (looking out for his kidneys is a good idea since diabetes does put some stress in them) and will not harm your 7 year old one actually he will benefit on the long run.

You'll need to look for a new food though since Fancy Feast is high in phosphorus but take a look at Dr. Lisa's list and look for less than 10% carb and less than 250 in phosphorus ( if you can get under 200 even better), and probably a different dry food too I'm not sure about that one, some people here use Young again cero carbs I think or maybe some freeze dry ones ( I don't give any dry so not sure )

For a mid night treat I just leave some of the same wet food out for them to eat if they get hungry or you could use a time feeder

 

Thanks for your reply. Zoe is my calico girl's name. Her Phosphorus level is normal right now according to my vet. I didn't get a copy of her labs so I don't know the actual level for the phosphorus. Her first renal values (last July) BUN and creatinine were normal, but at the high limit. With her last lab work 2 weeks ago Her BUN was slightly elevated and her creatinine was 2.6 (the high limit for this lab is 2.4). I know that's not exactly helpful information so I'll get copies of the results and post them soon.
I'm not sure if I'm supposed to trim out your reply so if this is messy, I apologize.

 

It was just fine, don't worry, Zoe is a nice name

With a creatinine of 2.6 she's considered stage 2, BUN could be a bit high just because she's getting a high protein food , at stage 2 it is usually not necessary or recommended to give renal diets unless she had other problems like very high phosphorus which is not the case, because as you noticed renal diets have low protein contents and that usually causes muscle loss which you want to avoid if at all possible

This will help you since you can consider giving the three of them a low carb - low phosphorus diet instead of a renal diet so that you don't have to worry about Simon and it would be ok for the three of them.

Zoe could benefit from some extra supplements given just to her, basically vitamins (B complex) and omegas to help her so that hopefully the CKD does not advance any more

There's a web page with some amazing information about CKD that you could take a look at, it has tons of information so it does require some serious reading but is very good information this is the link http://www.felinecrf.org/how_bad_is_it.htm