Maddie & Kai
Active Member
Here is my original post from the Lantus Thread if you want to look further back.
Kai's labs are also updated in his spreadsheet if you want to take a look at those.
Short story: Kai isn't experiencing any concerning symptoms associated with elevated kidney levels. He is eating, drinking, sleeping, and defecating normally. He does not have diarrhea and is not vomiting. In fact we have had some nice bg cycles the past 2 days and he has felt really good and playful. His elevated kidney levels were caught during his annual senior blood panel. He has had an ultrasound, and several blood test, and has been on fluids and an antibiotic for 2 weeks with no improvement to his BUN and Creatinine levels. His regular vet and the internal med vet can't tell me what's causing the elevated levels. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this before?
Long Story:
So last Friday, instead of taking Kai back to the internal med vet for the follow-up blood test concerning his elevated kidney levels, I decided to take him to our regular vet because it's closer and less stressful for him. It was just supposed to be a quick vet tech appointment where they would grab some blood and then kick us out the door. However, his regular vet really wanted to look at the mass on Kai's side before we left.
The needle aspiration biopsy that the internal vet med did on the mass 2 weeks ago came back inconclusive and I had just shared that cytology report with her the day before (after learning the intern med hospital failed to send it over.) The report basically said that they couldn't confirm that the mass was cancer but they also couldn't confirm that it was not cancer
So Either the internal med vet did a bad job at collecting a sample (from a sedated cat) or the mass wouldn't exfoliate well enough in order to take a comprehensive sample... or something along those lines.
Anyways, as soon as she felt and looked at the small mass on his side she immediately decided it needed to come off ASAP. She began yelling at the receptionist about kicking grooming anesthesia appointments off of her Thursday surgery schedule to fit us in.
And then she began throwing words around like "If this IS a fibrosarcoma then it needs to come off NOW. It may already be too late. If this mass was on his hind-leg where they normally show up, most vets would REMOVE THE LEG COMPLETELY. That's how aggressive and serious they are." She was showing an urgency that the internal med vet did not. He was more concerned about diagnosing Kai's elevated Kidney levels and then we would deal with the mass. After the inconclusive needle biopsy, he made it seem like it wasn't that urgent.
So I left Kai's regular vet on Friday strongly convinced that my cat probably has fibrosarcoma and that on Monday we would receive his blood test results and those results would show improvement in his kidney levels. Then on Thursday we would have the green light for anesthesia and surgery and we could just remove the whole damn mass and hopefully, we would get all of it and it would never come back (and kai wouldn't need chemo or radiation). Problem solved. Right????
Nope.
I spoke with Kai's regular vet today and his kidney levels did not improve after 2 weeks of antibiotics and fluids. His BUN and Creatinine levels are still high. His potassium was also slightly elevated this time, but everything else was normal. Since the antibiotics and fluids didn't help this hints that it's probably not a bacterial infection. Or maybe he needs a different antibiotic. Or he needs to stay on the antibiotic longer. OR I really don't know. Apparently no one does. They don't think it is CKD. They think its an acute kidney injury of some kind they just don't know what is causing it. Since we already did a useless ultrasound, I think the only thing left to do is a urine culture. I should have let them do that 2 weeks ago when they did everything else. But I was trying to save money after a full panel of lab-work, a bunch of sedation drugs, one useless ultrasound, and an inconclusive needle aspiration biopsy. Also, Kai's regular vet and the internal med vet both agreed it probably wasn't really necessary because we were ALL so sure his kidney levels would improve with the fluids and an antibiotic. We were wrong.
So we still don't know what's causing his elevated kidney levels, which means Kai will not be going into surgery anytime soon.
Right now I'm waiting to hear back from the internal med vet before we proceed with anything else.
I feel like he has a ticking time bomb on his side and there is nothing I can do until we get his kidneys sorted out.
So back to square one, what causes an acute Kidney Injury that doesn't improve after 2 weeks of fluids and antibiotics? Has anyone else experienced anything like this?
Update:
The internal med vet responded while i was typing and he suggested checking his blood pressure, because we haven't done that yet. I seriously doubt hypertension is causing his renal issues but i've been wrong many times before. He also suggested switching him to a "renal diet"....
I have never felt more unseen and dismissed in my life.
I have a human blood pressure monitor at home lol anyone have any tips on using it to check a cats BP
i'm joking... maybe...idk
Kai's labs are also updated in his spreadsheet if you want to take a look at those.
Short story: Kai isn't experiencing any concerning symptoms associated with elevated kidney levels. He is eating, drinking, sleeping, and defecating normally. He does not have diarrhea and is not vomiting. In fact we have had some nice bg cycles the past 2 days and he has felt really good and playful. His elevated kidney levels were caught during his annual senior blood panel. He has had an ultrasound, and several blood test, and has been on fluids and an antibiotic for 2 weeks with no improvement to his BUN and Creatinine levels. His regular vet and the internal med vet can't tell me what's causing the elevated levels. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this before?
Long Story:
So last Friday, instead of taking Kai back to the internal med vet for the follow-up blood test concerning his elevated kidney levels, I decided to take him to our regular vet because it's closer and less stressful for him. It was just supposed to be a quick vet tech appointment where they would grab some blood and then kick us out the door. However, his regular vet really wanted to look at the mass on Kai's side before we left.
The needle aspiration biopsy that the internal vet med did on the mass 2 weeks ago came back inconclusive and I had just shared that cytology report with her the day before (after learning the intern med hospital failed to send it over.) The report basically said that they couldn't confirm that the mass was cancer but they also couldn't confirm that it was not cancer
So Either the internal med vet did a bad job at collecting a sample (from a sedated cat) or the mass wouldn't exfoliate well enough in order to take a comprehensive sample... or something along those lines.Anyways, as soon as she felt and looked at the small mass on his side she immediately decided it needed to come off ASAP. She began yelling at the receptionist about kicking grooming anesthesia appointments off of her Thursday surgery schedule to fit us in.
And then she began throwing words around like "If this IS a fibrosarcoma then it needs to come off NOW. It may already be too late. If this mass was on his hind-leg where they normally show up, most vets would REMOVE THE LEG COMPLETELY. That's how aggressive and serious they are." She was showing an urgency that the internal med vet did not. He was more concerned about diagnosing Kai's elevated Kidney levels and then we would deal with the mass. After the inconclusive needle biopsy, he made it seem like it wasn't that urgent.So I left Kai's regular vet on Friday strongly convinced that my cat probably has fibrosarcoma and that on Monday we would receive his blood test results and those results would show improvement in his kidney levels. Then on Thursday we would have the green light for anesthesia and surgery and we could just remove the whole damn mass and hopefully, we would get all of it and it would never come back (and kai wouldn't need chemo or radiation). Problem solved. Right????
Nope.
I spoke with Kai's regular vet today and his kidney levels did not improve after 2 weeks of antibiotics and fluids. His BUN and Creatinine levels are still high. His potassium was also slightly elevated this time, but everything else was normal. Since the antibiotics and fluids didn't help this hints that it's probably not a bacterial infection. Or maybe he needs a different antibiotic. Or he needs to stay on the antibiotic longer. OR I really don't know. Apparently no one does. They don't think it is CKD. They think its an acute kidney injury of some kind they just don't know what is causing it. Since we already did a useless ultrasound, I think the only thing left to do is a urine culture. I should have let them do that 2 weeks ago when they did everything else. But I was trying to save money after a full panel of lab-work, a bunch of sedation drugs, one useless ultrasound, and an inconclusive needle aspiration biopsy. Also, Kai's regular vet and the internal med vet both agreed it probably wasn't really necessary because we were ALL so sure his kidney levels would improve with the fluids and an antibiotic. We were wrong.
So we still don't know what's causing his elevated kidney levels, which means Kai will not be going into surgery anytime soon.
Right now I'm waiting to hear back from the internal med vet before we proceed with anything else.
I feel like he has a ticking time bomb on his side and there is nothing I can do until we get his kidneys sorted out.
So back to square one, what causes an acute Kidney Injury that doesn't improve after 2 weeks of fluids and antibiotics? Has anyone else experienced anything like this?
Update:
The internal med vet responded while i was typing and he suggested checking his blood pressure, because we haven't done that yet. I seriously doubt hypertension is causing his renal issues but i've been wrong many times before. He also suggested switching him to a "renal diet"....
I have never felt more unseen and dismissed in my life.I have a human blood pressure monitor at home lol anyone have any tips on using it to check a cats BP
i'm joking... maybe...idk
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