Purrs In Our Hearts - Cat Forum UK
Cat Health & Behaviour => Health & Behaviour General => Topic started by: rescuecatsrule on June 27, 2008, 13:41:00 PM
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Bit of background information: Not so long ago Beauty was diagnosed with kidney problems, and was prescribed KD food.
Beauty's appetite has plummeted. She's still eating, but very little. She's losing quite a bit of weight, it may be because of the prescription food (ie she doesn't like it so she barely eats it)
So I need advice on what to do. Either I can let her continue barely eating the prescription food (and half starve herself) or I can give her some of her old food and risk her kidneys getting worse quickly.
Can anyone post advice please? Preferably today? I'm getting worried. I'm not sure which is the better of the two evils! :(
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there are a few people on the board with experience of this issue, I'm sure someone will answer soon, welcome by the way!
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Hiya, I'm new to all this kidney stuff myself, but my boy Max has been very hit and miss with all the different types of food, some days he will eat it with gusto, other days he'll just pick and barely eat it.
Does Beauty it wet and dry food? This could be a good compromise as my boy loves the RC Renal Dry, so he has that down all the time, has a pouch of renal food in the evening (current faves are Specific, or the tuna flavour RC pouches). In the morning I give him ordinary senior food which is lower in phospherous etc anyway, so again is better than 'normal' food just to keep them eating, and keep appetite levels up with a variety of different foods as the renal stuff is bland.
When I last discussed this with my vet she was happy with the above, so might be worth a try?
Is Beauty on medication, or just a diet at the mo?
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She's just on the special diet and anti hairball stuff that she licks straght out of the tube.
She has both wet and dry food. The wet she won't eat but the dry she'll eat a little bit of.
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Hi & :welcome: to Purrs
Some 'normal' cat foods are better than others, the main thing to look for is the phosphorous content, the lower the better. My cat Tiggy ate felix senior in the foil trays for quite a while which is one of the lowest phosphorous content commercial foods available. Hopefully you can find something low in phos that she will eat but if not the next step (in consulation with your vet) would be feeding a food that is higher in phosphorous but with a powder phosphorous binder sprinkled on each meal so that the body does not absorb all the phosphorous from the food.
Here's a link to wet foods in the UK and their phos content http://www.felinecrf.org/tinned_food.htm It's a fantastic site, I call it the CRF bible http://www.felinecrf.org/
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She has both wet and dry food. The wet she won't eat but the dry she'll eat a little bit of.
The wet food really is hit and miss from what I've read on here, and experienced myself. What other brands (if any) have you tried? Some have a better success rate than others.
Specific is quite a good one, the only trouble is you can't order in just 1 alutray to see if it gets eaten. I can send you one of mine if you like, drop me a PM with your name and address, might be worth a try?
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Lets see...
Dried she used to eat just about any dried food, wet she'd eat applaws and hilife pate. Occasionally she'd have gourmet (depending on if she felt like having it - she's take it or leave it with gourmet)
Cat milk, again, she's take it or leave it (more often leave it than take it)
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Bit of background information: Not so long ago Beauty was diagnosed with kidney problems, and was prescribed KD food.
So I need advice on what to do. Either I can let her continue barely eating the prescription food (and half starve herself) or I can give her some of her old food and risk her kidneys getting worse quickly.
Its more important that she eats something, as Helen suggested, have a look at the CRF site for non-prescription foods that are lower in phos, but if she won't eat any from that list, then let her eat whatever she likes. If she'd eat wet food that would be much better for her kidneys anyway. Whether prescription or otherwise dry isnt the best for cats with CRF.
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My cat Clapton won't touch the renal stuff so I give him mainly Felix senior - I also give him whiskas senior and Asda own senior just for some variation. He has some renal dry that I mix in sometimes but that's it and he is doing really well with Fortekor.
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Hi there!
I currently have two oldies with CRF and sadly lost one last year. :(
As Gillian says, the most important thing is that your cat eats something. Yes, the best food for her is a complete renal prescription diet (wet), but as you have discovered, not all cats adjust to this.
I would suggest you take Beauty to the vets early next week - they might wish to repeat the blood tests to check her toxin levels, or they might just simply give her an injection to stimulate her appetite. My Martha had a series of these last year shortly after she was diagnosed and it encouraged her to eat the new food (I never thought I'd get her off Sheba!!).
On the other hand, MeToo, who I adopted 3 weeks ago, refuses to touch any of the renal wet food, despite the appetite stimulant. My vet says the most important thing at the moment though is just to get him to eat (he is only 3kg) and 'prescribed' cooked chicken breast & pilchards in tomato sauce - the latter which I warm in the microwave for a few secs. However, if we can't encourage him to convert over the next month or so, then we'll have to think about adding a phosphorous binder to his food - or at least find a normal brand that he will eat, which doesn't have too high a phosphorous content.
So, I would let Beauty eat whatever she enjoys this weekend... just do take care over the renal dry, as this can contribute to dehydration/constipation issues - MeToo loves these of course, but I'm having to limit them as he's been getting a bit bunged up!
Good luck and let us know what you decide/how you get on.
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She loves chicken and tuna, so do you think it would be OK to mix it with some water and let her eat that?
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Canned tuna should be rationed as it's not good for them http://www.lenhumanesoc.org/Tips/ASPCA-Tuna.htm
Mine love it but are only allowed a small amount a couple of times a week. I don't allow them to have the juice either as it has too much salt in.
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I can't see why not... just don't feed tuna every day!
Also, remember to use the tuna that comes in spring water or olive/sunflower oil though - the tuna in brine is too salty.
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Definately get her eating asap, was she eating OK before she was given prescription food?
If so I would tempararily put her back on her normal food and slowly experiment with the suggestions given by the others.
If she has not been eating it may take a while to get her back eating normal amounts, so little and often is a good idea.
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If she wont eat renal food, do try senior food. Rosie hates renal food, but likes senior, and her kidney's haven't got too worse on just senior food with no supplements. Good luck, and she will be worse if she doesn't eat enough.
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Definately get her eating asap, was she eating OK before she was given prescription food?
If so I would tempararily put her back on her normal food and slowly experiment with the suggestions given by the others.
If she has not been eating it may take a while to get her back eating normal amounts, so little and often is a good idea.
She was eating purrfectly fine before she started having the prescription food!
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Did you mix the prescription food in with her normal food?
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I dont agree with making cats abide by prescription diets if they dont like them, i would rather a short but happy life eating what they enjoy than a longer but miserable existance. Grub is important to most cats and i know i wouldnt appreciate my food being messed with! (and i have the ability to understand why, cats dont) :shy:
Theres lots of senior varieties now, hi life has one i think and felix as good as it looks now exists in a senior range.
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I totally agree MM, food is a major part in a cats life and can often be the thing that makes them happiest.
'Normal' food needn't shorten their life either - Tiggy ate 'junk' food (Gourmet Perle) with a phosphorous binder on for the majority of the time she was diagnosed. She had almost 2 years being CRF and in the end her blood results were back within the normal range and it was cancer not CRF that took her.
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I completely agree with quality over quantity, hence Rosie being on senior food, although she will eat small amounts of Integral REnal food.
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Did you mix the prescription food in with her normal food?
I started to at first but what Beauty did was pick out the bits of food she wanted and leave the rest!
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Did you mix the prescription food in with her normal food?
I started to at first but what Beauty did was pick out the bits of food she wanted and leave the rest!
Shes making her feelings obvious :evillaugh:
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Rosie did that, and went to eating very little, so I Scrapped the prescription food and fed her mainly senior.