Old New Member

[Terruscats]

This is Terruscat. Eddie's mom. We joined in 2016, tho Eddie has been diabetic since for 2016. It took me a while to find this group, and glad I did! Eddie is probably about 14 years old. Eddie was first diagnosed in 2012 but had a "remission" from using insulin and he was controlled by diet only. This lasted for a year then had to return to twice a day shots. He has been on Vetsulin the entire time. He has had fructosamine tests along the way that has shown moderate control until his most recent one which has him poorly controlled. He was having a run of extremely high bounces where he would be in the 400 to 500's! Part of the issue ended up being a UTI and tooth infection. Once treated and adjusting his insulin he has been in mostly good ranges in the 200 to 300's. We use a Prime meter and strips from Walmart. Recently he was diagnosed with a heart murmur which with an echo was diagnosed as a benign or innocent murmur. There was no sign of heart disease. I had his annual bloodwork drawn in March of this year and all was well. His kidney values were the exact same as they have been for years. I took him to the vet in July because I noticed he was having difficulty eating and he has an absorptive lesion so I had bloodwork drawn in preparation for a dental and his kidney values are now abnormal. In three and a half months his creatinine went from 1.6 to 2.2 and BUN from 27 to 38. This was an abbreviated draw so I do not have a phosphorous but it had been 3.1 in March with SDMA of 11. His USG has been 1034 the last several times tested. He has been on Fancy Feast his whole life. I have always given him Renal Support A as a small treat or when he won't eat his meal. I am pretty shook up with this sudden change in his kidney values. I am hoping it is not a fast moving downward trend. I am seeking any advice on where to go from here. @Janet Spony suggested returning to this forum as well as a list of foods to feed him, which was so appreciated!

 

[Librarianista]

Welcome back!

I'm afraid I can't answer your questions about kidneys. My kitty also relapsed from a remission on Vetsulin after only a couple of months. She went back on Vetsulin and we could not get her regulated. We are on Lantus now, and that has controlled her much better, IMO. Now, I also didn't start testing until her second bout w/ diabetes, so I'm not sure what her values were before. But generally, 200s-300s on a human meter is higher than where a cat should be. The healthy range for a cat on insulin is 50-120s. Diabetes is hard on the kidneys, so it's possible that hanging out in the 200-300 range for so long is stressing them out.

 

[Veronica & Babu-chiri]

Hi and welcome back

The creatinine value of 2.2 is a bit high but nothing to get terribly worried he would be a stage 2 of chronic kidney desease (CKD) which is a manageable stage that probably can be controlled and may remain controlled for a long time with diet, but you do have to address it to help his kidneys and try to avoid them getting worse, I wouldn't worry much about the BUN value since that can also be influenced by many other issues like a high protein diet which he's getting, and you do want to get the phosphorus value every time he gets a blood work done from now on because it will help you in dealing with the CKD

Is hard to know why his kidneys are having trouble, it could be because of recurrent UTI's , other health issues (long uncontrolled diabetes among those) or just as many other cats because of age, a lot of elderly cats have kidney issues .

Usually the vet will tell you to switch him to a renal diet but unfortunately renal diets are not diabetes friendly they are actually on the highest carb values ( I even used them once for hypo) and you would be helping the kidneys but loosing control on his diabetes which would be worse for him and his kidneys on the long run, but actually you do not need to give renal diets to help his kidneys, actually renal diets are recommended only for the late stages of CKD ( high stage 3 or stage 4) because the have very little protein and cats do tend to loose muscle mass, what you would need is to give him a low carb and low phosphorus diet that would be under 200 phos in Dr. Lisa's list , 150 if you can find them where you live and he accepts it would be even better, it is important that he accepts the new food so if you can't find an option that he likes then you could use phosphorus binders, but since there are some good options hopefully you won't need those for a long while

You could also consider adding some omega supplements to his diet since those can also help his kidneys

This is a link to Tanya's page which has tons of very very useful information on CKD

http://www.felinecrf.org/how_bad_is_it.htm

 

[JanetNJ]

Hi! It's Janet. Glad to see you here. .

Do you keep track of his numbers in a spreadsheet or a book? Can you post the log?

 

[Terruscats]

Hi and welcome back

The creatinine value of 2.2 is a bit high but nothing to get terribly worried he would be a stage 2 of chronic kidney desease (CKD) which is a manageable stage that probably can be controlled and may remain controlled for a long time with diet, but you do have to address it to help his kidneys and try to avoid them getting worse, I wouldn't worry much about the BUN value since that can also be influenced by many other issues like a high protein diet which he's getting, and you do want to get the phosphorus value every time he gets a blood work done from now on because it will help you in dealing with the CKD

Is hard to know why his kidneys are having trouble, it could be because of recurrent UTI's , other health issues (long uncontrolled diabetes among those) or just as many other cats because of age, a lot of elderly cats have kidney issues .

Usually the vet will tell you to switch him to a renal diet but unfortunately renal diets are not diabetes friendly they are actually on the highest carb values ( I even used them once for hypo) and you would be helping the kidneys but loosing control on his diabetes which would be worse for him and his kidneys on the long run, but actually you do not need to give renal diets to help his kidneys, actually renal diets are recommended only for the late stages of CKD ( high stage 3 or stage 4) because the have very little protein and cats do tend to loose muscle mass, what you would need is to give him a low carb and low phosphorus diet that would be under 200 phos in Dr. Lisa's list , 150 if you can find them where you live and he accepts it would be even better, it is important that he accepts the new food so if you can't find an option that he likes then you could use phosphorus binders, but since there are some good options hopefully you won't need those for a long while

You could also consider adding some omega supplements to his diet since those can also help his kidneys

This is a link to Tanya's page which has tons of very very useful information on CKD

http://www.felinecrf.org/how_bad_is_it.htm

 

[Terruscats]

Thanks for the info and advice. Have been looking into omegas recently and am ready to order MOXXOR from the the little big cat site. It seems like a good choice. Also have picked up the low carb/phosphorus foods to start switching him over. He needs a dental and I plan on bloodwork with the phosphorus included this time and am going to have him checked for UTI. He hides them very well! And, of, course, getting tighter control of his diabetes. Thanks again.

 

[Terruscats]

Hi! It's Janet. Glad to see you here. .

Do you keep track of his numbers in a spreadsheet or a book? Can you post the log?

We do track his numbers daily. We test him before each shot. We keep those numbers recorded on index cards. I will try to convert those onto a spread sheet or in a form I can manage and post. It will take me a day or two to get it ready but will definitely get it done. I have to go back and review the instructions on this site for creating a spreadsheet.

 

[JanetNJ]

We do track his numbers daily. We test him before each shot. We keep those numbers recorded on index cards. I will try to convert those onto a spread sheet or in a form I can manage and post. It will take me a day or two to get it ready but will definitely get it done. I have to go back and review the instructions on this site for creating a spreadsheet.

Great that would be really helpful. If you get stuck and need help let me know. There are folks that can set it up for you if you need them.