Moose (GA) & Rae
Member Since 2017
Hello everyone! It's been a while. I hope you are all doing well 
The good news is that Moose is still in remission. The bad news is that he has become a skeleton kitty 
He is 16 years old now.
At his heaviest he was 24 lbs, with a goal weight of 14 lbs per the vet. He has always been a bigger cat. He is now 7.7 lbs as of February, I am taking him back to the vet next week and I can only imagine he has lost more weight. 7.7 may not seem low but trust me when I say he is a skeleton, all skin and bones. The vet said he has 0 muscle mass.
I am struggling with his diet. I know that diabetes diet and CKD diet are conflicting. I spoke to my vet who agreed that keeping his diabetes in remission was more important than him eating a CKD diet since the CKD progresses slower.
He is currently eating Blue Buffalo Wilderness High Protein Chicken Recipe. It was the highest calorie content out of the low card/low phos foods on the food chart that I could find. The issue is 1. He's not gaining weight, despite eating half a can a day which is 275 calories. 2. The food contains small fragments of bone (I have found this to be the case with other high protein foods.) He cannot digest those pieces. He doesn't throw up immediately, but the next morning he will throw up bile with the bone fragments in it. This happens most mornings.
He's also ravenously hungry. As soon as he's done eating, he is crying/scouting for more food. He waits for crumbs to drop from the counter, and will get up on the counter to look for food several times a day which he never used to do. He'll also try to steal food from me.
I'm at a loss as to what to switch him to. I tried to switch him back to Weruva Chicken Frick-A-Zee which he used to eat all the time and did well on. Even with slowly switching him (small scoop a day in his existing food, and increasing slowly) he was having bloody diarrhea.
I want him to gain weight, satisfy his hunger, not throw up bile every morning, and not have diarrhea while keeping his diabetes and CKD in check. At his last vet visit, the vet did not find anything that would indicate why he is losing so much weight, or why he is ravenously hungry. She said that often cats with CKD lose their appetite so she was rather perplexed.
The good news is that Moose is still in remission. The bad news is that he has become a skeleton kitty He is 16 years old now.At his heaviest he was 24 lbs, with a goal weight of 14 lbs per the vet. He has always been a bigger cat. He is now 7.7 lbs as of February, I am taking him back to the vet next week and I can only imagine he has lost more weight. 7.7 may not seem low but trust me when I say he is a skeleton, all skin and bones. The vet said he has 0 muscle mass.
I am struggling with his diet. I know that diabetes diet and CKD diet are conflicting. I spoke to my vet who agreed that keeping his diabetes in remission was more important than him eating a CKD diet since the CKD progresses slower.
He is currently eating Blue Buffalo Wilderness High Protein Chicken Recipe. It was the highest calorie content out of the low card/low phos foods on the food chart that I could find. The issue is 1. He's not gaining weight, despite eating half a can a day which is 275 calories. 2. The food contains small fragments of bone (I have found this to be the case with other high protein foods.) He cannot digest those pieces. He doesn't throw up immediately, but the next morning he will throw up bile with the bone fragments in it. This happens most mornings.
He's also ravenously hungry. As soon as he's done eating, he is crying/scouting for more food. He waits for crumbs to drop from the counter, and will get up on the counter to look for food several times a day which he never used to do. He'll also try to steal food from me.
I'm at a loss as to what to switch him to. I tried to switch him back to Weruva Chicken Frick-A-Zee which he used to eat all the time and did well on. Even with slowly switching him (small scoop a day in his existing food, and increasing slowly) he was having bloody diarrhea.
I want him to gain weight, satisfy his hunger, not throw up bile every morning, and not have diarrhea while keeping his diabetes and CKD in check. At his last vet visit, the vet did not find anything that would indicate why he is losing so much weight, or why he is ravenously hungry. She said that often cats with CKD lose their appetite so she was rather perplexed.
