Remission & Kidney Disease Diet Options

[Bash’s Mom]

Morning! So my sugarkitty Bash had his latest round of blood work on Monday and the vet just called with his results. We have good news and bad news.

Good news, he’s considered to be in confirmed diabetic remission (two low fructosamine tests, two months apart), yay! Big yay!

Bad news, his kidneys are not in the best of shape. 2 months ago my vet noticed numbers slightly out of range but nothing to immediately worry about, but she wanted to keep a close eye on them. Well, they haven't progressed well. He has kidney disease; it’s in the second stage (out of four). So the vet wants me to come in and we’ll figure out a new diet for him. At this point he isn't showing any symptoms or distress, so we seem to be catching it quite early.

So, now we gotta balance low carb/sugar and good for kidneys of course, as his remission is currently being controlled by a low carb fancy feast pate diet.

Has anyone else had to do a kidney friendly diet? Any recommendations or advice?

 

[jt and trouble (GA)]

Weruva makes a variety of low phosphorous foods. PetCo carries their line. I've tried it with my Zoe. She will eat one kind then the next time not. So I rotate...I cant lie Ive throw away more than she has eaten. But it works for a LOT of cats.

 

[JaxBenji]

Sorry you are dealing with this diagnoses I don't know anything about kidney disease but people on here have recommended Tanya's site - https://www.felinecrf.org/ - lots of info and a whole section on food. Hope that helps some.

 

[Critter Mom]

Congrats on achieving remission!

(((Bash)))

I'm sorry to hear about the CKD Dx.

Re feeding for IRIS stage II CKD, if you've not already discovered it, I can't recommend Tanya's Site highly enough. Here's a link to the section on diet:

Tanya's Site - Diet and Nutrition Index Page

As a general guide, in early stage CKD phosphorus control is the first thing to get a handle on, not protein restriction. The former slows progression of the condition, but the latter can lead to loss of muscle mass. As Jeanne advises above, a low carb food that has a lower phosphorus content is a good option to aim for when making dietary choices for a feline diabetic with early stage kidney insufficiency. The veterinary CKD diets are typically lower in protein and high in carbs, and may be more appropriate to cats with later stage CKD, particularly when azotaemia becomes an issue.

Diet is discussed indepth at Tanya's Site including information on feeding strategies for the different stages, plus they maintain a list of commercial foods ordered by phosphorus content. The whole site is a veritable goldmine of information on CKD and its management. Recommended to read the whole thing but in digestible chunks: trying to go through it all in one go is even more overwhelming than the early days of feline diabetes. (I speak from experience.)


Mogs
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[Tomlin]

Congrats and best wishes for continued remission

Tanyas CKD website has a lot of great information and she has also published 2 books, one with the CKD info and then a 2nd one with just food listings. The beautiful thing about her food book is it lists the foods in various ways to make it super easy to use as a reference. You can look up a food by name or if trying to find some options to try, it lists them in order of lowest to highest phosphorus content. The protein, fat, carbs data is also listed for each food along with the date she obtained the data.
You are able to look up by wet food, dry food, prescription, raw or alphabetical order .