Young cat with kidney failure

[waitingwithhope]

We noticed our young, 4 year old indoor cat was losing weight and we took her to the vet only to discover after blood work that she is in kidney failure (she has not been exposed to any anti-freeze, is young and the vet could offer no reason for it). She has been still purring, trying to be her normal self (although she was a bit clingy and we thought something was wrong). We have gone ahead with fluids through IV, 2 days at the vet hospital and she is going to continue to be monitored with her blood work. All her other blood work values came back within the normal range (except for her red blood cell count) and they said it was not an infection (which sadly would have been easier to treat). What are the chances of recovery from this? We all love her very much, my two year old adores her and we thought we would try and save her. The vet said she has never seen kidney failure in a cat so young and could not give us a prognosis.

[JBMtnGrl]

One of my cats died a year ago at age 3 from it and now my 5yr old has it. Any advice?

[Little_Miss_India]

My five year old calico, India, has just gotten her blood work back and it indicates kidney failure.  I had put her on a couple of different diet (or also indoor) Purina dry foods recently.  I'm devastated and hope that I didn't help her disease state along.   She gets her uriine analysis tomorrow along with an e-ray an ultrasound.  If anyone on her has any advice for me I'd really appreciate it.

[CatCopCombo]

Well, I asked if there was anyway to stimulate his appetite like a tablet but my vet advised against it. Would rather he ate on his own (eventually) and thought that syringe feeding would help stimulate his appetite. I might ask about B12 though. At least it's something that's required by the body and would have less side effects than a pill.

Ha, yeah Riggs has a kitty buffet laid out for him every day! lol. However the closest I get to him touching any of it is a few licks of warmed salmon yogurt or fish juice. Not enough :-(

He's redeveloped some of his Riggs-isms which my husband and I hope are a good sign. I'm pretty gutted today didn't show much improvement.

Thanks for the continued prayers. I always need prayers :-)

Emma xxx

[opus88]

hi...I was going to post you today for an update...not great news is it, but yeah at least he is still here and those phosphate levels are decreasing, so if only he were to get eating:)
have the Vets considered a B12 injection to stimulate his appetite? or is this not a good idea for a CRF cat? would be worth asking about.
have you tried to temp him with a variety of canned foods? does anything interest him?

I can tell how exhausted you must be, every couple hours is a huge commitment. I can only send you and Riggs my continued prayers, he is a fighter and not ready to give up just yet♥

[CatCopCombo]

Sorry I haven't been in touch for a few days. Everything has been completely mental. Riggs is still with us (thankfully) but is no where near out the woods yet. He was no longer eating so I'm now having to syringe feed. I feel rotten doing it. He's already pretty stressed getting the fluids but to keep annoying him every couple of hours syringe feed him makes me not want to do it. But it's tough love time and I have to persevere. He's reached this odd homeostatic phase where he is neither getting worse or better (Although his phosphate levels are decreasing - yay!) and physically he's neither bright nor dull. My vets have never seen a case quite like his so they can't advise in either direction if he'll get better or worse. Hopefully getting food in his belly will move those blood levels significantly down.

I am exhausted but I refuse to stop hoping and praying.

Emma xxx

[opus88]

heres a good article on the subject of vaccines and how often are necessary....

http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2013/11/04/antibody-titers.aspx?e_cid=20131110Z1_SNL_TPA_1&utm_source=snl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=tpa1&utm_campaign=20131110Z1&et_cid=DM33498&et_rid=332129319