WELCOME one and all to the Chronic Kidney Failure in Dogs Group

[tonyb286]

I hope you will join this Group and become a valuable and active member. Through this Group, we can help each other with suggestions, advice, support and information about this dreadful disease and how best we can manage treatments for our best friends. As a starting point, please have a read of my article on diet at: http://www.infobarrel.com/How_Diet_Affects_Dogs_with_Chronic_Kidney_Disease

I have tried my very best to put as much useful information as possible in this piece, but if your questions and concerns are not answered in the piece, please start a thread and post your comments. To help track your thread, please head it with the name of your dog.

[sassfras]

Hi Tony,
It is me Nancy yet again.... I feel so VERY confused.
Ever since my Doogan began this awful journey a month ago, I have been trying so hard to follow  what the experts say to do in the hopes of giving my Doogan a fighting chance. So here is the thing. As mentioned earlier, we have been giving lactated ringers for a month. I read what you wrote about it but have also read very conflicting opinions about this..giving lactated ringers to an animal with severe renal disease. So when I read this it terrified me. We talked to his vet today who agreed for us to try the nacl if we want to but she said that really the minute amount of potassium in the ringers is not making my Doogan sicker. She did talk a bit about his hypertension and the nacl. When you read about nacl the potential side effects can be  scary and yet when you read about the ringers given to renal insufficiency animals that is scary too. What is up with all the controversial information on this. My god it's exhausting and terrifying as the last thing I want to do is worsen his situation by trying to help. I have not missed a day in 1 month for fluid hydration but I am skipping today in the hopes that I can make more sense of this. I really need help. I feel desperate and more confused than ever.
Thank you a bunch

[sassfras]

Hi Tony,
Thank you so much for the reassurance and information. Went to Doogan's vet today and they agreed for us to try the sodium chloride 0.9%. instead of the lactated ringers. We will give it a try .
Just making sure that this is ok with his high blood pressure ? sodium chloride is saline right?

[tonyb286]

Hi Nancy. First things first ... yes, I kind of agree with your vet, feeding whatever he will eat is more important just now. The energy it gives is vital, so nutrition over the right nutrition is the priority. Obviously, if he will eat other foods that are better for his kidney disease, then that's good, but any food intake is more important for now.

Lactated Ringers subQ are an electrolyte balanced fluid, so yes there will be some potassium - actually, the right amount for a dog's daily needs. Lactated Ringers are usually the best fluids for a kidney disease dog and much better than the alternatives (such as Saline). However, when potassium is rising, saline is actually a better option (given at 0.9%), as it accentuates the excretion of potassium. Talk to your vet about this.

Hope this helps.

Tony

[sassfras]

Hi Tony,
It's Nancy again. Sorry I know I am bombarding you with lots of questions. I meant to ask you something else in my above post. As you know, we are giving my Doogan Sub q fluids now twice daily. I just realized that in the Lactated Ringers there is potassium. His potassium levels are going up... is this bad to be administering fluids that contain  more potassium ?
Thanks again,
nancy

[sassfras]

hi Tony,
Doogan is back home again. creatinine ..800 albumin 15 and potassium 7.7  they are rising despite our efforts to bring them down. He has a lot of muscle wasting and is weak. . we are doing sub q fluids twice a day now , still giving his meds and phosphate binders by a 6 ml syringe into his mouth for what it is worth and hand feed him. At this time, the vet said it is a matter of time and feed him whatever he wants. Do u agree with this. He loves little cubes of chopped apples and other fruit that we used to give as snacks and I am thinking of boiling some extra lean ground beef for him with rice but feel so guilty as I know these are not good for his values and feel like I am rushing him to the grave.thanks,
Nancy

[sassfras]

Hi Tony,
Just to give you an update on Doogan.
So he has been off the Forticor drug for a couple of days now and his potassium went back into the normal range. They have also stopped the immunosuppressant drug as he now has a kidney infection and have changed the antibiotics he has been in order to treat this.
His creatinine is back up to 700 and albumin was at 15 last night. They told me he is at risk for a blood clot anytime. We do have him on anticoagulants. He once again is on iv to try and bring the values down as they think they spiked as a result of the infection as they had come down last week. The ONLY thing he will eat is the KD DRY so we put lots of water and add his phosphate binders to make a gravy. For some reason this is the only dog food he will continue to eat.We have tried so much . I do worry about the kibble as we have read your articles. but are at a loss as he won't eat anything else so to compensate we are adding water to it and he is on IV there and will receive his sub q fluids at home.  Thoughts ?
Thanks for all.,
Nancy

[tonyb286]

Don't worry about the kd dry food for now - it's not going to have any dire effect in the short term and if he eats it, that's more important than getting him to eat canned food. Adding water to the dry is good (always leave it to soak for about half an hour if you can). I think, for now, you and your vets are doing all the right things. If he gets over this stage, then we can concentrate on tweaking things a little - but priorities are important - so lets see where he is in a week's time. Heart disease and CKD are a difficult combination to manage, as what helps one often antagonises the other, so it's all about treating the symptoms on the day.
Tony