Just wanted to pick your brains please. My 12 year old has been diagnosed with kidney insufficiency and I am aware that he will not get better. I understand from his blood count measurements he is at stage 2 of the four stages a cat goes through - with a urea count of 11.8 and a creatinine count of 191.

My vet has suggested giving him a tablet called Fortekor daily as it helps the kidneys work. However he also has slight arthritis and Metacam is being suggested on a daily basis too. From what I have read Metacam is not good for cats with renal failure. I would prefer to go down the homeopathic route for his arthritis and would welcome any suggestions and advice as how to best treat him.

Also which food for cats with renal problems do they prefer the most - he can be a fussy eater.

Thanks.

There is a website devoted to cats with renal problems where you will probably find the answers to most of your questions.

http://www.felinecrf.org/

Suggest you discuss your reservations about Metacam with your vet. Remember that cats are very stoic compared to us and by the time they are showing signs of pain they have been experiencing it for some time, and it might be quite severe. Personally I would opt for quality of life (e.g. effective pain relief) rather than quantity.

I am so sorry to hear about your poor cat. When you hear 'renal failure' it is really scary, but if it is any comfort, these numbers could be much worse, and you have detected his condition early enough to make a real difference with medication and diet.

Fortekor is what my 14 year old cat had too, seems to be the go-to medication for renal failure. It is a shame it does not agree with your cat's arthritis meds. Since you are open minded to natural remedies, can I suggest a magnetic collar? I read on another thread that someone saw real benefits with their own little friend, plus, my mum, a total cynic when it comes to this kind of thing, has used a magnetic bracelet instead of medication for her own arthritis in recent months, & has genuinely found it just as effective as taking tablets.

Re diet, it can be tricky. I tried my Billy with the Royal Canin renal wet food but he wasn't a fan. Worth a go though, your vet should be able to give you individual sachets to see if your little fella takes to them.

General advice is getting lots of fluids in to help them flush out the toxins, so lean towards moist food, flavoursome stuff like fish broth, and have water bowls in a few locations to encourage him to drink. High quality proteins should be avoided apparently (hard work for the kidneys to process the waste). It's difficult to find consistent, clear advice about low protein foods, but I went for more ham & prawns, less beef & chicken.

I wish you all the luck in the world.

Hi, sorry to hear your news. My girl was on Fortekor the whole way through her illness and in the end it was something else which she passed with right enough she was 20 and had a good life as did her sister who passed the year before.
I also put a phosphorus binder in each wet meal, she detested renal cat food so I fed her on Felix Senor with renal dried food which I got from Zooplus in Germany. The binder is most important and you can get it from the vet and thereafter from an online vet website it's not a prescription item and it did work out way cheaper. We were advised to go for low phosphorus level cat food under 1.0 the better but you will get all this sort info on that website and also check around other cat forums as you can pick up lots of info and people to help and advise so that you have as much choice of knowledge as possible.

Best wishes
Piper

Thanks for your help. Have read Tanya's really good website already - so full of info. Tried him on renal food for the first time last night and seemed to like it. Only challenge now is keeping my other two away from it!

Piper4 can I just ask what phosphorus binder you found the most effective. I suspect with my boy it will be something I will need to sprinkle in his food and keep well hidden as he is a monkey with anything he suspects is different!

Thanks again for all your help. Will look into the magnetic collar too.

My 14 year old cat was diagnosed with the same problem in September. I know it's a horrible, frightening thing to hear, but don't become despondent; there's quite a lot you can do to help, if it's caught in the earlier stages.

My cat is on Royal Canin Renal diet. She tried the moist version first and hated it, but fortunately likes the dried one. It's ok to give dried food, if that's what the cat prefers, as long as they are drinking a large amount of water. I think most cats with kidney problems will want to drink plenty anyway, as they will be feeling more thirsty. All the information I have read says that whatever food they have needs to be lower in protein, and very low in phosphorus.

I think it's best to be a little wary about what the vet prescribes. I'm not suggesting that we don't need their help and advice, because obviously we do, but unfortunately vets, like doctors, will often prescribe drugs without worrying about the side effects. My cat was given Nelio tablets, and when I looked online, I discovered this medication can actually cause kidney failure in higher doses. Also if the kidneys are already not working as efficiently as they should, medications add to the number of toxins they have to try and eliminate. I would't rule out traditional medication, if it was the only thing that would help my cat, but I would always take the natural option if there is one available.

My cat is taking two natural products for her kidney problems which I can really recommend: Denes Kidney tablets (from www.denes.co.uk) and a liquid supplement called Kidney Support (from www.petalive.com). Both of these contain herbs which help the kidneys to work more efficiently. Sorry, I know you asked about natural products for arthritis, not for the kidney problems, but I just had to recommend these two things, because they seem to be helping my cat so much. She is acting normal, still wants to play with her toys and run around (as much as you would expect for an older cat), and has a good appetite. I'm not suggesting they are some kind of miracle cure of course, but I think they can help a great deal, just going by my own experience.

Before I found these two products, I also tried Astro's Oil (from www.astroscrfoil.com), but this did not help my cat. She became more lethargic and kept scratching herself. I suspect she may have been allergic to one of the ingredients, because I have heard of it helping other cats.

The other thing I would say, is try to avoid your cat becoming stressed by anything if possible, such as other cats visiting, etc, because everything works less efficiently under stress.

I can't recommend something natural for the arthritus based on personal experience, but in a book called Natural Cat Care by Bruce Fogle, it suggests Acupuncture/Acupressure, and essential fatty acids. I know that you can also get Glucosamine supplements for pets, and I expect both Denes and Pet Alive might have some kind of supplement for arthritis. I have read that the following herbs can help cats with arthritis: meadowsweet, cleavers, comfrey, cowslip and rue. Apparently you can also use these herbs in a poultice, although I do wonder how most cats would react to that.

Sorry to hear about your cat's problems. I really hope you find something that works for him.

I wish the web page for the Denes and Petalive products explained how they help, what the *active* ingredients are and what the evidence for their being effective is. To me, if something is effective then regardless of if it's natural or not it can have side effects, and possibly unfortunate interactions with other treatments. The Denes at least lists it's ingredients, the Petalive web page is promoting 'natural' products with a lot of buzz words and no real information.

Remember that many entirely natural substances are toxic, some very dangerously so.

Very good advice. A LOT of natural substances evolved as defence mechanisms for plants, animals and insects. Anyway, as I wrote in my essay for my Pharmacology finals many years ago, all drugs come from natural products at some stage, so nothing is actually entirely "un-natural" or man-made.

The Pet Alive website does actually list the ingredients, which are burdock, dandelion and cleavers. If you click on the product name, you will find several tabs for ingredients, testimonials, how to use, etc.

I would agree that you have to be careful with natural products too, because they can have powerful effects. But I think the major difference is that conventional drugs isolate and intensify individual ingredients, while herbal medicines use the combination of ingredients and chemicals naturally found in the plant. That is why I believe they are safer.

I have to agree with you. My beloved cat also suffered renal failure too.....defo quality of life not quantity...it`s the very least you owe them.

Dandelion is a diuretic, burdock is thought to be one, and I can't see what in the alleged properties for cleavers are appropriate to a kidney problem.

So, the Petactive preparation is probably either ineffective or a mild diuretic.

But why should being 'the whole plant' make something less dangerous? It *might* make it more effective or it might not, but safety with efficacy requires the right dose and that is far easier to achieve with a conventional preparation where the dose is known exactly. The dose in herbs can vary wildly with the growing season, how it was prepared and quite possibly when it was prepared. Of course one way to make safe herbal preparations for general sale is to make the dose so low it's ineffective...

[quote=cats_five;55717898]
These herbs are diuretics, but they are also purifying and detoxifying, helping the kidneys with their normal role of flushing out toxins.


Because the whole plant is made up of a complex mix of components that balance each other out, but by using and intensifying just one of these you are tampering with that delicate natural balance, hence the side effects.

By the way, this thread seems to have turned into a conventional versus natural debate, which probably belongs in General Discussion! I was just trying to recommend some things for the OP's cat, which I KNOW can be effective and beneficial, because I have seem how they have helped my own cat.

I wonder what a kidney specialist (animal or human) would say if you ran "purifying and detoxifying" past them? These are very nebulous terms.

""a complex mix of components that balance each other out" If the components in herbal remedies didn't vary wildly with the seasons, with the state of growth, with the weather, I might buy that to some degree. But since they have that variation it's a hard statement to believe, IMHO.

Sorry lost sight of this, I used IPAKITINE it's a fine powder I mixed it in with the food and my girls ate up no problem at all another is renalzin which some favour. I mixed in with Felix Senior wet food in jelly it was most important to get the food into my girls and keep weight on.
Needless to say because of my girls age Sophie 19 when she passed and Darcey 20 it was another condition which had nothing to do with renal failure which caused me to send them to Rainbow Bridge.

piper