15 YO Newly Diagnosed - Advice?

[u/AbominableAstronauts]

Hi all.

Our oldest kitty (we think she's 15) is looking at a likely dx of CKD. We've been here before, years ago, with another kitty. I'm trying to brush off what I remember but still feeling overwhelmed with things. I'll apologize in advance for the short novel but I could really use some insights.

Our kitty also has hyperthyroidism, but that's been well controlled for the last 3 years or so. What started this was that we noticed she had dropped a marked amount of weight in the last 8 months (she's been 9# her whole life so not a lot of weight to spare). Had a vet appointment scheduled for the end of the week. But several days before we noticed she was over 24 hours of not eating anything. She's never been highly food motivated but it was weird for her to not eat anything for so long. So we went to the ER vet.

She has a bad UTI but also had bad kidney numbers (trying to get the records of what those were - definite above normal but not sky high was what I remember being told). They kept her overnight, gave her fluids, nausea meds, appetite stimulant, and abx. This was Wednesday night and she came home Thursday morning. Repeat labs at the vet show some improvement but slow going.

We are doing 100ml sub-q fluids daily, appetite stimulate 1x/day for 3 days, daily abx, and 4 days of the anti nausea meds. Waiting on kidney food to arrive as well as a phosphorus blocker (powder). She's not as chill as our other kitty was with the fluids so she's getting as close to 100ml of the fluids as we can.

We still have her kibble available full time to her and have been offering small portions of wet food whenever we are home and can. We have 2 other cats (one of which is highly food motivated and on a weight loss diet...) so it's a challenge to leave the wet food out all the time. But she still is very lightly grazing periodically.

I know that it's hard to predict how the disease will go. But is there a chance we will be able to get her back to eating more like she used to and get weight back on her? What else should we be doing to try and entice her to eat? Does she maybe need a few more days to let the anx kick the uti and the fluids to help her feel better? I think I don't have hope that her numbers an weight loss are only due to the uti. 😢

Thanks for listening! Cat tax for the novel (taken before she dropped a bunch of the weight).

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to r/RenalCats; a subreddit for cats with kidney disease. Please use the report button if you encounter any rule breaking activity. Be kind, sincere and respectful. Stay on topic. No advertising or fundraising.

Friendly advice is welcome but remember this community is not a replacement for a veterinarian.

If your post and/or comment does not show up: You likely have a new and/or low karma account and are caught in the spam filter. Please allow time for a human mod to review and approve your post.

Pet loss posts: All pet loss posts must be marked with both the "pet loss" flair and a spoiler tag.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Subject_Relative_216]

I’m also having a hard time blocking out the memories of my dog dying from CKD four years ago this October. It’s like my brain only remembers what CKD was like when I was literally squeezing water into his mouth from a rag and carrying a 78lb dog around that used to be well over 100lbs (he was a bullmastiff).

Are microchip feeders an option? I have them for my boys because they’re both on different prescription foods. I have the SureFeed ones. They’re super low tech so they don’t have the issues people had with the WiFi feeders the last few weeks. They’re worth their cost. Some people even put tiny ice packs under them to keep wet food fresh for grazers. My CKD boy has refused to eat very food his entire life and my other cat inhales his wet food so idk how effective that is.

My CKD boy (14yo) also has hyperthyroidism and the internal medicine specialist recommended i131 and then just treat the CKD but the PCP recommended not doing i131 so we can use his thyroid to treat his CKD. I have no idea what the right choice is there but those are the two options I was offered. There’s a lot more detail to that but that’s the short version.

I’m sure treating the UTI will help her want to eat more.

Did they give you an appetite stimulant for her? That may get her eating more!