Importance of diet with kidney problems

On 2 Oct 2006 11:56:11 -0700, "Rene S."
wrote:

I'm so sorry! How awful. If it is terminal, spoil him like crazy and
let him eat anything he wants. He deserves it.
Hugs and purrs from my household,
Rene

Well, we got the ultrasound results today and so far it looks like the
cancer hasn't spread. So we decided that we'll give surgery a shot
and hopefully have him around for a few more months or maybe with a
little luck a year or so. Still nervous about the surgery and what
they might find once they open him up but at this point we can't put
him down by choice since the only effects we're seeing is the
constipation...if he passes away on the table or it's too bad in there
and they don't wake him up then we're ok with that...at least we
tried. He's been my buddy for 16 years now and while I've had various
pets my whole life, I've never been attached to one this much. My
only concern is that we don't try to hold on too long once he really
starts to go...but we'll worry about that when the time comes.
Thanks for the advice and kind words everyone's given me.

Nancy Vandermey wrote:

I recommend medi-vet.com (http://medi-vet.com/), I get the powder
potassium supplement from them.

Thanks!

Kathy

Gail Futoran wrote:

My senior Burmese female (died at 18+ in 2004) was on a kidney diet for the
last several years of her life. She did like the Hill's K/D, and I
supplemented that with Sensible Choice Senior. I got the K/D from my vet.
The only place I could find the SCS at that time was online at
www.petfooddirect.com [...]

I did quite a bit of research before I let them eat the senior food and
found nothing negative about feeding younger cats senior food for a period
of time. The young cats are now 6 years old and are quite healthy.

Thanks for the info. I try to monitor the cats at mealtime, but the
boys are so quick to dash over and gobble down Smudge's food that they
regularly succeed in stealing some of it. (I think it's just jealousy
and the idea that she must be getting something better, so they try to
steal it on general principal.) It's reassuring to know that it
probably won't hurt them to get some of it.

--
Kathy - help for new users at http://www.aptalaska.net/~kmorgan/
Good Net Keeping Seal of Approval at http://www.gnksa.org/
OE-quotefix can fix OE:
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/

Kathy Morgan wrote:
Elizabeth wrote:

I looked for an on-line source a couple of weeks ago, when one of my
"old ladies" started having kidney problems. I found a source back
then, but cannot locate it for you today. When I was looking at the
prices a few weeks ago, I did notice that the price/can was not all
that much lower than my local vet, and they had really serious shipping
and handling charges (on the order of $17+ per case of 24 cans).

Thanks for the response. If you do happen to locate the site again, I'd
love to have the link.

this was the one I was looking at before. I have no actual experience
with them

http://www.rxpetfood.com/index.asp?P...ROD&ProdID=293

http://www.rxpetfood.com/index.asp?P...ROD&ProdID=354

The first should take you to Purina NF cans and the second to Waltham
LP pouches.

My "local" vet is 200 miles away and doesn't
usually care a huge inventory, so it's going to be hard for me to get
supplies from him regularly--and they carry only Science Diet. Even an
expensive online source of Purina NF and Waltham Renal LP would give me
a chance to find out if Smudge would be willing to eat either. If she
is willing to eat either one, possibly my vet would be willing to stock
it for me.

Listen, if you contact me on and get me your mailing
info, I'll try to send you a couple of cans of the Purina and a couple
of pouches of the Renal LP to try, before you go to all the expense of
sending for a case of either.

sigh I try to feed my kitties the highest quality food I can get, but
it turns out to be difficult to get sufficient quantities of foods
they're willing to eat. There are three pet stores and one vet in town
who carry the Science Diet and other quality foods, but to get
sufficient quantities to last 4 cats until the next time I make the 200
mile drive, I usually end up having to go to all of them and buy out
every store's entire stock of the varieties the furry ones are willing
to eat.

wow...I've lived all my life in metro areas. The concept of a "local"
vet being so far away is kinda mind-blowing!

Elizabeth wrote:

Listen, if you contact me on and get me your mailing
info, I'll try to send you a couple of cans of the Purina and a couple
of pouches of the Renal LP to try, before you go to all the expense of
sending for a case of either.

Wow, that's a really kind offer! I'll be emailing you separately.

Smudge is willing to eat the dry feline k/d, but she just won't touch
the canned and I know it would be better for her to eat wet food. I
just made a run to town and saw the vet today. They were out of the dry
k/d, but they called a vet down the street who did have some, so I
brought a couple of bags home with me to tide her over until I can find
an appropriate canned food that she's willing to eat.

While I was in town, I returned a radio receiver collar for use with a
pet containment system for a friend's dogs. I was house & dog sitting
for him when the youngest dog slipped his collar off and chewed the
terminals off the receiver, totally destroying it. I bought a
replacement that turned out to be incompatible, so I took it back. The
store was gracious about crediting me for the full amount, even though
I'd damaged the packaging before discovering it wasn't compatible, but I
had to take the credit in the form of other merchandise. I took their
entire stock of the science diet canned food my other 3 furries will
eat, and still had credit to burn, so the lucky boys got a fancy whicker
2-level cat bed and a new carrier.

Now I have an appropriate sized carrier for each of them. I'd
previously had to make one of them use a slightly undersized
carrier--they're all really big. The most recent addition to the house
is a huge rescued neutered tom who most certainly doesn't fit into the
carrier that comfortably carried his predecessor.

It was a really long day, and the 4 kitties got their dinner very late,
but they've forgiven us for the late dinner. In addition to the fancy
whicker bed, I picked up a new container of catnip then went to
OfficeMax and picked up a new lazer pointer. Smudge pretends she can't
see the red dot, but the three boys take turns chasing it until they're
all panting. Since two of them need to eat less and exercise more,
that's a good thing, and we're very careful not to point it so they're
able to look into the light. We wore out the old pointer, so they're
very pleased at having a new one.

--
Kathy - If you're reading this in your web browser from Google or
similar forum, NNTP "newsreaders" are a better way to access the
content. http://www.aptalaska.net/~kmorgan/how-it-works.html
Links to NNTP newsreaders at http://www.newsreaders.com/