troublesniffer repliedElsie,

Here is one of the best articles around about this condition and diet information. I have a cat that is showing some symptoms and is borderline CRF, but my holistic vet is very adamant that Hills is a lousy food, actually, as it is really poor nutrtion. Vets sell rx foods as a business, and most vets don't really get a whole lot of training in feline nutrition. Of course, you should not feed your healthy cat any rx diet that is made for a medical condition. That is not the proper nutrition for them at all.

Read this article, please and do try and find a holistic vet who can give you alternatives of excellent nutrition and other resources to help your kitty. There is a huge controvery going on about CRF diets right now, but this article makes a lot of sense and is completely in synch with my vet's recommendations.

http://www.catsofaustralia.com/cat-kidne...

Also you might join the CRF group on Yahoo for support.
http://groups.yahoo.com/phrase/crf-only


Those folks are dealing with the problem and have a lot of resources and information available to help. Cats can live a long time, depending on the severity of the condition, adding sub q fluids when needed to help, as well. Your vet can teach you how to administer this treatment. Many people use it with no problems at all to extend a high quality of life for their kitties.

Good luck with your kitty and I do hope you get some really good information about how to handle your CRF kitty. I had one who lived two years with treatment and a diet which supported her... not Hills!

Troublesniffer
Owned by cats for over 40 years
Freelance writer/blogger for http://www.petside.com/

theshadowknows repliedWe also dealt with crf for many years and this is a controversial subject.

First, you must understand the problem. Cats are strict carnivores and require a high amount of protein. All protein contains phosphorus and no one has figured out how to separate the two. High protein is not dangerous to a crf cat but phosphorus can build up and become a problem.

There are studies that have shown that feeding a crf cat a diet of restricted protein (and thus phosphorus) increases their life span. However, the studies were conducted using commercial foods with low quality protein, which is a suspected cause of crf. So it would make sense that reducing the amount of low quality protein intake would harm the kidneys less.

There is another recent study that seemed to indicate that it was not necessarily the amount of protein fed, but the quality of protein fed. Poor quality foods are hard on the kidneys, while high quality foods are easier to digest and puts less stress on the kidneys.

We treated our crf cat under this assumption and she did very well. We fed a diet of high quality protein for 5 years and her BUN/CREA numbers never really increased.

Of course, if your cat has advanced CRF with high numbers (phosphorus greater than 6) you must restrict phosphorus or use a phosphorus binder.

Maintaining adequate hydration in a crf cat is also critical, so wet food is highly recommended, along with the addition of fluid therapy, if required.

It is also important to remove as many toxins as possible from the cats environment in order to preserve the remaining good kidney cells.

You should not feed low protein foods to your healthy cat. You must begin to feed them individually, because as time goes on, your crf cat will require foods or foods mixed with medications that your healthy cat should not have.

Melanie repliedSorry to hear about your kitty. You actually want to have lower protein and lower phosphorus, that is why your vet wants to put her on the prescription food. He probably wants to put her on Hill's Science Diet k/d, it is good. There is also a Purina NF diet that works great for kidney failure cats, although it has higher sodium, the prescription diets are best when you have a medical problem, although most of the science diet foods are ok to use, usually going with a senior formula. It is safe for your healthy cat to eat it, it is just more expensive. The canned and wet food are both good, the extra moisture from the canned food is important although if your cat doesn't like wet food, then you can just add water to the dry food and let it soak up a little bit (for about 5 minutes) before feeding it to your cat.

Good luck.

Ken repliedhi
Very good questions and I am so glad that you are researching and questioning.
First off, hills foods, all of it are very horrible.
I would also stop with 'hairball ' food, Dry food dehydrates and it just doesn't make sense when with crf you need to give fluids for dehydation.
I am from the other camp. The idea behind the script foods is that lower protein makes the kidneys do less work. What it doesn't account for is that cats ared canivores and basically survive on protein.
The best place to get your answers is where there are many people dealing with the same thing as you are. I have linked the group at the bottom of this post. Best of luck and here is my usual cf post
Treatment of Chronic Renal Failure

If your cat is not in final stages, this is not want you want to do. You do not want to put your cat on the
Vets low protein diet. There are simply so many better options out there than to hand the poor cat a low amount of poor quality protein - which often results in a poor appetite and muscle wasting since the body is now robbing its own muscle mass to feed itself a decent quality and amount of protein.
. There are new thoughts on this and the thinking is it is not the amount of protein but the quality of protein that matters.
The Merck veterinary manual [www.merckvetmanual.com] says that cats need "4 g of protein of high biologic value per kg body wt/day". That's about 7 calories from protein per pound body weight per day. If a cat isn't a good eater and consumes, say, 20 calories per pound per day, then 7/20 = 35% of calories can safely be from protein. It must be high quality protein, which means meat, fish, milk, and eggs, and not grain or soy.

I am under the assumption that you have been feeding mostly dry foods. Many use a vegetable based protein instead of animal and that is part of the problem.. Your cat needs protein as it is a carnivore and cutting down on it will lead to other health issues and may cause faster degeneration.
You want to cut down on phosphorous (no fish allowed now)

The best way to do this is with a raw diet which you can make yourself or buy. (Making yourself is better) link provided at the bottom
If you are unwilling to do that then something like the non fish flavors of Wellness or Merrick with NO grains are good alternatives. Wysong is also a good canned choice. This list gives a breakdown. Remember you want low phosphorous
http://www.geocities.com/jmpeerson/CanFo...

You should be giving sub-Q fluids as needed.


You also will want to look into phosphorous binders. Something like aluminum hydroxide
Ask your vet or look into calcitrol


You may want to talk to the vet about having injectable Pepcid AC on hand or you can buy it in pill form (ac not plain pepcid) and give 1/4 tab for stomach upset which happens a lot in crf cats due to acid in the stomach.
I hope this stuff helps, here are many links for you
Making cat food
http://www.catinfo.org/makingcatfood.htm
other links. Read, read, read!!!!
http://www.felineoutreach.org/EducationD...
http://www.marvistavet.com/html/kidney_f...
http://www.felinecrf.org/
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Felin...
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Felin...

About that vets diet. This report is for dogs but applies to cats
http://mousabilities.com/nutrition/crf/b...
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Opera/21...

J C repliedI'll tell you my opinions and my experiece with feeding CRF cats.

First, let's say that cats bodies crave protein. To feed them a low protein diet is very unnatural, and many refuse to eat it. The conventional thinking is that by limiting protein you limit the strain on the kidneys in processing it. But if a cat won't eat, then what?

The low protein diets are NOT healthy or suitable for feeding your other cat. Few prescription diets are suitable for feeding a healthy cat, and I think the low protein diets are the worst for a healthy cat. I would NOT feed Hills in any case, they really have low quality ingredients and most are just full of by-products. If you must feed a prescription diet, look into the Royal Canin ones. They have a renal diet as well, and you have two choices in the canned food. Better quality ingredients than Hills, but not all vets carry it.

There are two schools of though when it comes to kidney diets. One is the low protein, the other is the high quality protein, low phosphorus school. That's the one I've chosen to follow. The vets who support that way of thinking say that it's appropriate for cats in kidney failure, except the end stage of the disease. The other thing you can do is feed an all-canned diet - the moisture is good for the kidneys and other organs. What little dry you feed should have a phosphorus content of 1% or less.

At first my vet was opposed to the diet I was feeding my kidney-compromised cat, but we're maintaining him very well on it and it's now been 6 years since his initial diagnosis. His weight is good, his kidney numbers have dropped to just one tick above normal, and he eats readily. His diet is mostly canned - Wellness, Merrick, Weruva - all high-quality protein, no fillers, no junk. The small amounts of dry they are fed include Wellness, California Natural, and EVO. I'd feed all EVO but it's phosphorus content is too high.

At this point, what I would do is limit the dry food, and switch it to one that's got no by-products (that's junk - a very low quality protein source and it has to be hard on the kidneys to process that). Two foods that have high-quality protein and an acceptable phosphorus content are Wellness and California Natural. Any canned is good, even the Authority you are feeding. Increase the canned, and encourage water drinking. Many cats enjoy a fountain, and that does increas their water consumption.

Yahoo has a group for CRF cats - I'd encourage you to join that as you'll get many real life success stories for managing CRF cats. There really is more to treating a CRF cat than plunking down a bowl of Hill's K/D.

leopardshaz repliedWith anything as serious as this research or not you need to consult with your vet as each cat is an individual and your vet will need to ascertain a few points before diagnosis and advice on diet.Yes HILLS is good but you need the right one and the right feeding amount which only a vet can advise in a qualified manner on as no amount of research can substitute for qualified veterinarian advice and expertise as well meaning as you are and caring as you are.

old cat lady repliedYou can probably find a copy of "Homeopathic Care for Cats and Dogs" by Don Hamilton, DVM in your local library.

It would be instructive to read his chapter on Urinary Problems for cats. It was published at least ten years ago and Dr. Hamilton feels strongly that it is the QUALITY of the protein and not the quantity that is important in the diet. Science Diet does not have QUALITY protein.

Many vets have now recognised that low protein is not helpful for cats with renal insufficiency. The research supporting the low protein is over 40 years old and was done on RATS - hardly applicable to cats.