the old cats get kidney failure. they can not digest food. so they quit eating the dry food at first. then you feed them canned food and they eat some. after a bit, they only lick the juices of the canned food. and they get undernourished and skinnier and bony.
2016, i lost all 3 of my old 15 year old cats due to kidney failure. put down slim shakey in feb., iris died on her own in april, put down beautiful bella in august.
i am so sorry, but sadly, there is no cure. no kidney transplants for cats.
just love him and do your best for him…
@mick That is so sad to loose them all in the same year. And hard. I am afraid this is going to happen with me with my 3 almost 16 year olds - multiple health issues… including one with kidney failure…
@Kidsandliz and on dec. 2nd 2015. i had to put my greatest dog in the world! george down too. he was 13 years old. his hips were gone. i carried him up and down the steps for awhile, until he said, this hurts me too… yes, hurt me a lot, losing 4 of my beloved animal companions in 9 months. but, life is what it is.
i hope this doesn’t happen to you, too…
@mick That is sad… 4 in 9 months. That would be hard.
I just hope I don’t loose 3 of mine that close together. Considering 2 are litter mates and the other is 3 mo older than those two (they are all turning 16 between now and June) I’d say the odds are fairly good for that to happen here too.
@Kidsandliz maybe not, i hope… i have 2 bostons, that are 13 years old, and the last 2 of my siamese cats are also 13. (all the 15 year’s old were also siamese) my old now self, would love to be able to tell my younger self, well not so young than either. lol not to have so many beloved pets the same age!!! i never thought… about them all going away… so close together. so not thinking, i was.
The other related issue is if they don’t get enough food they then also often get liver disease (fatty liver) and that also can kill them pretty quickly. If your kitty is dehydrated you may need to give him fluids under the skin as dehydration can kill them pretty quickly and makes the problems from kidney failure worse. Hopefully your vet is being helpful. Sometimes anti nausea meds help along with appetite stimulants if your kitty isn’t well into stage 4 kidney disease. If they are starting to have liver issues due to not eating enough that often brings on nausea and then they don’t eat much due to that.
If your cat is only drinking a little tuna water likely he is dehydrated. Cats should drink around 1/2 cup water a day if eating dry food. They drink less if eating wet food since it has a higher water content. Dehydration makes the kidney issues worse and they also feel bad then because they then are able to remove even less waste due to being dehydrated. It is tedious to force feed enough water as you have to do it a bunch of time a day. This is where many vets have people use a needle, tubing and saline to put fluid under their skin. Many vets have you do it at home so you aren’t paying a fortune at the vet. It is easy to do.
More than once I had fed one or the other of my cats who weren’t eating baby food (gerber meat and broth only, you don’t want the other kinds for numerous reasons, including garlic and onion are poisonous to cats). I heat it slightly and water it a bit if they aren’t drinking enough water. I have also used a syringe (cut the plastic part back enough that the watered food doesn’t clog it) to force feed.
This yahoo group is for cats with kidney failure https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Feline-CRF-Support
be aware that there are some “natural” “alternative” wackos on that list. Ignore what they say as the scientific evidence doesn’t back that kind of stuff. Be cautious believing those who tell you to use human meds on that list. Ask your vet before trying the previous two kinds of stuff. There is lots of good advice on that list.
I have a nearly 16 year old with hyperthyroid, stage 2 kidney disease and diabetes currently in remission. I have had to force feed him more than one. One time for nearly 3 weeks before he recovered from whatever was causing him not to voluntarily eat enough (also used anti nausea and appetite stimulant which helped). My vet told me he’d live a lot longer if I made sure he had enough water and if he isn’t drinking enough to come in to get what I need to do the sub q (what they call giving them fluid under the skin - doesn’t seem to hurt them when you do it) at home, otherwise he’d die of dehydration pretty quickly.
Good luck. It is really, really sad when our animals get like this. I lost a 13 year old to vaccine caused cancer (which is why they now give those shots in the back leg so all you have to do to cure them is amputate their leg, 1 in 20,000 cats get this cancer), one at 11 due to complications of diabetes, I now have 3 who are nearly 16, and all 3 are hyperthyroid, and the one is also diabetic with the kidney failure. I also have a 6 year old (and her buddy who was the same age, died at 3.5 suddenly one night). I had some more but due to my circumstances I had to find homes for them (they were all younger). I dread the day I lose 3 cats close together due to them all being nearly 16. It just breaks your heart.
@Yoda_Daenerys I went through the above with two cats, mother and son Burmese. The Yahoo Feline-CRF-Support Group was very helpful. I went the sub-Q fluid route with the son for 2-1/2 years, along with a bunch of medications including Norvasc for high blood pressure. The key medication for both kitties was tapazole for hyperthyroidism, as that condition can mask kidney disease. It’s a delicate balance between the two diseases. Be sure to get your cat’s thyroid tested, if you haven’t already. I tried Epogen injections for the mom cata, but unfortunately it didn’t help. If your kitty won’t eat it may be due to acid stomach and/or mouth or throat ulcers. My cat’s appetite improved when I gave him a 1/4 of a 10 mg Pepcid tablet. You might also want to check out http://www.felinecrf.org/
Best of luck to you and your kitty.
Sub q fluids help with kidney problems. When they’re dehydrated, they feel like crap. Ask your vet about giving them at home.
As long as there are no heart or lung issues, this should be okay. But, ask your vet. Sub qs can be nothing short of miraculous. They don’t stop the disease, but the slow it down.
If the kidneys aren’t functioning properly, toxins build up in the body. And that’s one of the problems.
For nine months I gave my cat Mickey fluids (which neither of us enjoyed but we both tolerated once I got the hang of it). She lost of weight, mostly, I think, because she hated the prescription food.
But it was nine months. Luckily for me, her quality of life nosedived literally overnight, to the point where she couldn’t take two steps without falling over, and she couldn’t get out of the litter box, although she kept going into it, so the decision was, while not easy to make, pretty obvious.
That was three years ago, and I’m starting to cry just writing about it. I loved that cat.
Does your cat like dried tuna flakes (bonito flakes)? I give them to my cat straight as a treat, but I hear that you can crush them and sprinkle them on wet food to encourage them to eat.
My 13yo cat has different medical issues, so I don’t have much advice other than hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver which @kidsandliz mentioned) absolutely sucks (and can cause anorexia making terrible cycle), so if he stops eating entirely please don’t hesitate to take him to the vet for appetite stimulants or such.
When my girl cat got a tumor and started getting dehydrated and not hungry, I gave her baby food (as mentioned above) and the best wet food I could find. The vet prescribed subcutaneous fluids at home but I was not able to do it by myself. After some searching around, I found an experienced pet sitter who had done it before and could help.
I’m going through similar decisions, uncertainty and pain with my dog right now. He’s quit eating entirely, the vet thinks it’s cancer, and options are limited due to his age. I hope your baby gets well, or if he does not, I hope he has good quality of life till the end and tells you when he’s ready to go.
my kitty is almost 15. few years back she started grooming the heck outa herself and was a bit fat and had sores all over her belly. vet wanted to just charge me shit tons of money just to find out what was wrong. I figured diabetes was likely. little bit of internet research and i gathered that her food was quite unhealthy for her, as a cat’s natural diet has no carbs, so all the purina type carb rich foods are killing our cats. I now order carb free food. young again is the brand i chose, but there’s others. she now is a normal weight, no sores, and full coat of fur. also just seems much happier in general. It was a bit difficult to get her to eat the new food at first - took me about 3 weeks to get her switched over
I had to put my 15yo cat down for kidney and liver disease last Feb. He lost a lot of weight, had a lot of nausea, and was already a picky eater before the old man health issues. We were mostly successful with baby food and simple cat foods like weruva chicken. Sometimes I made my own plain chicken with broth, pureed into a mash.
I found felinecrf.org helpful, even if all that information is overwhelming. The food table is great.
This was a hard time for me and I feel for you. I hope you have more luck than I did.
@Yoda_Daenerys
I’m so sorry to hear. Even when you can see it coming, and you know there’s no real way around it anymore, it still tears your heart out.
@Yoda_Daenerys I had just lost the last of mine around when you originally posted this, and it just… I couldn’t say much then. And I apologize for that. And my heart extends to you now; I am so sorry for your loss.
If he likes tuna water could you get him to eat some watered down wet food? Tiki is very good if it’s sold near you.
@PantHeist thanks, but that hasn’t worked
btw i always read your name as pan-theist, not pant heist
@Yoda_Daenerys Sorry it didn’t work
and yeah, it was intended pan-theist, but I got a kick out of this thread and changed it.
@PantHeist
Were you working with @LegEndOrNothing?
@Yoda_Daenerys hoping things are better – sorry if I missed an update --:(
for you and your kitty
@AttyVette latest vet visit resulted in some steroids and antibiotics, time will tell if effective.
Big hugs. Mine are all aging.
the old cats get kidney failure. they can not digest food. so they quit eating the dry food at first. then you feed them canned food and they eat some. after a bit, they only lick the juices of the canned food. and they get undernourished and skinnier and bony.
2016, i lost all 3 of my old 15 year old cats due to kidney failure. put down slim shakey in feb., iris died on her own in april, put down beautiful bella in august.
i am so sorry, but sadly, there is no cure. no kidney transplants for cats.
just love him and do your best for him…
@mick That is so sad to loose them all in the same year. And hard. I am afraid this is going to happen with me with my 3 almost 16 year olds - multiple health issues… including one with kidney failure…
@mick sounds familiar, thanks for your thoughts
@Kidsandliz and on dec. 2nd 2015. i had to put my greatest dog in the world! george down too. he was 13 years old. his hips were gone. i carried him up and down the steps for awhile, until he said, this hurts me too… yes, hurt me a lot, losing 4 of my beloved animal companions in 9 months. but, life is what it is.
i hope this doesn’t happen to you, too…
great advice and information, your post below.
@mick That is sad… 4 in 9 months. That would be hard.
I just hope I don’t loose 3 of mine that close together. Considering 2 are litter mates and the other is 3 mo older than those two (they are all turning 16 between now and June) I’d say the odds are fairly good for that to happen here too.
@Kidsandliz maybe not, i hope… i have 2 bostons, that are 13 years old, and the last 2 of my siamese cats are also 13. (all the 15 year’s old were also siamese) my old now self, would love to be able to tell my younger self, well not so young than either. lol not to have so many beloved pets the same age!!! i never thought… about them all going away… so close together. so not thinking, i was.
i wish you… and me, much luck…
@mick I know… I was thinking of playmates for each other and not the other end of their life…
The other related issue is if they don’t get enough food they then also often get liver disease (fatty liver) and that also can kill them pretty quickly. If your kitty is dehydrated you may need to give him fluids under the skin as dehydration can kill them pretty quickly and makes the problems from kidney failure worse. Hopefully your vet is being helpful. Sometimes anti nausea meds help along with appetite stimulants if your kitty isn’t well into stage 4 kidney disease. If they are starting to have liver issues due to not eating enough that often brings on nausea and then they don’t eat much due to that.
If your cat is only drinking a little tuna water likely he is dehydrated. Cats should drink around 1/2 cup water a day if eating dry food. They drink less if eating wet food since it has a higher water content. Dehydration makes the kidney issues worse and they also feel bad then because they then are able to remove even less waste due to being dehydrated. It is tedious to force feed enough water as you have to do it a bunch of time a day. This is where many vets have people use a needle, tubing and saline to put fluid under their skin. Many vets have you do it at home so you aren’t paying a fortune at the vet. It is easy to do.
More than once I had fed one or the other of my cats who weren’t eating baby food (gerber meat and broth only, you don’t want the other kinds for numerous reasons, including garlic and onion are poisonous to cats). I heat it slightly and water it a bit if they aren’t drinking enough water. I have also used a syringe (cut the plastic part back enough that the watered food doesn’t clog it) to force feed.
This yahoo group is for cats with kidney failure
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Feline-CRF-Support
be aware that there are some “natural” “alternative” wackos on that list. Ignore what they say as the scientific evidence doesn’t back that kind of stuff. Be cautious believing those who tell you to use human meds on that list. Ask your vet before trying the previous two kinds of stuff. There is lots of good advice on that list.
I have a nearly 16 year old with hyperthyroid, stage 2 kidney disease and diabetes currently in remission. I have had to force feed him more than one. One time for nearly 3 weeks before he recovered from whatever was causing him not to voluntarily eat enough (also used anti nausea and appetite stimulant which helped). My vet told me he’d live a lot longer if I made sure he had enough water and if he isn’t drinking enough to come in to get what I need to do the sub q (what they call giving them fluid under the skin - doesn’t seem to hurt them when you do it) at home, otherwise he’d die of dehydration pretty quickly.
Good luck. It is really, really sad when our animals get like this. I lost a 13 year old to vaccine caused cancer (which is why they now give those shots in the back leg so all you have to do to cure them is amputate their leg, 1 in 20,000 cats get this cancer), one at 11 due to complications of diabetes, I now have 3 who are nearly 16, and all 3 are hyperthyroid, and the one is also diabetic with the kidney failure. I also have a 6 year old (and her buddy who was the same age, died at 3.5 suddenly one night). I had some more but due to my circumstances I had to find homes for them (they were all younger). I dread the day I lose 3 cats close together due to them all being nearly 16. It just breaks your heart.
@Kidsandliz thanks for sharing
@Yoda_Daenerys I went through the above with two cats, mother and son Burmese. The Yahoo Feline-CRF-Support Group was very helpful. I went the sub-Q fluid route with the son for 2-1/2 years, along with a bunch of medications including Norvasc for high blood pressure. The key medication for both kitties was tapazole for hyperthyroidism, as that condition can mask kidney disease. It’s a delicate balance between the two diseases. Be sure to get your cat’s thyroid tested, if you haven’t already. I tried Epogen injections for the mom cata, but unfortunately it didn’t help. If your kitty won’t eat it may be due to acid stomach and/or mouth or throat ulcers. My cat’s appetite improved when I gave him a 1/4 of a 10 mg Pepcid tablet. You might also want to check out http://www.felinecrf.org/
Best of luck to you and your kitty.
Sub q fluids help with kidney problems. When they’re dehydrated, they feel like crap. Ask your vet about giving them at home.
As long as there are no heart or lung issues, this should be okay. But, ask your vet. Sub qs can be nothing short of miraculous. They don’t stop the disease, but the slow it down.
If the kidneys aren’t functioning properly, toxins build up in the body. And that’s one of the problems.
@lisaviolet he drinks a lot, added some chicken broth for some more calories. he’s really picky but he was ok with this.
@lisaviolet @Kidsandliz @Yoda_Daenerys
For any who don’t know: Sub-q = subcutaneous
This sucks.
For nine months I gave my cat Mickey fluids (which neither of us enjoyed but we both tolerated once I got the hang of it). She lost of weight, mostly, I think, because she hated the prescription food.
But it was nine months. Luckily for me, her quality of life nosedived literally overnight, to the point where she couldn’t take two steps without falling over, and she couldn’t get out of the litter box, although she kept going into it, so the decision was, while not easy to make, pretty obvious.
That was three years ago, and I’m starting to cry just writing about it. I loved that cat.
@craigthom i put my lab down 20 years ago and i still well up when i tell the story.
@craigthom I think people who haven’t loved pets don’t realize just how much we can love them and how they can be such important parts of our life.
I’m sorry, that sucks.
Does your cat like dried tuna flakes (bonito flakes)? I give them to my cat straight as a treat, but I hear that you can crush them and sprinkle them on wet food to encourage them to eat.
My 13yo cat has different medical issues, so I don’t have much advice other than hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver which @kidsandliz mentioned) absolutely sucks (and can cause anorexia making terrible cycle), so if he stops eating entirely please don’t hesitate to take him to the vet for appetite stimulants or such.
I hope you get long, quality time with him.
@ciaccona i’ve never heard of tuna flakes, where do you get those?
@Yoda_Daenerys Asian grocery stores usually.
@Yoda_Daenerys AKA Bonito flakes. They are orangy golden flakes, in case the packaging doesn’t have English on it.
You can buy it for cat treats, but in my experience it’s cheaper to go to an Asian market and buy it as people food.
It is used to make dashi.
@Yoda_Daenerys https://www.amazon.com/Kaneso-Tokuyou-Hanakatsuo-Bonito-Flakes/dp/B0052BGLMS/
I don’t have much to add, but here’s hoping for the best. I lost my doggie last year and it still pains me.
When my girl cat got a tumor and started getting dehydrated and not hungry, I gave her baby food (as mentioned above) and the best wet food I could find. The vet prescribed subcutaneous fluids at home but I was not able to do it by myself. After some searching around, I found an experienced pet sitter who had done it before and could help.
I’m going through similar decisions, uncertainty and pain with my dog right now. He’s quit eating entirely, the vet thinks it’s cancer, and options are limited due to his age. I hope your baby gets well, or if he does not, I hope he has good quality of life till the end and tells you when he’s ready to go.
@moondrake I am sorry the news wasn’t better today.
@moondrake sorry to read this
file you and your beloved pet…
my kitty is almost 15. few years back she started grooming the heck outa herself and was a bit fat and had sores all over her belly. vet wanted to just charge me shit tons of money just to find out what was wrong. I figured diabetes was likely. little bit of internet research and i gathered that her food was quite unhealthy for her, as a cat’s natural diet has no carbs, so all the purina type carb rich foods are killing our cats. I now order carb free food. young again is the brand i chose, but there’s others. she now is a normal weight, no sores, and full coat of fur. also just seems much happier in general. It was a bit difficult to get her to eat the new food at first - took me about 3 weeks to get her switched over
I had to put my 15yo cat down for kidney and liver disease last Feb. He lost a lot of weight, had a lot of nausea, and was already a picky eater before the old man health issues. We were mostly successful with baby food and simple cat foods like weruva chicken. Sometimes I made my own plain chicken with broth, pureed into a mash.
I found felinecrf.org helpful, even if all that information is overwhelming. The food table is great.
This was a hard time for me and I feel for you. I hope you have more luck than I did.
latest news on mutz
thanks again for all the advice and kind words
sadly, we lost mutz on the day we orthodox call ‘holy saturday’
/youtube memory eternal
@Yoda_Daenerys
I’m so sorry to hear. Even when you can see it coming, and you know there’s no real way around it anymore, it still tears your heart out.
Sympathies.
@Yoda_Daenerys I am so sorry - I don’t think we are ever ready to lose our kitties.
@Yoda_Daenerys Sorry for your loss
@Yoda_Daenerys I’m so sorry to hear.
@Yoda_Daenerys I had just lost the last of mine around when you originally posted this, and it just… I couldn’t say much then. And I apologize for that. And my heart extends to you now; I am so sorry for your loss.
@Yoda_Daenerys I’m sorry.
-tears-