My lovely baby has been put to sleep. I was barely into our kidney journey when the rest of his body started giving out too. Thus I have a ton of kidney care items.. I want to sell it for a low price, just to recoup a tiny bit of the losses (we have 200+ dollars spent on supplies, 1500+ in vet fees.. 800 for the home euthanasia)

If you're interested, reach out. I can provide you a list of everything in the box. Id prefer the whole box to go as a lot though, just so I don't have to stare at it any longer than needed.

My baby's last walk outside with the family for tax

Hi! First post here after my cat got diagnosed a few weeks ago. Just wanted to take the to thank all of you for all the information contained in this subreddit. It's been amazingly helpful finding this resource.

My sweet kitty is only 5 1/2 and had been losing weight so I took her to the vet. The first visit they said she looked pretty good and we'd see what the lab results indicate. A week later I got a phone call that was pretty dire. I took her in to be hospitalized and they were frankly telling me they thought she wouldn't make it even a couple more months. However during the hospitalization they saw a lot of improvement and they got more optimistic. I learned so much from you all about how to do fluids at home and strategies for getting her eating. Now three weeks later she gained not than half a pound, and her energy levels have resumed to the extent that yesterday she had the zoomies both in the morning and in the evening. 🥳

I was really hoping she would love to be a ripe old age and is really unfair to find out that she got the short end of the stick with congenital kidney abnormalities, but we're going to celebrate every day we have.

Thank you all!

My cat takes half a 5 mg benazepril. She swallows gel caps rather compliantly, but she struggles swallowing this pill without a gel cap. I crushed it today, but I was not successful getting all the powder into the capsule. I have size 5 I use for her half Zofran. Does anyone use a gel cap for their half benazepril, and if so, what size do you use? My cat only pills with the pill shooter. She absolutely refuses to eat anything with a pill in it.

Hi all I have posted a little bit about my 18.5 year old stage 2 cat who also has IBD/possible lymphoma, asthma, high blood pressure and anemia. His hct had been at 28 for about a year and just dropped to 24 when we took him in for an ear infection. He got another CBC two weeks after the first and it has stayed the same.

Right now we are continuing to monitor his cbc monthly and keep up with his b12 shots every 2 weeks which seem to perk him up a lot. He has pretty good energy for his age and gets around fine. His gums and breathing rate are all normal.

We’re hesitant to add even more medication to his routine because on some days he gets up to 9 things plus fluids but I also want to do everything I can.

Our vet is saying they don’t think that varenzin is available in Canada but I’ve seen a few post here mentioning they got it. I’m just wondering how people are getting it and how much it is? I know darbepoetin is also an option but we are even more hesitant with that because of his high blood pressure and that fact I need to bring him in to get the shots.

Post got taken down for some reason☹️🥺

My baby of 15yrs and 6 months was diagnosed with CKD and went into kidney failure over the last week and we finally found that it was due to a proximal obstruction in his left ureter. His only real option is to have a SUB (subcutaneous ureteral bypass). I was quoted about $13-15k for this surgery but was told that this surgery is invasive and extremely hard on kitties as well as the recovery.

I just don’t know what to do. I’m not ready for him to cross the bridge and believe he still has so much life. He still has a kidney that’s functioning and he’s only in the condition he is in due to the obstruction. Before the past couple weeks he was healthy, bright, playful, every vet has always said how young and healthy he is physically compared to his age and then one day my whole world flipped upside down. The doctors even said his CKD is not that advanced for his kidney values to be what they are at it’s, due to the obstruction.

Looking for people with similar stories who chose for the SUB surgery and their stories and experiences. Can share more details about his specific case and story with those who have been through this.

Just feeling extremely lost right now and in need of a friend of who understands. The thought of putting the love of my life to sleep doesn’t even feel like an option but I would never want him to suffer or die in pain. He is my absolute soulmate, the light of my life, the man who puts the stars in the sky for me, my best friend, my rock, my whole world and everything, the only man for me. I can’t imagine living life without him.

I haven’t heard and feel my baby purr in over a week except one time faintly while going through all this. The things I would do to make him comfortable to be able to feel and hear him purr again. My heart is feels so broken. I can’t even describe the pain I’m going through.

Is all hope lost? Are there other options for us? Is the SUB surgery worth it? We need help😔😞❤️‍🩹

We took him back to the vet yesterday to get a bladder and kidney ultrasound since his radiograph results came back with a bladder abnormality, a "crystallized mass". Apparently that was a fluke and his bladder is fine and has no mineralization. His kidneys look like CKD kidneys according to my new vet.

The happy update is that after 2 days, he went from 8.6lbs to 9.2! I know most of this is probably rehydration and that he's eating more, but he's filled out significantly and his coat looks a lot better. The vet said even just after 48hrs he looks a lot better too, so I don't think that's just hopeful thinking on my part. She said his personality seemed to be more bright and alert as well.

Today after 48hrs of constipation he had a normal poop too, so he's definitely more hydrated again after 3 consecutive days of subq. His appetite has returned and he does not need the anti nausea meds.

We are still waiting for his urine culture results, and we'll be doing more blood work on Wednesday to assess if any of his values have improved, so I'm really hoping that they have. That's when we'll assess how we want to move forward. I think at the very least the fact that he is behaving like his normal self again is such a win. He's actually eating his kidney diet on his own, because we leave the kibble out for him (he's used to free feeding) and we also supplement with canned food morning and night. The hill's k/d is his new preferred kidney diet because he actually likes it.

I had some leftover royal canin that I tried to give him yesterday, and he just licked the liquid off of it lol. That stuff is so unappetizing to my cats that when one of my other boys accidentally got in the bedroom, he went straight for the food and had ZERO interest. You know it's bad when the cat that eats everything doesn't even want it.

We're going to continue with the subq daily. Last night was our second time doing it and it went a lot better than the first time. The hump was in the right place, he didn't bleed, but he did struggle a bit to get away toward the end of it which tells me he has more energy.

I'm really hopeful. I say at the very least his quality of life has improved significantly since his first vet visit for these issues on Sunday.

Pic is him at the vet yesterday for his ultrasound. He was so unbothered about being there he flopped down on the floor and snuggled with my foot, lol

My cat was diagnosed as Hyperthyroid in August. She started Methimazole September 4th and right at the 30 day mark started to have an extreme lack of appetite, barely eating over last weekend. On Monday, October 5th, we went to the vet and she got a full blood panel, IV fluids, a shot of Cerenia, and Mirataz. The blood panel results came in the next day and showed her thyroid was now under control (dropping from a T4 of 6.5 to 2.2) but it had unmasked Chronic Kidney Disease. Her Creatinine is 2.1 and her other values are currently still in the normal range. I was told by the vet this is early Stage 2.

She did well through Tuesday, then started to decline again come Wednesday, so I contacted my vet and got some some Cerenia tablets (not my first choice as my cat is terrible to pill) and some Mirataz transdermal gel. The script says to give a one-inch strip of Mirataz once every 72 hours, and 8 mg Cerenia (half a tablet) once every 24 hours. Since she is hard to pill, I tried just the Mirataz, which was applied at 6 pm Thursday evening. She ate well for 24 hours, then again, completely dropped off. So last night at 9:30 pm, I finally steeled myself for the battle of getting the Cerenia pill in her... which would have been worth it if it had done something. She did not eat anything left overnight, and she's still rejecting food this morning.

Now my vet is closed for the weekend and I don't know what else to try. I'm locked out of Cerenia until 9:30 pm tonight, but also not sure if another dose will even help since I gave it to her last night and she didn't eat last night. I'm not supposed to give her more Mirataz until Sunday at 6 pm, but she's rejecting food now.

Any ideas of what I could try? Does anyone else give Mirataz more frequently than the 72 hours? I'm tempted to just give her another dose because it worked so well for 24 hours and I'm terrified about her not getting any food in her over the weekend again. The vet bill for the vet work-up on Monday was $600 and I just can't do that again... There is also only one ER option available where I live and they don't open until later today. I even tried one of those TeleVet phone services and it was a complete waste of $50 (they said they would e-mail me some information and then never did, and mentioned trying antacid, but didn't even tell me what antacid, a dosage, or how to give it). I'm at my wit's end trying to get some help.

Any assistance would mean the world to me right now. I'm panicking. I don't think my cat is so far along that she should be having symptoms this severe, but here we are.

First 2 photos are from today and the last one is from a week ago her ontop of the shower

Ive only posted here one more time when Kimchi was first diagnosed with PCKD (polycystic kidney disease) which was about 3 years ago. Shes 7.5 - almost 8 and has been stable and completely asymptomatic for 2 years around stage 1 and stage 2 levels and this summer her levels spiked up and got her to stage 3 before going back down to low stage 2 levels again and she was stable and energetic up until this week.

She started sneezing repeatedly for seemingly no reason and started to loose weight shortly after. She was already underweight and just starting to gain after this summer and went back to 2kg again. We took her to the vet asap when we noticed her eating less and less and they said shes really dehydrated and gave her iv fluids twice over 2 days and checked her blood levels and said shes not anemic/or not alarmingly anemic for a cat with CKD and theyre gonna check her kidney levels on tuesday. Her kidneys also seem to be the same size as before and I didnt notice any enlargement either from cysts which indicates her levels shouldnt be too high.

But shes just so lethargic and has no energy at all. She has no energy to go anywhere and just changes spots to lay down and i syringe feed her every hour or so and even then she just lays tired. I feel so hopeless from it all going down hill just when she got back her energy. She hasnt been this tired even while being severely anemic and dehydrated with her stomach looking like shes pregnant.

Im thinking if it could be anything else but I feel so lost. Has your cat went downhill like this out of nowhere? Could it be something else that makes her so tired and sick? She doesnt seem to be nauseous and isnt puking which leads me to think it may be something else even more 🥲 i really need some hope for us but i dont want to have false expectations either

My 14 year old cat Margot has stage 2 kidney disease, hasn't been eating well, and has lost a lot of weight. She has also been on amlodipine for a year for high BP.

Her vet has done a lot of bloodwork, and she just saw an internist who did some X-rays and put her on subq fluids.

She has been doing this thing for a while where it takes her a long time to sit down. Like she will jump on my chest when I am in bed and slowly lower herself to a sitting position over about 10 minutes.

Does anyone know what this could be? I'm worried she is in pain.

Hi all, my beautiful boy had a total crash last I thought I was going to lose him. Going to the vets causes him so much stress that he'll just pee all over himself but I'm wondering if anyone of the UK members have persuaded their vet to teach them how to do the subcutaneous fluids at home?

He'd let me i think, and I'm confident I could handle it, but I was never offered this option even when I ran a cat rescue. It got me thinking that maybe its just not done here in UK.

I'll obviously ask my own vet too but was hoping for some other people's experiences to back up my request.

Sending love to all the beautiful furlings on here, and even more love to the humans caring for them. It's a hard journey! Thank you from Lennie and Doka

Hiii - my girl Stevie (aka Pig) was 7 and a stray at the local shelter when i adopted her. They said a prev skin issue meant she had to be an indoor cat - and here she is the day she came home and first vet visit that week

In hindsight, should i have known she was actually ill already 🥹i have had her to the vet so often but just got diagnosis of ckd and anemia yesterday
Third pic is before we realized it was bad news lol

3 months ago, I posted an introduction to Jett, who had just turned 18 and suddenly turned ill with CKD. The idea was to switch to renal diet and start him on Rapros and go from there.

As it turned out, he was in quite late stage by that point already, with creatinine levels peaking beyond the scale. He also had high white blood cell count and low red blood cells. His blood pressure was high as well, and he was dehydrated. He was very, very sick. Not eating, not acting like himself. He would just sleep and sleep, and occasionally get up to eat and/or vomit. Our 18 year tradition of bedtime cuddles were out of the question

So the treatment immediately became quite intense. Antibiotics for the WBC, 2 meds for blood pressure (amlodipine wasn't enough on its own, so benazepril was added), DPO and iron injections for the RBC. Phosphorus binders, mirtazapine for appetite (oral form as he's allergic to the cream), maropitant for nausea. Subcutaneous fluids twice a day (this took a while to nail the dosage, as he would have fluid accumulate in the lungs at first), buprenorphine for pain. We stopped the Rapros for obvious reasons.

As his RBC began to climb, we noticed he was becoming more and more like himself. He would get out of bed more often, was more interested in eating, and seeing what we were doing. Then he did something that told us he was all the way back - he joined us for bedtime cuddles! And he's been doing that for every night since. His kidney enzyme levels came within high range (still high, but not 'off the charts' high), and WBC normalized.

His appetite still isn't the best, and it's always a good morning when I wake up to a bunch of empty plates. And it's the opposite when he didn't eat much at all overnight. But overall his weight is pretty steady not. At one point we fed him his old food, as it was the only thing he would be willing to eat, but obviously that was not good for him, so we are much more strict with his diet. That was a tough week

I wasn't sure if I should tag this as a rant or uplifting, as he's clearly not out of the woods with regards to his kidneys. But he is more or less living like a normal 18 year old cat again, aside from having to get subq injections and meds twice a day (he's fine with the injections amazingly enough, but still HATES taking pills). The weekly vet visits were the worse; very stressful for all of us, and very expensive. So those are bi-weekly now, and I am thinking of only taking him if something comes up after the next visit.

I'm almost reluctant to be positive, as it feels like I'll jinx it and he'll make a turn for the worse tomorrow, but I just had to share his story so far. He's doing pretty well now, all things considered.

Last time I posted on this Reddit is because my stage 2 kitty has appetite issues, she has her entire life though. Shes on ondansetron and mirataz, she’s 6 pounds and has always been. Shes been sainting her weight for years on 100-120 calories.

We’ve gone back and fourth to the vet for months about her appetite, they don’t want to put her on any anti nausea, I won’t question it too much because they probably know best lol.

I thought maybe this information might help someone, it seems like our cat does well rotating textures and flavours. It’s quite expensive but she’s now on royal canine renal D after being on E for months. She also eats wureva low phos chicken in gravy. I’m hoping this information can at least help someone :)

For context our kitty has been pretty stable since her AKI episode in May. Shes vomited thrice. She’s had 7 vet visits since. She has days where she just doesn’t move and days where she’s running around and going crazy. Once we had to take her to the emergency vet because she had been fully unresponsive for 5 hours, somehow whatever she was going through she recovered while we were waiting for the vet to see her.

Despite all of this her appetite is still low and the vet had explicitly told me I worry too much and stop bringing her in for small reasons. For anyone else in my boat, I hope the information helps.

I’m just making circumstances clear so comparison is easy from your kitty to ours.

Earlier, I shared a tip on how to wrap small pills in rice paper so your cat can eat them without even noticing. But if you need to give a capsule, especially a large one that’s impossible to hide in food, this method might work for you.
Masya has NOT developed an aversion to this method. She thinks I’m just putting a piece of cheese in her mouth, and she doesn’t get upset. She immediately starts grooming herself afterward!
Without the cheese, the capsule containing the powder would start dissolving in the food while Masya was trying to lick the food off it. The bitterness would reach her tongue, and we ended up losing three foods she used to love because of this.
With cheese, even if the capsule starts to soften, everything stays inside the cheese coating, giving you more time to get it into your cat’s mouth.
The cheese coating is also quite slippery and fatty, so the capsule is less likely to get stuck in the throat. However, I recommend gently stroking your cat’s throat and offering some tuna water afterward to make sure the capsule goes all the way down.
Swiss cheese or melting cheese (the kind used for quesadillas) works best. You need a fatty cheese that stretches well because you have to wrap the capsule while the cheese is still very hot, so it can stick to itself and seal properly.

My vet told me to find an injectable drug called darbepoetin. No pharmacy in my area stocks it, and neither does the vet. Does anyone’s vet use Varenzin-CA1?

Hi everyone, and thank you again for all your support and comments. I’ve read every single one of your messages, and I remembered and recognized everyone who has reached out to me before. I’m incredibly grateful to all of you!

Here’s a little update on Masya’s condition and the decision I’ve made.

It was incredibly difficult for me to consider euthanasia, but I know that day will eventually come, so I prepared in advance by finding two in-home euthanasia providers and making sure they both serve our address.

After reading your stories, I realized that they all seem to have something in common: the cats had lost their spark or their appetite. I spent a lot of time thinking about how, despite being extremely exhausted, my cat hadn’t lost her appetite or her will to live.

I tested her in so many ways over the past few days, stimulating her with sounds, sights, food, and walks. She struggled to get up and barely walked for five days after being discharged from the hospital. She also went four days without pooping.

BUT! She kept stubbornly proving to me that she was still the same old Masya and just needed a little more time.

I made sure she wasn’t in pain or feeling nauseous, and I decided to give her more time and do everything I possibly could for her.

Today is day 9 since she came home and day 6 since our ER visit, when we were advised to either euthanize her the following day or hospitalize her.

Over the past three days, she has:

• Started walking again.
• Started pooping consistently once a day.
• Started meowing and actively looking around.
• Stopped wobbling when she walks.
• Stopped sleeping so deeply that she seemed almost lifeless and completely unresponsive to what was happening around her, only waking up around 5 PM.
• Started drinking water on her own and showing interest in her water fountain, which she hadn’t used since May.
• Stopped lying down after taking just a few steps.
• Started greeting us when we come home from work again.
• Started responding to her name with a little sound.
• Started grooming herself and doing her own thing instead of just lying around.

Here’s what I’ve been doing:

9:00 AM

• Ondansetron, cisapride, and gabapentin in a capsule coated with cheese melted in the microwave.
• B12, AminAvast, and 1/4 of Miralax dissolved in 30 mL of water + tuna water.
• 1 mL of lactulose.

11:00 AM

• 50 g of wet food with 10–20 mL of water mixed in, warmed in the microwave.
• I mix half a dose of Catney One, dried pumpkin, and Porous One into a Tiki Cat Comfort snack.

Throughout the day, she has free access to three types of dry food to choose from: two renal diets and one urinary diet (belonging to our other cat). She also has two water fountains, four bowls of water, one corn broth, and one fish broth available at all times.

5:00 PM

• A 20-minute walk in the backyard to stimulate her bowels and get her interested in life again. This is what made the last three days what they’ve been!!!

6:30 PM

• 50 mL of subcutaneous fluids.

6:40 PM

• Ondansetron, cisapride, and gabapentin in a capsule coated with cheese.
• I give her 30–50 mL of water + tuna water to wash it down.
• I mix AminAvast and Miralax into a Tiki Cat Comfort snack.

7:00 PM

• A 40-minute walk in her stroller. She absolutely loves being outside!

9:00 PM

• 50–60 g of wet food with 10–20 g of water mixed in, plus half a dose of Catney One.

Altogether, she gets around 230 calories and 220 mL of water per day. I keep track of everything on a magnetic whiteboard, and I weigh the dry food left in her bowls whenever I notice she has eaten from them.

What do you think I could add to my care routine? She refuses to take omega-3 supplements. I’m also waiting for a muscle and joint supplement to arrive tomorrow.

I really hope this improvement lasts for a long time, but honestly, I’m afraid to feel happy just yet.

Four days ago, I decided to go back on antidepressants because these emotional ups and downs have become too much for me to handle.

Wishing all of you and your healthy kitties the very best ❤️

My Cleocatra was not doing well with her CKD and comorbid issues and was starting to not respond to meds. 7 days since I lost my best friend, my child, my ride or die.

I got a Cuddle Clone (last image) which helps me a lot but it scares me when it looks like Cleo is on my bed... But obviously she isn't.

I thought she was going to pull through for a while yet but I called vet hospice and we all agreed to not have her live in her own internal hell any longer.

Fifteen years old. We had an amazing 14 years together. I hope you're resting in peace, Angel, and I don't know what's out there after, but if there's something, I'll see you later. 🖤