CRF dietary options

Re: CRF dietary options

miranda luck — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 23:04:36 GMT

Thank you everyone (especially Steph for the PM help, advice and support!). I finally found a diet that Fluffy was interested in (Virbac dry renal) and with the gravy of the Royal Canine wet and daily s/c fluids - she is making progress. Today she ate well without a huge amount of encouragement and whilst doing (an enforced) session out in the sun - was seriously interested in the birds, bugs and other stuff going on in the garden! A good sign! Hope to get an appointment tomorrow for bloods, urine and BP and see how we are doing. Thank you again everyone for your suggestions and support.

Miranda and Fluffy x

Re: CRF dietary options

Alison Daff — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 09:25:12 GMT

Hi! Renal Special is slightly different to standard Renal - its main difference is the increased palatability - with this though comes a slightly higher phosphorus level ( 0.3 %v 0.4 %) but both are still low phosphorus diets.

Hope this helps

Ali

Re: CRF dietary options

rcookieuk — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:39:54 GMT

Yes renal special is a different version of the renal food-not sure what is different but is meant to be more palatable. Not sure why they dont replace the original renal with it but are still selling both. We now choose to stock just the renal special since they are generally fussy eaters anyway.

Re: CRF dietary options

miranda luck — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 21:06:20 GMT

Thank you for all the suggestions. She seems to know what is renal diet and what is not! I'm not giving up tho!

Re: CRF dietary options

Lesley M — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 19:32:07 GMT

There is also a Eukanuba renal in pate form. My cat is renal and her favourite flavours are the Royal Canin beef and tuna. She is not keen on their chicken one. They also do an alutray which is quite good.

Re: CRF dietary options

Nicola Smith — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:27:11 GMT

Sorry being thick - is renal special different to normal renal?

Re: CRF dietary options

rcookieuk — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 21:20:21 GMT

Hello,

We have been using the RCW Renal Special dry food over the last year and it seems to be well tolerated, we have a lot more cats on this than hills kd and than the normal royal canin renal food. The rcw renal chicken pouches also seem to be very popular over the other 2 flavours. Using renalzin as well is a good idea.

Dont forget to get your money back for any bags of food your cat wont eat from the reps :)

Re: CRF dietary options

Emma Purnell — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 20:07:43 GMT

We are not a Purina practice but happened to have some wet NF that the practice has given me to feed to my hedgehogs. It tempts anorexic hedgies and is nice and smelly so may be worth a go!

Good luck xx

Re: CRF dietary options

miranda luck — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 19:39:19 GMT

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and suggestions. The good news is that Fluffy has eaten a 75g tin of food over the course of the day. It was a supermarket one (Encore) but as most have suggested (at this point) something is better than nothing. I will do a ring around tomorrow and see if I can get hold of some of the renal diets suggested and see if I can move her over to one that she likes. I've also seen her drinking (should have measured out!) and although her hydration is not brilliant - much better than before her last crash. Thanks again!

Miranda and Fluffy

Re: CRF dietary options

Steph Worsley — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:48:58 GMT

Ok there are several diets out there:

RCW renal, they do chicken, beef and tuna flavours and dry bics (not found palatability that poor to be honest)

Hills do the K/D mince, pate and chunks and dry

Purina do NF wet and dry

Leo Specific renal is wet and dry as well.

Personally I feel eating something is better than a very little of a renal diet, but obviously try and get onto a renal diet if poss, chicken and white fish are good to try and tempt as they have decent proteins

As far as phosphate binders are concerned these should only be used if the phosphorus levels are high otherwise they are pretty pointless.

Sub-cut fluids you ideally should be giving ~10-20ml/kg, we usually start every day (depending on the level of azotaemia)

you could always try an appetite stimulant such as mirtazipine (1/4 tablet every 3rd day) or cyproheptadine (periactin....if you can get hold of it)

I deal with CKD cats all the time so feel free to message me if you want to pick my brains...or go to tyhe FAB site http://www.fabcats.org/owners/kidney/index.php

Re: CRF dietary options

Shelly vn — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:24:34 GMT

What about adding a phosphate binder to her normal food? Renal diet is obviously best for her but something like Renalzin on her normal food is better than nothing

Re: CRF dietary options

Hannah25uk — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:46:13 GMT

Nausea as a result of the toxin build up due to CRF may be causing her not to feel like eating and this is turn can to a food aversion to any of the food offered. Although a kidney diet is the best treatment for kidney disease any food is better than none in helping keep her hydration normal and in good body condition. Have you tried diets like a/d etc to get her appetite back up to as normal as possible, then slowly moving trying to move her over to a kidney diet.

Hills k/d do a minced tin or chunks in pouches and Royal canin also do chunks in pouches which come in beef, tuna or chicken so they may be worth a try.

Hope she picks up soon for you

Re: CRF dietary options

les punton — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:53:30 GMT

kd wet has improved they brought out a mince version which seems to be a bit better, other than renal rcw im not sure (have you tried mushing the renal as she has been through a dental may be uncomfortable)