My cat has kidney issues. Is vet-prescribed food best or supplements?

Many cats with renal disease get picky with food so you may end up trying all the brands at some point or alternating between them. You need to feed Mercy a prescription diet for the renal disease. The brand Royal Canin tends to be the most palatable. They make 3 varieties of kibble and 3 varieties of canned food that are all for renal disease. They have different smells/textures...etc so just pick a bag (or all 3) and try it. You will need to ask your normal veterinarian about continuing the milk thistle. The renal diets are lower in protein, higher in fat and higher in fatty acids/antioxidants and this can be beneficial for the liver depending on the cause of liver elevations. Your normal vet will best advise you. I hope this helps and please feel free to post any additional questions.

Prescription kidney diets have proven to improve both quality and length of life in pets with poor kidney function. They are formulated to reduce the amount of work required for the kidneys by reducing the amount of waste products produced from food as well as containing tightly balanced mineral, vitamin, omega fatty acid and protein levels and work best in wet forms or where good water intake can be encouraged. The larger proportion of the diet the better, any additional food sources should be highly digestible and suitable for pets in kidney failure, blood tests would be recommended 3-4 weeks after any diet changes to ensure no negative impacts develop

In general, foods low in sodium and phosphorus are good choices for patients with kidney disease. The best fatty acid supplement you can provide in my opinion to your kitty is this: https://www.chewy.com/nutramax-welactin-feline-omega-3-cat/dp/101463?utm_source=google-product&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=f&utm_content=Nutramax&utm_term=&gclid=Cj0KEQjwv_fKBRCG8a3ao-OQuZ8BEiQAvpHp6BoPUzdXnGydlce04vEekIBtBBc1AgMnoFoND3oiRtgaAupp8P8HAQ&gclsrc=aw.ds It is easy to dose and generally considered palatable by most cats. I think it is a perfectly fine idea to use them in your kitty.

There are many options, the one change which is proven to extend life expectancy and quality is to convert to a specialist kidney diet, preferably wet kidney food. These are enriched with antioxidants and b vitamins, contain highly digestible protein to reduce the amount of work the kidneys need to do and are high in antiinflammatory omega fatty acids. A kidney tonic such as pronefra can also help. Regular blood and urine testing to track progress is important as additional measures to treat high phosphorous, urine protein loss and high blood pressure may need to be added over time

We always say that it doesn't matter how good a food is if the pet won't eat it. This is especially true with cats. Your goal with a diet for a kidney patient is to avoid foods that are too high in protein, so you will want to avoid any kitten foods. Most non-prescription diets are very similar in their protein levels because they are made for the needs of an average adult cat. If Cricket was previously on a dry food, I found the best way to get my cat to eat canned food was to grind up dry food, then sprinkle it on the top of his canned food to get him eating. I am attaching a link to a handout below with tips to transition a cat onto canned food. https://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&S=0&C=0&A=3041 Since Cricket has been a fussy eater, the most important thing will be to find a food that she likes. I have found that cats tend to like Fancy Feast the best, so that might be an option if you can't find something else that she will eat. Good luck! I hope that was helpful. Thanks for using PetCoach.

The best supplement for kidney health is water. There are not any specific supplements other than that are known to prevent kidney problems. There are supplements that are important for them to get when they are in kidney failure, but are not necessary before then. Canned food is a good way to encourage water intake and you can even add a little more water to it for increased water consumption. It's also good to have fresh, clean, water always available. I hope that helps and all is well with Mel.

Renal diets are very effective for cats with kidney disease -by reducing the amount of toxins the kidneys are required to excrete many of the symptoms can be reduced; they are also naturally antiinflammatory and enriched with vitamins etc and are proven both to extend life expectancy and quality of life. The larger proportion of the diet that is made of of kidney food, the more effective it is however calorie intake is very important and tempting or supplementing the diet with easy to digest protein sources such as egg, boiled chicken or fish is ok (for some clinical diets this is not appropriate but for kidney patients it is better than not eating the special diet)