Can I feed my senior cat a raw diet on steroids with kidney/thyroid disease?

She can eat just about anything she likes being hyperthyroid, as there are no specific diet recommendations for hyperthyroidism. As long as she continues her medication daily, then she can be on any senior diet food. that she likes. Some recommend high quality brands are Hill's Science Diet, Royal Canin, Eukanuba or Evo. Best of luck with your cat Stascha and her thryoid condition. Take care!

I would not recommend leaving iodine salt out of a diet - while diets that are severely restricted in iodine can help lower T4 levels it is difficult to keep everything else balanced and it sounds like methimazole is working for Beau. While dark meat chicken has less phosphorus than ground beef, I would encourage you to use a board certified nutritionist when formulating a diet, especially for kidney disease. It can be difficult to get everything balanced appropriately. BalanceIT is a good resource: www.balanceit.com

The challenge with chronic kidney disease is that it's often necessary to limit protein intake, but they can be a bit nauseous if their kidney values (BUN and creatinine) are high. Some cats also require supplements of potassium to help keep their electrolytes under control. I don't know specifically what you have available in Brazil with respect to prescription diets, but I usually prescribe either Hill's Science Diet k/d, Purina NF, or Royal Canin renal support. I would start by asking your vet if you could try one of those diets for Sophia - possibly mixed with the A/D to help make it more palatable to her. Ultimately, when it comes to managing cats with kidney disease, it's more important to get them to eat something - anything - over nothing. If you try all of the renal diets and Sophia rejects them all, I would next try any other canned commercial cat food. If she also rejects those, you'll just have to give in and go with the higher protein fish option, such as cooked fresh tuna or salmon. It's not ideal, but what in life is? I hope that everything goes well for Sophia!

From what the blood results are showing your cat is not having any important renal issue at this stage. Hyperthyroidism is well controlled as well. It will be good anyway to keep monitoring renal parameters (Urea and Crea) but adding also the so called SDMA which can indicate early stage renal failure (more sensitive than the other two). I think is a good idea to increase anyway the amount of wet food he is having, and if he likes sardines, of course that is a good option. Hope this answer was helpful, but please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further.

Yes, it is ok to eat renal food, but only as a treat or supplement to the main diet of Hills Rx Senior. Renal food is lower in protein than normal cat food since the kidneys can't handle excess protein when they are failing. So it would be best for long-term health if Tony gets plenty of protein, which is in the senior diet!

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

No that is uncommon. Many cats do not do well with diet changes and he certainly had a poor reaction to the food. Continue with his old diet. If you are unable to give oral medication you can have the medication made into a gel that you can rub on the ear flap where it will be absorbed through the skin. A compounding pharmacy can do this for you. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to help you care for Theo.