Treating Cats with Kidney Disease, the Importance of Blood and Urine tests
You may already know that holistic & conventional veterinary medicine are a big help for kidney cats, but if you’re not aware of how much help there is, let me give you some good news.
We help cats with kidney disease by changing the diet to decrease phosphorus, provide moderate protein. We select drugs that don’t damage the kidneys, and use our drugs in smaller dosages or give them less often as drugs aren’t cleared from the body efficiently, so have longer benefit. We give herbs, such as Rehmannia Eight, which is also called Si Wu Xiao Feng Yin. We use SQ fluids and can put water-soluble Vitamin B 12 in those fluids. We can use a human product (EPO) to stimulate the bone marrow when cats become anemic. Of course, we can use acupuncture to stimulate the bone marrow (GB 39), benefit the kidney (BL 23), help the body conserve fluids and stay warm (K 3 & K 7). Homeopathic meds can help, too.
There are several other conventional drugs that some families want to use. For example, aluminum hydroxide helps lower phosphorus. Calcitriol helps prevent calcium from being pulled from the bones and reaching abnormally high levels in the blood. When we use these meds, though, we need blood tests to assess that they are safe for the particular pet, and that the dose is correct.
While we can do minimal blood and urine tests, they don’t provide the depth of information needed to tell how severe kidney disease is, and whether it is safe to use conventional medications. The minimum database needed to use the meds we have available to help cats with kidney disease include:
- Red Blood Cells (PCV or HMT)
- Reticulocytes
- Total protein
- Calcium, (ionized calcium if total calcium elevated)
- Phosphorus
- Potassium
- Sodium
- Urine specific gravity
- Urine protein
When we have less information than this, it’s like trying to predict the outcome of a chess game with most of the pieces on the board covered—there isn’t enough data to tell what’s happening. Without knowing, for example, what the phosphorus level is, it’s not possible to say whether the cat should be on aluminum hydroxide. Without knowing what the calcium level is, it’s not possible to say whether the cat can be given calcitriol or whether the dose should be adjusted.
When clients who live far away from our office request a telephone consult, I cannot offer them all the medical help that is available if we don’t have complete blood & urine data on their pet. That’s why I request Idexx geriatriac panel, which includes a urine test, before providing a consult. With this level of information, we’re able to use all the approaches we have to keep kidney cats healthy for as long as possible.
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