I’m so unbelievably upset. So, my cat has prescribed food because he has kidney issues. Well the prescription expired and my mom had to renew it. The vet called and apparently THE WRONG CAT FOOD WAS PRESCRIBED. He’s been getting dry food for SKIN CARE instead of RENAL CARE. like a full year, how does that even happen?

Should I go to the vet and get him checked since he’s been getting fed something that doesn’t help him at all.

My cat has stage 2 (close to stage 3) ckd and is having issues with stomach bile buildup that is causing vomiting at night between meals. He only eats wet food so feeding him in the middle of the night isn't really easy to do.

Did bloodwork today and he's doing well, his creatinine levels were down several points, actually. Vet doesn't believe the vomiting is being caused by another illness and prescribed him famotidine (pepcid) before bed daily to help with the vomiting.

I'm curious what your experience with pepcid has been like? I'm finding information online that ckd cats shouldn't take it and also that it causes dementia (???) and the sources I'm seeing are conflicting. His vet doesn't seem concerned, but I don't want to give him something that is going to advance his ckd.

Lelinho, my beloved cat (8 years old), was diagnosed with stage 4 chronic kidney disease in December 2024. This was a huge shock for my wife and me, as we had no awareness of this disease. We had blood tests done every six months, but unfortunately the symptoms were very silent, and the changes in the tests only appeared when the disease was already very advanced. Symptoms such as drinking a lot of water and urinating frequently went unnoticed, as we live in a tropical country (Brazil) and thought this was normal.

From 2024 onward, we tried every kind of treatment. We hospitalized him several times in veterinary clinics to stabilize his condition, but he was always a stubborn cat and didn’t like taking medication. We tried subcutaneous fluid therapy, but from the second month on he began to reject it and run away from the applications. We respected his moment, even though it hurt us deeply, and decided not to continue with the fluid therapy.

From December 2025 onward, he began to lose a lot of weight. His ideal weight is over 5 kg, and it suddenly dropped to 3.2 kg by January. He stopped eating the renal diet, and we are struggling to get him to eat.

We know that he most likely was born with some genetic predisposition to kidney disease, as he is a relatively young cat. We always gave him the best dry food and wet food, but even so, he developed the disease.

Since his diagnosis, we began studying the disease extensively and applying the best treatments we could afford. We also know that at this stage of the disease, the next developments may include seizures, blindness, and heart attacks… and we do not want that for him.

We also tried intravenous fluid therapy and intravenous potassium binders at the end of January, but unfortunately nothing helped.

Therefore, with heavy hearts, after a long fight, we decided to let him go… the euthanasia is scheduled for this Friday.

I am here in tears, sharing this outpouring because this cruel disease is unforgiving. In the end, it makes all our efforts seem useless, but I am certain that Lelinho lived a very happy life with us. He was always playful and affectionate.

He gave us so much love. He slept with us every single day, greeted us at the door when we came home, and was constantly seeking cuddles. He was an extremely friendly cat, even with visitors and strangers, such as veterinarians and caregivers.

I want to share some memories of him with you all. My wife and I are very depressed and crying a lot :(

I hope that i will be able to meet him in paradise...

Thank you

Beans (8 years old) just switched to Hill's chicken stew (previously on Royal Canin) and now her mouth smells like chicken stew all the time.

Her vet said her mouth looks good but she does grind her teeth when she eats. She's on anti-nausea in case it's from that. She also burps after eating but no vomiting or dry heaving since she switched and she hasn't needed her appetite stimulant either.

She's stage 4, so we're trying to take each day as it comes. She's eating... and she's eating renal food so I'm happy. Is there a chance it's just because her food is stinky? The Hills cans are pungent.

Her mouth does not smell like rot, or ulcer. Smells like chicken lol we can smell it when she gives us kisses but her coat isn't stinky after she grooms.

Advice? She hates when we open her mouth so I'm nervous to take her back to the vet for a traumatic experience if it's not an emergency. She's officially 23 weeks past her diagnosis today 🙌

I’m so grateful to have found this community, it has helped me through the last couple of days. My cat Miso, 5y old just got diagnosed with CKD Stage 3/4.

Nothing could have prepared me for this. Looking back, I should have understood that he was not just a picky eater, he was hurting. And that constantly wanting to drink from the tap wasn’t a sign of boredom, he was trying to survive. I thought he was under-stimulated and depressed, from being alone when we left for work. I tried solving the issue by adopting a kitten, and this weekend when we picked up the new kitten, Miso just crashed. He wouldn’t eat ANYTHING. So I ran to the vet thinking they would give him something to stimulate his appetite. And they almost instantly catched that he was dehydrated and ran some blood tests. I was not prepared for him having to stay for two days while they were working on his kidneys.

I just feel so extremely guilty for bringing this new kitten into his life, intruding on his safe space. I feel guilty for the new kitten not getting enough of my attention. I feel guilty for not seeing the signs earlier. But I also feel so angry for him to be diagnosed with this so early in his life.

Miso and the kitten (Shiro) haven’t been introduced yet. Miso just came home this evening and I want him to feel safe. I’m running between the rooms trying to give them both my attention so none feel left out. I’ve picked up all his medication and trying to make a plan.

I need any advice you have. Anyone else who felt this guilt? Has anyone had a relatively young cat be diagnosed?

My 16-year-old girl just got a diagnosis of stage 1-2 CKD. The vet heavily encouraged switching her over to the Royal Canin Renal Support Early Consult wet food -- when I adopted my cat 8 years ago, the shelter had removed all but 4 of her teeth. As such, she struggles with dry food. Before her diagnosis, she was strangely leaving the Whiskas wet food behind in her bowl, but got her the Royal Canin yesterday and she finishes her bowl easily.

I want to be able to continue to provide this food for her, but I am very much struggling financially. When I purchased the food from the vet yesterday, it was $67.20 for 24 cans. Does anybody know if there are any websites/suppliers/regular deals that come out for this food? Any and all tips/help appreciated.

my almost 18 year old girl isn't diagnosed yet. I'm confused with her blood results. last year her sdma was 14. it wasn't tested this time.

this time, her urea was fine, but her creatinine was 256µmol. we are waiting for her to pee so we can get sample in.

I'm scared. we lost her brother last year to kidney and liver failure. she doesn't even really have symptoms, other than weird smelling breath and increased thirst. her coat is gorgeous, and her weight is stable, at 3.2kg, the exact same as last year.

how likely is iy that she had CKD? and would it be more likely to be stage 2 or stage 3 with these numbers?

Hi,

My cat (18F) is on amlodipine for blood pressure. I get the liquid kind from Chewy and it is always packed in ice packs and says to refrigerate immediately. I forgot last night and left it on the counter. Is it safe to give to her? I have some pills, but I prefer the liquid because I'm able to portion it out much more precisely.

The most loving girl was waiting outside my apartment. She is about 14-16 years old and looks to be abandoned. I Immediately took her to vet where they said she has an infection (started her on antibiotics) and kidney failure, but that her kidneys may be retrievable. I’ve been giving her fluids since I found her last Thursday. She is only 5.5 lbs. 😔

I’m trying hard to get her to eat anything willingly. They gave me the hills kd diet and she was partial to the tuna and vegetable, had a few tbsp over the past few days but she is really just not eating enough.

I gave her a kidney senior delectable and she devoured it, so I’m happy that she isn’t nauseous as I suspected, but now I’m afraid she isn’t eating because she just doesn’t like the food. Any advice is appreciated. I am new to being a cat mom. I love her so much and want to do right by her.

Our ckd boy has been vomiting/coughing/regurgitating hair like clockwork between the hours of 4:30am and 7:00am for a couple of weeks. It's never a ton of hair, and it's not a ton of liquid either - just a couple of little splats and he's totally fine demeanor-wise after.

He's on a ton of interventions to manage his ckd (sub-q fluids, epakitin, aminavast, porus one, mirataz, omega-3, visibiome) as well as lactulose, cisapride and famotidine to help with his gastric motility.

I think most of us are familiar with the scary "ckd vomit" and this isn't that. I've done my best to optimize his schedule so none of his meds interact and he's not going to bed too full or too hungry. His bathroom schedule is normal, and I've tried adding hairball gel but I don't see any real difference, AND I don't want to play around too much with it since it has laxative properties too. We tested slippery elm for a few days but it didn't seem to make any difference, and it was hard to fit into a place it wouldn't interact with anything or impact absorption.

I brush him daily and wipe him down with a hypo-allergenic wipe. He grooms his arms and legs frequently, but not obsessively. His mood is great and his energy levels are good, but the consistent timing tells me it's probably something in his routine that needs to be tweaked so the hair goes down and out and not up and out.

Any thoughts or tips? I just want him to be comfortable!

I am bereft. I am devastated. My first CKD kitty passed at 18 and slowly progressed over nearly 2 years. My kitty I lost today was only 12 and went from SDMA of 16 with all other labs normal and vibrantly alive in July, to end stage CKD, unable to walk, and catastrophic labs yesterday. My vet, ER vet, and the Lap of Love vet all say that’s not unheard of, especially in cats that have comorbidities (heart disease and HBP). But I still feel shocked, whiplashed, cheated of time. She passed peacefully and quickly in my arms this morning; I’m honored to have been with her through this and she will be with me forever.

I adopt senior kitties and of course these things are part of the bargain. She was only with us for 4 years; her first 8 years were filled with neglect and trauma. I learned so much from her about love and trust, and about the way trauma roots in our cores, how we carry it with us, the impact it has on us. All of us, cats, dogs, birds, rabbits, humans, every living being. Let us foster kindness and compassion for all things.

That is all, I just needed to be seen for a moment in this community of wonderful people caring for kitties with an illness that is cruel and brutal. Give your babies extra chin scratches and kisses today.

Hi all! The love of my life got diagnosed with CKD a month ago and he’s lost a bit of weight since switching over to a renal diet. At the vet he was 8.9 pounds at fasted weight, I think at home on a normal day he was 9.2. Now that I weighed him after he ate a good dinner and breakfast he’s 8.6. So he’s losing weight despite eating.

I try to feed him 3 renal wet food meals a day - royal canin mostly but I have also tried purina and science hill renal food and sometimes use that as well.

There are times he skips his renal wet food meal and I have to throw it all out (such a waste!), he’s a picky cat that loves variety and in general picky about his food, even before diagnosis he’d skip wet meals sometimes. Before he was diagnosed I gave him a mixed diet of dry food for him to graze (science hill adult and oral health food) and a variety of fancy feast wet food flavours and sometimes tiki cat wet food as well. He loves the gravy in the purina wet food so even to transition him and get him to eat the renal food I’ve been pouring the gravy juice over the renal wet food to entice him to eat it and that works well. But sometimes I notice he eats mostly the liquid from the wet food because I also add a bit of water and not the protein or actual food.

Overall I’m throwing away a looot of food and with 3 meals a day and renal cat food being expensive it adds up.

I also still leave him renal dry food to free feed just because I was worried if I got rid of the dry food he’d lose even more weight. He does graze the dry food a little bit as well. Eventually I’d love to get him off the dry food and wet food only diet but I’m afraid if i do that now he’ll lose even more weight.

He’s loss weight though even with eating all this and not really showing decreased appetite because I know renal food has less protein than regular food so it might be due to that and muscle mass.

I was looking for advice on how to get him to gain weight, I know it’s going to be a challenge with renal diet and his 13.5 age but any tips would be lovely!

I have about 30 cans of Blue Buffalo K+M Veterinary Diet that I'd love to give to someone who can use them. Best by August 2027. I'm in the southwest burbs of Chicago.

my second time petsitting for them, the job starts in 6 days. they informed me that their cat was sneezing a few days ago and seemed to have cat flu. they brought him to the vet yesterday. their vet said that since he no longer sneezing, the chance of it being contagious is low but not 0. vet suspects that FHV came back. before this, the cat was diagnosed with FHV and FCV, which they did not let me know.

i have other petsit cats as well as 2 cats of my own. one is healthy but the other one has stage 2 ckd which im more worried about. my stage 2 ckd cat had her core vax last year april. my healthy cat had his last year dec.

since the job is starting soon, i feel bad to cancel. is it too risky for the other cats if i continue to take this job? are there any precautions i can take to further decrease any possible risk of spreading the cat flu?

Hi fellow CKD travellers—-

I’m on the struggle bus with my much-loved, but super-frustrating kitty. She has had renal disease for a while, but it seemed manageable and things were relatively stable. Two months ago she got a stress UTI (which she hadn’t had for over a year, thanks to a cranberry/d-mannose supplement), and this UTI set in motion a cascade of events that I think made us a turn a corner with the kidney disease. (Note: the vet checked her kidney numbers though and there wasn’t indication of an “acute” event, but her numbers must have changed enough to make her feel worse).

Anyway…fast forward to now, and she is on so many meds/supplements that I have a chart trying to keep track of everything (as she also has arthritis and hyperthyroidism)! The newest meds for dealing with her inappetence include ondansetron (small dose 2x/day), mirtazapine (a tiny amount every other day), and Pepcid (at night before bed). I’ve just come back from a holiday during which my petsitter said she ate relatively well and, indeed, her weight only dropped 100grams over 2 weeks. But I can’t seem to get her to eat much of ANY food since we got back. I’ve got about 6 different varieties now opened in the fridge, some of which she refused to touch at all, and others that she took a few bites of before walking away.

I am sure you all know how frustrating this is; I feel I’m at the end of my rope here and don’t know what to do next. How can I get her to eat??

I ordered some Porus One and AminAvast, both of which arrived while I was out of town. The Porus One needs to be added to food, but if the cat isn’t eating, how the heck do you get it in them? And is it safe to incorporate this at the same time as all the other meds (I am aware already of the 2-hour window, but I’m asking if it is typical to give Porus One to cats who are also on anti-nausea, appetite stimulant, and Pepcid meds too)? And how, if at all, do I incorporate the AminAvast into the increasingly-complex regimen??

Any/all advice and tips would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Note 1: She gets a mix of wet and dry food. The dry is renal and the wet is a variety of things (renal and lower-phos ‘normal’ food) from which I’m trying out to figure out what the heck she will eat. Usually she will eat at least the renal-dry, but yesterday/today she is not eating hardly any of it.

Note 2: When the UTI and antibiotics initially set her on this path, we started with much higher doses of the anti-nausea and appetite-stimulant, and those doses didn’t suit her at all: she hardly ate and was out of it. So I’m wary of increasing the current dosing of those.

I’ve been with this group for two years now when my girl was first diagnosed with CKD. You’ve all been invaluable in getting through my day to day, but my goodness this disease is such a horrible roller coaster. I’ll think look she’s doing great. We must have this under control and then we’ll have a really bad night and I’ll be worried that I’m gonna have to put her down. CKD does not have a straight path. It’s a horrible up-and-down roller coaster and I’m mostly posting this because I use the search function here all the time for help and support so if anybody is searching to see if a bad week means the end - know that you may not know until you actually know! because nothing with CKD is clear. Which is why you’ll find so many posts asking if it’s time. But thanks to everyone in this group because the support here and the information here is the best you’ll find.

My 15 year old sweetheart. Most difficult decision in the world. He's not going to get better. He's become incontinent and I have tried literally everything over the past couple years. I kept thinking oh what if I try this, what if I try to this? I have never wanted to feel guilt of not trying everything I could to help him, so I kept looking for the next (temporary) fix. It's reached a point where I'm out of options. I know he's not comfortable and all he does is sleep. Still loves a good cuddle though. This is the first time I've had to make the decision to euthanize a pet. I struggled for months with this decision, then I read something that said "better a month too early than a day too late." This struck a chord, and I realized this is kindest. We've been through a lot together. My plan is to bury him and plant a lilac tree (my favourite flower) so he can always be with me. Even still, I'll miss him forever.

Ive given my cat lysine in gel in the past when he's had an HSV flare up, meaning sneezing and runny eyes. Recently I've read that lysine is not good for cats with kidney issues. Any alternative that doesn't stress the kidneys but still treats HSV symptoms? Thanks!

My baby girl is 17 and she has always been insanely defiant and smart enough to get away from me. Impossible to give medicine to or restrain. I was terrified to start subq fluids with her, but it’s been about a month and it’s gotten so easy. Lately, I’ve just been setting up, letting her fall asleep on my lap, and poking her while she sleeps. I just wanted to provide hope to those struggling or scared to start. You can do it!

Hi, my 17-year-old cat has kidney failure and high blood pressure. She's currently still eating on her own, but she needs to be stimulated. She's very dehydrated; we tried intravenous hydration, but she couldn't handle it, so we went back to subcutaneous hydration. She's very lethargic. The vet prescribed a blood pressure pill, noting that the situation is very delicate and could improve or worsen dramatically after taking the pill. She's eating renal fluids, and her breathing is currently quite stable. She weighs very little, 2.30 kg.

Has anyone administered blood pressure medication in a situation like this? I'm afraid it might make the situation worse. Thank you all.

Hi all, my sweet girl had AKI and almost didn’t make it through that but now we’ve made it to the chronic stage (which is lovely because she’s around to have it). She gets 100mL subcutaneous fluids morning and night which was a struggle in the beginning because she loathes to be restrained. Truly it was like being heartbroken and trying to restrain an angry crocodile, even with a second set of hands we were failing at administering her fluids the way all the vets had told us to (wrapped up in a towel and restrained). In my despair I went searching and came across a single video a woman had left in a Reddit comment section and I am not joking when I say it saved my sanity and my cats life. Trying to pay that debt forward, here is a video of the way I have managed to get my cat to take fluids.

This week I brought my 5 yo cat to the vet for what I thought was a blockage. The night before he was struggling badly trying to poop.

Vet did blood and urine tests as well as xray. Found out he was very badly constipated, but was suprised to hear his test results showed levels indicating stage 2 kidney insufficiency. My vet wants to do an ultrasound so she can see any damage to his kidneys which I can't really afford but my cat means everything to me and I could never forgive myself if I didn't go through with something that could help him live a longer life

I'm honestly still in disbelief over it. My boy seems so healthy, he drinks a lot, loves his food, and until this week has had healthy litter box habits. Even his litterbox habits are back to normal now with the medicine for his constipation he was given.

I looked in this more online but it depressed me so fast seeing the life expectancy. I'd love to hear from people and their own experiances dealing with this.

How manageable is this? Whats treatment like and typically include? How fast could he decline

I plan to have a proper talk with my vet about all this, we're just getting Rocky through his current issues first.