What Are the Treatments for Cats with Kidney Disease?

People will tell you that Chronic Renal Failure (CRF) is both progressive and incurable. And tell you that there's no conventional or alternative treatment that can stop it, since the disease destroys kidney cells, and the dead kidney cells then turn into scar tissue.

While all this may be true, the diagnosis of CRF in your cat is NOT an immediate death sentence. Of course, every cat and every case will be different. And you have to rely on your vet's advice.

But there is a lot you can do to comfort your cat, and perhaps even enjoy many more months and even years of love and time together. Our cat, Michou, is proof of that. She is still functioning fine with all her cat-habits more than 3 ½ years after being diagnosed.

There are 3 things you need to do immediately:

1) Let your vet know you want to be as aggressive as possible in treating your cat. Some vets or clinic staff will assume you think that "it's time" and you just want to let your cat go, in as peaceful and humane a way as possible. But if not, then you need to let them know right away and begin treatments. Your vet may not tell you about all the things you can do, unless you ask.

2) Educate yourself. Read all you can about taking care of cats with kidney disease. There are a number of treatments listed on this blog. And I've included some other helpful links on this site.

2) Get a second opinion. We were fortunate to have a close friend who was a vet. Although he wasn't our regular vet for Michou, he gave us a number of good suggestions for treating her kidney disease that our regular vet and his staff never brought up. This included ways to cope with the nausea that cats with kidney disease experience, and he was the one who suggested hydration treatments.

In the next few posts, I'll describe the key things you can do to help make your cat more comfortable and perhaps help her enjoy life much longer. These are not "heroic" measures that costs thousands of dollars, such as a kidney transplant or feline dialysis. Instead, they are fairly affordable and simple things you can do at home to give your CRF cat a normal life. They include:

 Low Protein Diets for Cats with Kidney Disease
 Fluid Treatments for Cats with Kidney Disease
 Watching the Weight of Cats with Kidney Disease
 Appetite Boosters for Cats with Kidney Disease
 Nutritional Supplements for Cats with Kidney Disease
 Medications for Cats with Kidney Disease
 Advanced Treatments for Cats with Kidney Disease

The first steps in treating your cat will probably involve getting more fluids into her to relieve any dehydration and to help flush out toxins that may have built up in the bloodstream.