Cat Owners: What experience can you share about a cat with kidney problems?

We gave our kitty water therapy at the direction of the vet, and that extended her life almost a year.

Cat was on antibiotics for ten years, kidney infection embedded in kidney after consuming poinsettia leaves.

A low protein diet is a must to make it easier on the kidneys.
You just never know. I have a friend with a 23 yr. old cat that is still hanging in there, has a pretty good quality of life and her kidneys have been low functioning for years now.

@marinelife

What exactly is water therapy?could you clarify that a bit?

3 varying experiences here.

My first cat had kidney problems of some sort when she was only 7; I wish I could tell you in more detail but I was only 6 myself. I know the doctor said we could put her on dialysis and that was the only option. We didn’t want to do that to her, so she had to be put down.

My current cat had crystals in his urine for a while quite a few years ago. He’s on special food now and is doing great.

My boyfriend’s cat passed a kidney stone that was so large and sharp that it ripped up his ureter – eek. His family chose to try surgery; the ureter was repaired and he lived a couple of weeks before going into total renal failure, and they had to put him down.

It depends.

Cats have already lost something like 90% of their kidney function by the time you see elevations in blood levels. An acute event can be better news – something, an infection, or a disease or trauma, has interfered with the kidneys’ ability to filter waste products, and if you are able to support them (diuresis) until the “event” can be treated, they can essentially get “back to normal”. Chronic disease means that the loss of function has been ongoing and increasing, and usually doesn’t respond to treatment, although you can (in some patients) significantly prolong life by using subcutaneous fluids to “flush” out the cat (the “water therapy” that marinelife refers to).

My cat lived for a few months after being diagnosed with kidney problems. He was 19 years old, however. But when we took him back to the vet, they determined that his kidneys had failed and so we had him euthanized after that. I don’t mean to be pessimistic, but in my experience it was a grim diagnosis…

@Buttonstc As @syz said, it involved injecting water beneath their skin. It did not hurt the cat.

Two of my cats have had kidney problems. They were both quite old. We used water therapy for one and as @marinelife said, he was okay with us carrying out the treatment. With hindsight though, I feel we kept him alive for us and not him. So after he had died and my other cat developed kidney problems and was quite sick, we had her put down. She had a very different temperament and I just couldn’t put her through water treatment.

I’m lucky in that I have not yet had a kitteh with this problem, but I’m so sad for those of you who have had to put a little one down. That sucks.

We had a 6 year old cat whose kidneys shut down and she “crashed”. The next few months involved special food, and subcutaneous saline injections every couple of days to keep her hydrated.

One night, about 4–5 months after her crash and diagnosis, she snuck out. It was the first time in her life she was ever outdoors and not on a leash. We never saw her again, though living in the middle of the woods, it’s likely that she ended her days as the feral predator she always wanted to be. (She loved walking outside on a leash.)

We guess that that was her way of telling us it was time, and she went out doing what she loved doing most.