Korky's kidneys are normal

[Gillian Harvey]

Quite often, kidney blood values can be high, esp creatinine, when infection and/or dehydration is present. Thats what happened with my cat Sam recently, he had to have a tooth removed and it had got infected. The bloods showed his creatinine levels quite high, but my vet pointed out that it was lliely due to the infection and a bit of dehydration too. I expect his levels will return to normal now the infection is under control. I had noticed he was drinking quite a bit prior to the dental - which is why I wanted full bloods done prior to the extraction, but he's not drinking so much now.

He was such a trooper - only hours after the op, he had his normal dinner like nothing happened 

[Desley (booktigger)]

That is good news - I would go with a mainly wet diet than prescription dry foods after a kidney scare though, esp if the prescription foods are dry. Exercise is also a good thing to do, and there are various ways to do things for even lazy cats.

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

That's great news!  Diet is sooo important in the early stages of CRF.

Jaffa had high urea and creatinine readings picked up in a pre dental blood test but they were slightly lower when the test was repeated a few months later (although they are towards the high end of normal).  Do you know what Korky's actual values were?  It's worth asking for a copy of the test results and keeping your own records so that you can see if they values start to rise again.  Obviously the vet should notice that, but I think it pays to be pro-active when it comes to CRF and do as much reading up about it as possible.

[Sam (Fussy_Furball)]

  what fab news Carl.  So pleased for you both

[CarolM (Wendolene)]

Some of you may remember that back in August Korky was diagnosed with early CRF on the basis of bloods taken prior to a dental.  Since then he has been on a prescription kidney diet.   Today he had follow up bloods done and ALL the values (not just creatinine) were normal.  

The bad news is that he has put weight on - quite a bit of it - and he was already overweight 

The vet isn't sure whether its the diet that has improved his kidneys or whether the last result was an aberration.  He suspects the latter as he says its usually difficult for cats with kidney disease to put weight on.   Sooo - he's now being prescribed a weight control food  for 8 weeks then retest the kidneys to see how they are doing (and re-weigh of course).  Not the best time to be put on a serious diet but I'm over the moon about the kidneys.