Cat Chat Feline Forum

9 and a half year old Tori has had bad teeth since coming to me from our local shelter. She was diagnosed with stage 1 kidney disease in November. The last blood check in early April showed some improvement in key levels, but still not good enough to risk anesthesia for tooth extraction. Antibiotic shot at that time stopped the coughing. But in the last 3 wks she stopped eating the dry Hills Diet KD, then has eaten less.
She has lost a pound, is twitching and today after giving her a dose of antiemetic, she vomited while in the litter box. She begs for food, but runs away after a few kicks, cannot tolerate any texture, only paste type food. Anything harder attempted in the last 10 days, she gags and runs away.

Waiting to hear from vet about latest blood drawn yesterday.

I cannot make a clear decision about quality of life here. I have been the long hard road before, 3 years ago with Mouse and Lily. With both, I waited too long.

My thought at this point, is to ask the vet to reconsider teeth extraction/cleaning to see if Tori can eat without pain afterward. Seems a better quality of life choice than watching her slowly waste away, unable to eat or being induced to eat while in pain. I know she might not survive surgery.

Please weigh in with thoughts, feelings.
Em

probably irrelevant, but a feral cat I have been feeding for 6+ years had been struggling to eat, and regularly clawed violently at his mouth as if something was stuck, even with paste foods like Gourmet Gold, often drawing blood

my only attempt to trap him to get him to the vet was a disaster, so as a last resort I got some Bozita from Zooplus, as it has more jelly than most food, and wonder of wonders he has eaten every scrap of 4 cartons in the last 4 days without any clawing - so I am wondering now if there is some ingredient in the food sold in the UK (Bozita is Swedish) that hurts a cat's sore mouth, rather than the texture

My stage 1 CKD cats both Boo and Molly have had dentals well into their teens. They go in and stay the night before and the night after on IV fluids to help them prepare for and recover from the sedation and they have come home absolutely fine. Stage 1 is no big deal, though 9 is maybe on the young side, but going back some years my Misha was diagnosed at 8 and went on to have 8 more really good years and possibly a dental as well, I don't remember. I'm surprised the vet hasn't gone through the details with you of how they mitigate the worst effects of anaesthesia.

Food is a different matter. Is it the wet or dry k/d you're giving? Everyone's different but my Misha was on k/d dry plus meat titbits for her 8 years as that's all there was then. Although these days k/d has some anti nausea and appetite stimulant in the formula, Boo may have had issues with it (first the wet then the dry then I took him off it) and recently Molly has brought up her dry once or twice. Even though she is not vomiting on normal food. There are lots of other renal foods you can try, some cheaper than Hills. I have Molly on Purina ProPlan pate which is a light mousse type pate.

For lots more common sense and impartial support and advice, Helen runs one of the very best resources on the net here http://www.felinecrf.org/index.htm - it's American so the food guidance is for the US, don't know where you are, the rest of the site is really good anyway.

Thank you! I am in the USA, vet is new to me and still taking the measure of how well Tori 's symptoms are being managed. Healthy life is the priority. Thank you again.

It is a few years ago, but one of my cats had dental problems and had to go in to have surgery to remove the bad teeth. He was 13 so we opted to have full blood tests done before hand even though it added to the cost, that morning the vet called me to say they had done the tests and they had revealed that he was staring to have kidney problems, did i wan't to go ahead with the surgery as there was an added risk involved due to the results. For me it was a case that if the surgery wasn't done, he wouldn't eat and would eventually starve, so i opted to take the risk and let them operate. While it wasn't mentioned, they knew how things were because the blood test had been done and I'm sure they did all they could to help him through it. What ever they did, he came through fine and was soon back home and eating well. A few months later he had to go back in and have the rest of the teeth removed which again went fine. After that he was seen regularly and had blood tests to monitor his kidneys, he was meant to go onto a special food but in the end didn't need to, the kidney's started to recover by themselves. it turned out, according tot he vets, that the infection in the teeth was bad enough to put strain on his other organs particularly the kidneys, once that problem was solved it allowed the kidneys to recover. He lived another 3 years after that until, finally, one day everything seemed to pack up at once and his will to live was gone, so we said good bye at that point, but he had had another good 3 years with us because i took that risk.

I have no idea what level his kidney problem was at the vets never said, only that of the 3 tests that gave results for the kidneys 2 said he was developing problems and 1 said they were still ok.

I'm surprised a vet would be reluctant to do a dental with Stage 1 kidney issues, especially as dental issues can contribute to kidney issues. Lucy was diagnosed with early stage CKD and in the same year had major hip surgery and sedation for tests, I'm sure the vet took it into consideration with giving her extra fluids, but there was never a question of safety - she was also diagnosed at the age of 9 and is 13 now, we were going to do bloods in March, but the vet said as she had put on weight, there clearly hadn't been much decline, so not worth stressing her out.

Vet called, said the blood showed slight decline, now sitting not quite at stage 2. Vet wants to see if Cerenia will boost Tori's appetite, call for ultrasound specialist if no improvement by end of Monday. Litter box contents are not abnormal, but less due to reduced appetite. Still giving a version responses to even pureed foods of all sorts. This morning, Tori gave 5 or 6 links to puree food then ran off.

I asked about tooth extractions, will end up with Specislized Vet Service at a facility 45 minutes away. I have had good results with SVS in the past, they work by referral only. I will request that her records be referred to SVS on Monday. Trying hard to not panic. She slept on me most of the afternoon yesterday- not at all like her to be so clingy.